Rise of Tiamat - Intro

[Envisioner]

OOC: Perception: 1D20+5 = [18]+5 = 23 To my knowledge, Chimera's are not immune to piercing damage Ah, I see what happened. I did warn you that I find it hard to read those rolls when they're all jumbled together; in this case, I mistook your damage totals for being your to-hit numbers.

Between the efforts of Bannor, Ashur and Annaliese, the Chimera doesn't stand a chance. Before it can so much as burp sulphurously, it bleeds out from several deep puncture wounds, its innards having already been pulverized by blunt force trauma. The creature's maimed body lies broken at the party's feet, only a yard or two from the spot where it was chained for however long, since the smith of the peculiarly engraved mantle and chain bound it here. Perhaps you could find out who erected that sign, and they could tell you of how this happened. One clue presents itself; as you examine the corpse, you get a look at the underside of the collar, and find that among the red-enameled mystical runes, there are two easily-recognizable Thoross letters (the alphabet of the Common Tongue).

OOC: Again, don't count on me continuing to include Thoross in the game forever, as it's detailed in Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide and not in the corebooks. But since I do still have SCAG, I'll describe the two letters: the first looks like the Euro symbol (a capital E in a rounded style like a C), but with a longer and slightly curving middle line, while the second is a 7 with another 7 rotated 180% degrees right next to it, so that together they form something resembling a Z. Not that any of the letters I just named represent the meaning of these characters in Thoross, of course; that would be far too easy. Instead, they are the letters N.H.

With her interest in magical lore, Analiese is the first to look up from the defeated enemy and scan the area for signs of its lair. Though you don't manage to find where it sleeps, you do come upon a small cache of valuables that the dragon-like beast hoarded from a few of its kills; it mostly preyed upon livestock, but apparently at least one adventurer succumbed during its rampage, however long this lasted. (Bannor might well have been the second one, if he were alone; he would have been hard-pressed to survive one or two blasts of dragonfire right in his face, especially if the creature managed to pin him beneath its claws first.) In the pile of bones and dry grass that's nearly concealed beneath the lee of the cliff, she finds 20 loose gold pieces and a pouch containing several hundred coppers, as well as a potion, a scroll, and a divining rod. The latter is easily recognizable to Ana as a Wand of Secrets, an extremely common and prosaic magic item, used to detect traps and hidden passages. The other two items will need to be identified, although a glance at the symbols used on the scroll suggests that it's some form of druidic magic, probably usable by Ashur, but also likely to be a Ritual which she could study and learn.

 

[jmucchiello]

"I found some ale money here," Ana says, holding up the coin pouch. She added the 20 gold to the pouch or her own pouch if it doesn't fit. "There's also a scroll, a wand, and potion. Wand is a Wand of Secrets, it helps in the detection of traps and hidden passages. Not sure what the others are. When we camp, I'll try to identify them."

She hands each of the men 7 gp. "Here's your share of the gold."

 

[Skarsgard]

Ashur grunts in pain, stripping his armour off gingerly he washes the wound with some water before examining it.

With some effort he dons his armour again, "Well, that solves that mystery. I wonder if the person whose prints we followed released the creature?" The after a moments pause, "Or was the former owner of these things?"

 

[jmucchiello]

"I think the creature released itself by gnawing off one of its own heads and damaging the second one," Ana said. "The question is who tied a chimera to a rock. Not something I'd want to attempt to do."

 

[lowkey13]

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[jmucchiello]

"I suppose we continue to Waterdeep," Ana says. "I wonder if that body belongs to the man who made the bootprint we were following." Ana gives a look to the dead man's boots.

 

[Envisioner]

OOC: Bannor keeps doing things that make me want to give him inspiration, but he already has it....

The dead man's shoes are clearly ordinary trail-wear, not the borderline military boots (or actual military sabatons) that made the tracks.

 

[jmucchiello]

"Guess not," Ana says.

"Whatever armed force we thought we were following must have gone a different way or they would have been attacked by the chimera. Whenever you are ready Bannor."

OOC: It's still day time, right? We don't need to camp soon, do we?

 

[Envisioner]

OOC: Correct on both counts.

Lacking other evidence of where the army could have gone, you're left with little choice but to continue on toward Waterdeep. Well before arriving there, however, you find a settlement called Armighast, where asking around a bit reveals that the locals were the ones who detained the chimera and put up the sign, both having happened several years ago. The chimera was defeated by a wandering adventurer whose name nobody can recall, but who insisted "for religious reasons" that the creature should not be killed. Instead, a local smith and mage by the name of Ninuel Hartleigh (presumably this is the "N.H" magemark that was on the creature's bindings) was commissioned to build a set of chains which would hold the creature forever; one of the tasks that the community assigns to its lowest-status citizens soon became leading a sickly cow or goat out to the site and throwing it off the cliff, where the fall would either kill or injure it, allowing the chimera to eat the animal and thereby avoid starvation. Everyone agrees that this practice was a little screwed up, putting all the blame for the questionable idea on the unidentified cleric, who you get several vague and largely contradictory descriptions of.

Nobody in town recalls having seen an army march through nearby, and the loamy soil near the town contained no tracks evocative of the suggested force; evidently they peeled off in some other direction somewhere in the intervening leagues of dry, rocky terrain, where following them was impossible. A few imaginative locals make the connection that some member of the force you alluded to must have freed the chimera somehow, since all of those you spoke to were very confident that Hartleigh's mystical collar should have contained it indefinitely. If you wish to question Hartleigh himself, he does have a shop in town, although he's frequently busy with commissions from the Lord's Alliance, who patronizes his work directly since the locals can't really afford him (his apprentices tend to do the more mundane smithwork that the town requires; none of them have any of his magical talent).

 

[lowkey13]

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