Adventures in the Forgotten Realms [IC]

[Chambers]

Adventures in the Forgotten Realms

In Character | Out of Character | Recruitment

We remember cities now in ruin and forests murdered,
yet still we sing to the stars and hope for renewal.
author unknown, attributed to the elves

1371 DR, Mid-Autumn
Stronghold of the Nine, High Forest

Unlike the Neverwinter Wood, the High Forest has no geothermic shield to keep it warm during the winter months. Though first snowfall is yet months away the North wind is gaining strength. Soon it will roar over the Spine of the World like an invisible avalanche, air so heavy you can feel it weigh upon you even before the sky turns white. The snow will bring a false peace, the frozen calm of those who are trapped and know that only time will remove their bonds. The wind will bring the cold sleep from which some will never awaken. It will bring the snow that buries roads and turn neighbors into isolated prisons. The wind will lock the people to the land, the pressure from the heavy sky building and building until it's too much to even look up, until all they can do is wait with shallow and slow breath until the North wind tires of it's conquest and retreats back across the Spine to wait for next year.

It's mid-autumn in the High Forest and you can feel the first chill in the air as the North wind sends it's scouts south to spy on the enemy. It's been a week since the four from Longsaddle joined Kelveroth and Yzara at the Stronghold and the village should be safe for now, though absent a few more cows. Despite their reluctance to share their elven spell lore with Yazra the Council is welcoming to the group of humans that are visiting them. The ancient elven empires that the Council wish to emulate were not closed-minded and xenophobic; rather they helped build kingdoms that included both humans and dwarves. The prisoner's past revealed the daemonfey's camp in Elven Port and a secret ally in Silverymoon. Their goal appears to have something to do with another elven guarded ruin in the High Forest.

The daemonfey makes the Council nervous. The fiendish elves are like a twisted mockery of what the Council wants. Both have the goal of raising an elven empire of old yet both couldn't be further from the same. Whatever secrets the Council know about the daemonfey and the nameless dungeon they aren't sharing yet and the daemonfey aren't the only thing on the Councils mind. In the midst of dealing with dragons and daemonfey, the Council’s main business at the moment is building a relief shipment for the besieged city of Everska. The Council is made up of elves from all regions of Toril, Everska included, so for many it is not simply an act of charity but rather vital aid for their family. The hope that many were waiting for never arrived when the Blackstaff and his agents failed to liberate the city, instead becoming stuck there. There’s talk back in Waterdeep of Laeral organizing another relief army to march during the winter to reach the elven enclave. The Council hopes to have its aid ready before then but is not sure how it can be delivered with the Zhentarim controlling the pass through the Graypeak Mountains.

Winter is preparing for its assault and there's only so much time left before the roads lock down under snow and ice. Uncertainties swirl around you, waiting to take on more solid forms as you decide your course of action. Take more lodestones from the dragon? Clear the mountain path for the elven relief? Find the daemonfeys ally in Silverymoon? Strike a blow against their base in Elven Port?

---

Sunset in the high forest is a slow diffusion of light as it filters through the thick canopy. Though the majority of the Stronghold is underground, the elves take most of their meals above and outside when the weather permits. This evening for dinner the six of you were joined by Lady Morgwais and her apprentice-mage, a sylvan elf named Erendriel who is a descendant of the lost elven House Nyntynel.

Erendriel pauses before taking another sip of wine. "Maybe we should have done it." The thin elf brushes back some of their long hair and watches the sunset. "The banishment might have killed him...but if it did not, then we would have a pliable mind to probe. Now it will be months perhaps, before we are able to separate host from their parasite. Tell me, is this how you handle traitors where you come from?"

Spoiler: 1371 Dale Recokoning

Show

The group was formed in spring of 1371 in Sundabar during the two year anniversary memorial for all who fought during the Hellgate War. Arae was getting ready to get out of Sundabar to evade the inquisitive justiciar while Yzara was there at the behest of House Thann, as part of the entertainment for the nobles at the memorial. The group of you stumble upon half-fiends living covertly in the city. The daemonfey of House Dlardrageth are elves that long ago turned toward demon worship and were released with the destruction of Hellgate Keep. A coven of them had infiltrated Sundabar in the wake of the Hellgate War and were consolidating their power when the group of you discovered them.

1371 Dale Reckoning (Spring) In the House of Dlardrageth Freed from their stasis prison, the sun elf daemonfey of House Dlardrageth set out to learn what had happened in hundreds of years of their imprisonment. The city of Sundabar was known to them as Citadel Sundbarr and they used their ancient knowledge of the old city to find secret ways into and out of the underlevels. The elf supremacists sought to steal the secrets of the volcanic Everfire forge and infiltrated the lives and minds of the smiths there. Through their corrupt magic the daemonfey imprisoned the minds of dozens of smiths. When your group discovered their plans they used the innocent smiths as fodder to cover their escape. Make a choice.

Diplomacy: Save the mind-enslaved workers and let the daemonfey escape. Results: You showed mercy to those suffering under the fiendish compulsions and took them alive while the daemonfey escaped. The smiths, their families, and the Lord of Sundabar himself, Helm Dwarf-Friend, congratulate you on making the difficult choice to preserve life when a more bloody glory is tempting. The smiths are able to catalog the materials and plans that the daemonfey escaped with and provide you with a sample of similar ore to help with divinations in tracking the fiends. The Sundabar chapter of the Most Careful Order of Skilled Smiths & Metalforgers buy your group a three year adventuring company charter with Sundabar.

1371 Dale Reckoning (Summer) In the City of Splendor If there's something Cassandra Thann likes more than having an important role in social events it's for her own House to gain favor through glorious deeds and create more reasons to host parties for her to show off. Her retainer discovering a fiendish plot, thwarting it, and saving the lives of the innocent smiths is a story that she wants to hear in person and so she's invited the recently chartered company to the Thann estate in Waterdeep. Traveling on House Thanns coin means traveling in style and safety and for once you are the pilgrims being guarded on the road. Once in Waterdeep, Cassandra does not have that many demands on your time. Those who enjoy fancy dinner parties enjoy them while the rest suffer through the whims of nobility. She encourages you to pursue your own business while in the city for the summer and offers her villa free of charge with the caveat that you do no evil and keep her abreast of any juicy rumors and gossip. How do you spend your Summer at House Thann?

Choice one or make your own plan. Investigate the elemental lodestones from the Sundabar forge. Understand their properties and theorize what the daemonfey want with them. Research the House of Dlardrageth and where they came from and what their motives might be. Spend time getting to know the social circuit of Waterdeep nobility. Are you trying to make new friends or just digging for rumors? Get lost in the City of Splendors. Pick a craft or profession and live like a local for the month. Look for more work. Now that you’ve a bona fide adventuring company charter you can attract both more lucrative contracts and hire your own sellswords to fill out your numbers.

The Summer of Splendor is profitable for each of you as you spend your time wisely. Both Yzara and Orlando find suitable contracts for the year’s remaining adventuring season from their new friends in the High and Low parts of town. Arae and Tamsin settle down for a few weeks and take a breather from the stress of the road while Kelveroth and Odryn team up to find out what their fiendish foes were up to. Ordyn gains Lore: Magic Item Crafting (2 ranks) Yzara gains Lore: Waterdeep Nobility (2 ranks) Arae gains Lore: Waterdeep Clergy (2 ranks) Tamsin gains Lore: Waterdeep Castle District (2 ranks) Orlando gains Lore: Waterdeep Dock Ward (2 ranks) Kelveroth gains Lore: House Dlardrageth (2 ranks) A thousand years before elves first taught magic to the humanfolk of Netheril, the sun elf House Dlardrageth turned to demon worship and in turn corrupted many other houses of elven nobility. Their deceit was eventually discovered and caused the Seven Citadel’s War which ended with them either destroyed or imprisoned beneath the earth in stasis fields; their leaders in one prison that would become Hellgate Keep, their main armies in another dungeon whose name and location would be lost to time. Their corruption was so great and widespread that the elves of Myth Adofhar, in their shame at the actions of their cousins, placed the entire city and its mythal in a stasis field outside the time frame of Toril effectively shunting the entire city to some point in the future. It has yet to reappear. The elemental lodestones taken from the volcano underneath Sundabar are mostly used for infusing living elementals into metal weapons and armor. These particular lodestones are useful for imprisoning the spirits of earth and fire elementals, attracting them and then binding them. Experimenting with the lodestones shows that they could be used in reverse to repel and disband certain kinds of energies. The effect is weak with the limited amount of lodestones available, but in theory a large enough supply could create a constant dispelling effect over a large field. --- Lady Cassandra Thann wishes you a fond farewell at the end of your summer and tells Yzara to come back with more exciting stories to tell. Where do you decide to go?

1371 Dale Reckoning (Fall) House Dlardrageth Investigation + Resupply and Reacquisition The Council would like to borrow your sample of the lodestone for further tests. They offer to teleport the group from Waterdeep to the Stronghold to drop off the lodestone and then take folks to Longsaddle. The leader of the Council of the Wood, the wood elf Lady Morgwais Nightmeadow, suspects it will take a few weeks to work with the sample and ‘align the sympathetic resonances’ with the vein somewhere in the Star Mounts. They are not familiar with what’s going on with the mercenary companies but are hesitant to fully believe the Bloodaxes claims about Blue Sigil. She advises that though ogres are generally nasty and hostile, they have the right to exist like everyone else and the fact that they have banded together for mutual aid and protection is worth investigating.

Longsaddle (Tamsin, Orlando, Arae, Ordyn) Longsaddle is a trading post village notable for two things: beef and mad wizards. Farms and ranches surround Longsaddle for miles around and the village of little more than 100 folk will swell to nearly four times that number of people and thousands of cattle during the trading season. The village is the private demesne of a family of powerful wizards named the Harpells who live in a massive mansion protected by a dome of magical force. The Harpells control the wardings that surround the village and blast any hostile force that gets too close. The doors of Ivy Mansion have been closed for months and no one has seen any of the Harpells for the same time. It’s no mystery why they are gone; the family leader Malchor took his entire family off-plane for a vacation. The Harpells hired the Bloodaxe mercenary company to keep the peace while they were gone but they forgot to mention when they would return. Velkor Minairr is the field commander of the Bloodaxes and he’s done a good job of keeping the village safe from rustlers and other petty criminals, but now the village is in the full swing of cattle trading season and regional scavengers are taking advantage of the wizard's absence. Cattle thefts have become more common and better organized led by the Blue Sigil ogre company. So far there have been two deaths because of the ogre raids, two ranch hands that tried to fight them off instead of fleeing. Velkor knows the full strength of the Blue Sigil is far above his own companies and is not certain of the outcome were they to take to the field in numbers. He wants to avoid a pitched battle unless he’s convinced they will win and needs help finding a way to get the ogres to stop their raids. Make a choice. Warfare. The Bloodaxe Mercenary Company is chartered out of Sundabar and is actually owned by the current Lord of Sundabar himself, Helm Dwarf-Friend. Due to this connection the field commander Velkor is able to draw on reserves of credit to hire extra swordhands from the ranchers and local toughs, enough to pay for a militia 150 strong. Their strength added to the Bloodaxes current roster of 70 would leave your side outnumbered by only 2 to 1 against the ogres in a stand up fight or even better odds if you’re able to whittle the ogres down through skirmishes and ambushes before committing to pitched battle. The risks are high as casualties on your side are all but guaranteed; a rancher with sword in hand and a season or two on the road is no match for a hulking ogre. The rewards are commensurate with the risk as you’d effectively demolish the entire Blue Sigil clan, taking whatever loot they’ve stolen for yourselves. The Bloodaxe company fields 20 mounted knights supported by 40 Infantry and a squad of 10 Archers. Diplomacy. The Blue Sigil is an unknown in a land where the strange and unknown are dangers to be feared. They’ve been a successful mercenary company for 15 years now and maintain their home in a half-ruined castle now named Mog’s Keep, named so after the current leader of the Blue Sigil. Mog’s Keep is a half day’s ride away from Longsaddle in the western foothills. Only the truly desperate, depraved, or those with secret motives would hire an orge for anything, let alone a whole company of them to act in force. Blue Sigil is eager for battle and their rudimentary organization has done nothing to blunt their bloodlust and fearsome practices. Mog is smart enough to know that the mages who live in Longsaddle would destroy his entire company if they bothered them but somehow the ogres have learned the wizards are gone. Negotiating with ogres is actually quite simple; either they agree to your terms or they try to eat you. Some of the local ranchers want to simply give the ogres some cattle as tribute until the Harpells get back. With any other group of ogres it’s an even chance they just eat you instead but Mog is cunning and can recognize a deal when he sees it. Free food for doing nothing is practically the dream of most ogres. Skullduggery. The Harpells were the sword hanging over the heads of the ogres that prevented them from raiding the town. One bartender suggests that the simplest solution is to convince the ogres that the Harpells are back. There are a few other mages in town that could help with a Harpell impersonation, though they all lack the earthshaking Art of that family. The locals know the habits and peculiarities of the family well enough to attempt the trick but the problem with deceiving an ogre is that you’ve got to get close enough to talk to them and that’s within grabbing and eating range. If you can figure out a way to keep the impersonators out of harm's way then the local talent will agree to the con. Another bartender disagrees and says that the real simplest solution is to hire the Blue Sigil to go somewhere else. They’re a mercenary company, give them a job that sends them away. Unfortunately this bartender doesn’t also have the coin on hand to pay the ogres wages but says they charge about 500gp a week.

Stronghold of the Nine (Yzara, Kelveroth) The High Forest is the largest and greatest forest on Toril. When folk speak of the Savage Frontier, the High Forest makes up about 20% of it. While even greater thousands of years ago, its size today is due to the seemingly divine protection the forest enjoys along with the guardianship of the sylvan elves. The gods Eldath and Mielikki are known to personally intervene when loggers start setting fires and falling trees and the elves drive back orcs, drow, humans, and all others who would bring harm to the forest. Remnants and secrets of ancient elven civilizations lay hidden within the forest and the guardians seek to keep them that way. 5,000 years ago the Stronghold of the Nine was a fortress redoubt of the dwarven realm Besilmer. That realm is now all but forgotten with only the Stone Bridge to serve as a memorial. It was made a home again by Laeral Silverhand and her companions who restored the underground Stronghold and rebuilt the aboveground outbuildings. They lived there in peace for years until Laeral returned with an artifact that drove everyone there mad with jealousy. The companions fought tooth and nail against each other until the Blackstaff solved the problem. The hold lay empty again for some time before being claimed again, this time by a group of sylvan elves that call themselves the Council of the Wood. While some may think it odd that sylvan elves would live underground in an old dwarfhold, experts in the history of North know that the ancient kingdoms of dwarves, elves, and even humans lived together in peace more than once in both recorded and oral history. Since its humble beginnings 4 years ago the Council has gathered together the wisest elven minds in the region and they are a lamplight to the glories of the elven past and hopefully their future. Lady Morgwais welcomes Yzara and Kelveroth to the Stronghold and give each a room in one of the underground guesthouses. The caverns are unlike any either has seen before as they were cleary formed by dwarven architecture but show the living touch of the elves. Bioluminescent moss crawls along the cavern walls to light the evenings and during the waking hours soft daylight filters through spellforged mist on the ceilings. As both of you are experts in the Art the Council invites you to help with the research. At the end of the first week Lady Morgwais thinks that significant progress has been made. Being from Sundabar, the elemental lodestones were aligned with the Sundabar volcano and its energies but you’ve managed to break that connection and realign them with the local elemental spirits. They now lean strongly towards a series of deep caverns at the foot of the Star Mounts. Known as the Endless Caverns there are tunnels that the elve believe travel under the whole of the High Forest and down into the underdark. The Council has not explored these tunnels because the cavern is home to an old green dragon named Grimnoshtasdrano or the Riddling Dragon as the elves call him. While you are deciding how to deal with the dragon a messenger and prisoner arrives from Turlang the Deeproot. Treants captured a daemonfey that was attempting to cross the Old Road into an old dungeon complex that’s under the guard of elves from both Evermeet and Everska. The guardians of the Nameless Dungeon wanted to execute the fey’ri but Turlang convinced them to transport the prisoner to the Council, as he knew of your company’s work and action against the daemonfey in Sundabar. The daemonfey has resisted the interrogation attempts so far but Lady Morgwais knows old rituals that will slowly strip the fey’ri of his magical protections and make him move vulnerable to divinations. The only problem with the rituals is that they are slow and take months to work making any information gained thereafter likely months old and too late to act on. Make a choice. Diplomacy. Though a terror on the wing Grimnoshtasdrano loves riddles and clever creatures. The moss-covered dragon bones of the previous occupant of his lair are the first things visitors see. It’s a joke in poor taste but Grimnosh appreciates his prey’s reactions. The dragon has been known to make deals with lesser mortals if he finds their proposal entertaining. Yzara recalls a story she heard this summer of Grimnosh being allowed to bypass the dragonwards of Waterdeep 6 years ago to exact revenge on a former Harper who had wronged him. Given that the Dragon Mage of Waterdeep has allowed Grimnosh to enter once and parted on good terms, he might be persuaded to allow the green dragon to enter in disguise again to attend a social season as a guest of Lady Cassandra Thann. In return Grimnosh would allow the Council to take the lodestones they need, so long as they don’t disturb his hoard. Warfare. The daemonfey of House Dlardrageth have been a stain on the honor of the elves for thousands of years. Some among the Council have no compunction with accelerating the unbinding rituals. What would be a slow filtering of the fiendish essence would instead be a rapid banishment of the demonic soul. The ritual normally heals as it untangles the corruption, purging the fiendish and leaving only the elf, but when accelerated it simply rips out any forgeign influence like a spiritual amputation. The trauma to body and spirit is intense and leaves the elf broken and vulnerable once again without any supernatural resistances. Arcana The wisdom of the elves is to find a path forward where none existed before. When one conflict seems intractable, retreat and reexamine the situation. Approach from a different axis of understanding and see what was hiding in plain sight. Lady Morgwais suggests a trip through the recent past to jump back to the daemonfay's present. At one point the daemonfey held your elemental lodestone in his hands, back in Sundabar. Follow the lodestone back in time to your fight against him. Transfer your reference point from yourself to him, then rewind in reverse to spy upon what he did after leaving Sundabar. The mages of the Council are surprisingly well-versed in Time travel magic and feel confident they can manage the ritual for you with a low, acceptable chance of temporal deportation.

Longsaddle (Diplomacy) After some uncomfortable meetings with Vilkor and his lieutenants, you convince them that doing what the ranchers want to do is the best option here. The decision earns you few friends among the Bloodaxes who now go out of their way to avoid you, except for Tamsin. Many of the mercenaries shared his same sentiment and are still friendly with him. Getting Mog to agree to parlay was surprisingly easy. You waved a white flag at the next set of ogre raiders and they stopped their pillaging and returned to the Keep. A day later Mog arrived with two full squads of his best battle-ready ogres, ready for negotiations. Much like a psychopath who has crafted a mask of civility to wear so as to not frighten the people around them, Mog has learned the rules of behavior that civilized people expect from each other. He agrees to the ranchers' tribute of two cows a week until the season ends, and if the wizards haven't returned by then, down to one cow a week. Mog also agrees to Ordyn's suggestion to try and raise their own cattle but you're not entirely sure how well that got translated. Vilkor made one last ditch effort to provoke the ogres and demanded a weregild for the deaths of the two ranchers. Again Mog surprises you all with his readiness to negotiate. It seems he understands well the value of a person though he kept referring to people as hostages. In any case he agreed to give the families some man-sized loot they have at the keep as weregild for the dead. What use a rancher's widow has for a full set of platemail, shield, and sword is anyone's guess, but the debt is paid and the ogre problem has been dealt with for now. Stronghold of the Nine (Arcana) Some elves on the Council don’t wish to share their knowledge about temporal manipulation with Yzara but given the nature of the daemonfey threat they agree to lead both her and Kelveroth through their rituals. They ask her to keep the details of the magical working to herself as a professional courtesy and then explain how Mystra has banned almost all uses of time travel magic with very few exceptions. They are deliberately vague about which applications are still allowed and how far back or forward one may go. The ritual they perform with you sends a scrying sensor back into the recent past. You all follow in silence as it scrys upon the elemental lodestone still in your possession; your journey to the High Forest, your summer in Waterdeep, and your fight in the deep forges of Sundabar all happen in reverse. Everything freezes at a moment during the fight and the perspective shifts towards the daemonfey. In the vision he is grabbing lodestones and shoving them into a bag; in the present he is bound within a circle of protection in the Stronghold. Lady Morgwais resumes the travel of time and the scrying sensor follows the fey’ri in their flight from Sundabar. You see a dozen fey’ri flight through the night, eastward at breakneck speed. They approach the ruins of Hellgate Keep but are battered by the awakened trees and forced down and out of the sky. Unable to go forward, they retreat and fly further south and east until they’re over the High Forest and take refuge in an abandoned city Kelveroth recognizes as the Elven Port. The fey’ri argue among themselves, though you can hear nothing. Your prisoner eventually takes orders from the one who appears to be their leader, a female fey’ri with gold hair that demonstrates her Art when she blasts one of her underlings with lightning. The sensor follows the fey’ri as he takes flight and heads north, traveling at night until he reaches the Everlund Pass near Silverymoon. He waits there until a hooded traveler makes their way from the city and meets the fey’ri. The traveler shows great respect to the daemonfey, bowing and kneeling before them and gives the fey’ri a gift, a silver globe. The fey’ri embraces the traveler who you now see is a female dwarf and afterwards flies back to the Elven Port with the trinket. You’re not sure exactly what the globe is but the fey’ri leader uses it in some kind of divination ritual along with the elemental lodestones and gets results that she’s evidently happy about. The next few weeks pass in Elven Port with the fey’ri crafting and upgrading their weapons and armor and reinforcing their positions within the elven ruins. You see them capture elves, centaurs, and humans and then interrogate, torture, and eat them. At some point their leader decides to make their next move and they fly low over the forest heading west, following the Old Road. Pitched battle soon follows as the fey’ri are ambushed by elven guardians and the leader retreats, leaving your prisoner behind.

The villagers appreciate you handling the situation without more violence. The Bloodaxes are less than happy but given your status as Veterans of the Hellgate War they keep their grumbling to themselves and abide by your decision. Future battlefields await Velkor and the Ogres. The Company gains favor with Longsaddle and the Lord's Alliance while Tamsin gains a friend in Velkor Minairr and the Bloodaxes. Grimnoshtasdrano sends a whispering wind after he hears you've declined his offer. He's disappointed and won't extend the same again. The message ends with the sound of long claws dragging on stone. Lady Morgwais does not seem surprised about the daemonfey's residence in Elven Port but the divining globe they used intriques her. With the business in Longsaddle concluded for now, a Council mage brings the rest of the crew to the Stronghold to decide their future. Yazra gains favor with the Council of the Wood.