Campaign One: Chapter XVI - On the Road Again

A Familiar Kind of Foe

Saturnas 25th Concord, 30 Fifth Age

Having slain their owlbear ambushers, the party caught up with Alric, who was waiting with the wagon a few leagues ahead. Alric - after vomiting in his terror - asked if the party wished to return to Stonecross. The Reforged assured him that the monsters were dead, and that they intended to press on - there would be ample pay for Alric and his father when it was all done. Reluctantly, the youth rallied the horses, and the journey along the Old Road continued. Sat in the back of the cart, Kharmir reprimanded Callidus for his lack of mercy, but the rogue was not interested in a moral lecture.  

As the sun set, the cart crested a small hill, and Visimar spotted a gang of figures up ahead: four small humanoids, rushing around two angry-looking avian creatures. The humanoids were squat - no more than three feet tall - with pointed flapping ears and greenish skin, dressed in scrappy leather and armed with sharpened tree branches. Their quarries were a pair of axe beaks: tall flightless birds with strong legs and a heavy, wedge-shaped beak. The wary Reforged, recalling their experience with the Needlefangs, advised Alric to pull nearer with caution. Visimar hopped out of the cart and went over to the goblins, followed by Kharmir, who didn't feel comfortable letting Visimar go unmonitored. Callidus stayed behind in the cart, snoozing.

As Visimar and Kharmir approached, one of the axe beaks made a break for the fields. Visimar hurled himself into its path and grappled its chest, trying to keep it from getting past. As the other axe beak charged, hurling its goblin rider from its back, Kharmir tackled it against the cart, but it slipped away and knocked him aside, forcing him to chase after it. As Kharmir tried to corral the giant birds, Visimar approached the fallen rider, and learned that he was Pibble, of the Rotjaw tribe. Pleased that they were not Needlefangs, Visimar tried to exchange his mummified hand for a gift of the goblins', to which Pibble replied with a bag of manure, hurling it at the dhampir's face. Behind them, Kharmir was knocked against the cart by the axe beak, rousing Callidus, who leapt awake and attacked, driving the axe-beak into a frenzy. Kharmir shouted at him to stop, but Callidus' experience with the Needlefangs' rat-cages had stirred within him a potent hatred of goblinkind, and he shot one goblin through the eye. As its fellows turned hostile, Visimar and Kharmir were forced to slay them and the axe beaks: all but Pibble, who sprinted away with the hand. 

Furious, Kharmir confronted Callidus, but the rogue merely shrugged, and denounced the goblins as monsters. That night, as they made their camp, Visimar and Kharmir spoke about the incident. Kharmir decried Callidus' disregard for life, and Visimar understood. 'In your eyes,' the dhampir said, 'I see a man who wants justice. Below that, I see a heart of gold.' He assured Kharmir that Callidus' actions did not taint him by association. 

Storms, Slate and Sundry

Dametras 26th Concord, 30 Fifth Age

The following morning, the party awoke. Kharmir tried to speak to Callidus, citing their confrontation in the Emerald Brewery courtyard. He made what he hoped was small progress: the rogue, at least, agreed to stay his hand without party consent in future. The pair spotted some giant goats roaming on the opposite side of the River Stane, putting Callidus in a craving for milk.

The day's journey took them across a vista that was simultaneously bleak and majestic, with the road channelled between the dark mass of Fenmarrow Forest to the north and the jagged mountains to the south. The party crested a hill, and came across a foul storm that had gathered in the night. Lightning struck the fields ahead, and where they struck, they left glistering singe marks in the dirt. The horses seemed reluctant to continue, so Visimar decided to venture out and found that, where the lightning struck the earth, small flowers - yellow, gnarled and crooked - grew in the craters they left. Visimar identified them as stormpetals, and managed to get two before he returned to the cart. The party decided to push on, but when lightning flashed and the horses reared, the cart axle buckled under the pressure, forcing them to fix it before they could continue. 

Towards the end of the day, an inn - the Slate and Sundry - came into view: a quaint little building with a smoking chimney, nestled by the edge of the River Stane, three stories tall with turrets and chimneys made of white stone. Its south wing was built upon pilings that rose over the Stane, bogged down in weeds. Nearby is a marketplace and a village with half a hundred white houses and a small stone chapel to the Stormlord. It was called the Slate and Sundry, and was run by a tiny, balding halfling with a winestain birthmark. Lying on the bar was a lizard, two feet long, with a plump belly and deep amber scales, sat sleepily between a keg of ale and a clutch of candles. As the Reforged approached, the lizard opened its glittering eyes and spoke. Its name was Morsyl, and he was a drake who had made a deal with Stowen the bartender to manage flared tempers and weepy drinkers in return for living space and a generous tab. Morsyl was also a tenacious gossip, and asked the party if they had any stories to share. When he heard of the blind bandits, he admitted that he hadn't heard much about them, other than that they had taken out their own eyes, indicating a certain fanaticism. Morsyl had been starved of good gossip - the inn had been quiet recently because of a death under its roof. Visimar inquired further, and Morsyl gleefully shared the details - a dark elf man had passed through carrying a small lacquered box, coming down from Blackmont. The next morning, the drow was gone, but a different (human) man was found in his room, dead and bleeding from the ears. The Reforged received the information with intrigue, and decided to look into it when they returned to Stonecross, seeing as the drow's path seemingly led there.

The Boar and the Weevil

Lunas 27th Concord, 30 Fifth Age

The Reforged left the Slate and Sundry early in the hopes of making up lost time. Visimar checked in with Alric to make sure the boy was all right, and tipped him a little extra to apologise for the disruption so far. Then, they set off. Kharmir spotted some standing stones in the distance surrounding a granite monolith, but the party decided that their interest lay in Fort Siward and did not want to accept any more distractions. At noon, they spotted a plume of smoke in the sky ahead. It was coming from two men who had made camp at the roadside and were roasting a pot of beans over a fire. One was a thickset, burly man with a shaven head. The other was a narrow-faced man with a slight crook in his back. The larger bore a painted boar on his shield; the smaller an insect. The latter hailed the Reforged and invited them to lunch. The party tentatively agreed.

As they tucked into a meal of beans and salty loaf, the men introduced themselves as Bogmore 'the Boar' and Worril 'the Weevil.' They were wandering landless knights searching for a master, having travelled from Blackmont to partake in the Marshal's Tourney at the Pit of Proving. The Reforged told them, regretfully, that they were too late, and the tourney was over. As they ate, Worril mentioned a rumour that one of the Storm Pontiffs - Everild - was dying, and that the aeldormen of Alagost were secretly scrambling to elect a champion to replace him. Said champion would have to partake in a series of trials before the final test: being tied to the Manbreaker - a large rock off the coast of Sturmenfell - for a day and a night. Merry from the salty loaf, Callidus boasted that he could do it. Kharmir wasn't sure, but found great satisfaction in the notion of becoming a Pontiff only to use his newfound power to restore Norod Dulum and promptly resign. Grateful to the strangers, the Reforged told them of their mission to Fort Siward, and asked if the Boar and the Weevil would be interested in joining them. There would be money in it, after all - although Kharmir admitted that they hadn't asked Odda the Elder how much money that would be. Either way, the prize would be shared amongst the group. With their prior plans ruined, the knights agreed, and set off alongside the Reforged, sharing more of their rations as they made camp for the night.

Luctoras 28th Concord, 30 Fifth Age

Leathermarsh Farm

The storm was well behind now, but a thick mist was growing across the plains, turning the distant mountains into floating grey smudges in the white. The day passed mainly without incident, but as the sun begins to set, the party came across a small, ruined farmstead built on either side of the road. There was a farmhouse on the left, though the upper floor had collapsed into the lower. A few crumbled stone walls marked where animal pens once stood. Fields of heather grew untamed out behind it. There was a barn and granaries, still intact. Judging from the dark shapes moving above the barn's roof, there were also sparrows roosting in its rafters. Kharmir ventured towards the barn, and spied a sawtoothed steel trap lying hidden in the door. He knocked hesitantly, and an old man emerged from the barn, wielding an enormous crossbow that he pointed straight at Kharmir. The old man, Eivan, demanded to know who they were and what they were doing at the farm. 

As Kharmir tried to soothe the paranoid resident, Visimar went wandering into the farmhouse. Clearing some debris out of the way, he found a dusty basement littered with work tools, hammers and saws. However, hidden behind the weapons rack was a rope running into a hole in the wall. Visimar pulled it, and a door-sized section of the wall slid open, the stone scraping on the ground, revealing a black passage into the darkness. Above ground, Kharmir learned that Eivan was not the owner of the farm, but a hermit who had taken up residence here. Downstairs, Visimar walked down the secret passage, and discovered a second door beyond, which led to a rough-cut stone staircase that plunged down, down, down into the dark…

And so it is written.

Campaign 1: Chapter XV - The Shard and the Coin

A Final Goodbye

Faustas 24th Concord, 30 Fifth Age.

After the play, Visimar Von Tann bade farewell to Pandora and decided to put the mutant crocodile's blood to use. Setting up his alchemical supplies in his room at the Three Badgers, he began the process of brewing a potion of fire resistance before leaving it to brew. While he waited, he went to the library at Turnshale Tower, seeking to scratch an investigative itch. Despite the disapproving air of the surrounding scholars, he gained admission - under the condition not to remove any books from the library - and set about researching the golden serpent he saw in his dreams. When that search brought up nothing, he instead turned his focus to the Sunless Lands, and encountered a comprehensive history of the twelve Houses of the Valsharen - the topmost caste of drow, of which his family was one. Though he was momentarily carried away by his nostalgia, the pointed staring of an elderly scholar prompted him to pack up and head back to the tavern.

At the Three Badgers, Callidus and Kharmir celebrated their slaying of the ghohlbrorn. With Callidus still sore from the battle, they decided to spend the day drinking and carousing at the bar. That they did, with Callidus turning his attention to the female patrons while Kharmir sampled the Three Badgers' finest ales - though he still steered clear of Emerald Brew. As the day progressed, Callidus managed to arouse the ire of a burly man with hammers tattooed across his arms, though Kharmir's swift intervention prevented fisticuffs.

While his friends drank, Visimar made good on his appointment with Archmage Rogeiros. With the gatekeeper's leave, he went through the library to the base of the tower, where the walls were adorned with constellations and images of intertwining root systems, like the roots of a great tree. Visimar stepped into the centre of the floor, and blue runes lit up across the stone, filling hollow grooves like liquid light. The floor then rose, gently spinning, following the curve of the corkscrew tower, until it reached its apex: Rogeiros' grand study. 

The mage was perturbed by the news of Visimar's vision. He suggested that the dream was a sign that the coin was taking root inside his mind, burrowing and urging him to avarice. When Visimar listened, he could hear a faint whispering - unintelligible, faint, but definitely present. When Visimar appeared unruffled, Rogeiros urged him to come to the balcony and; toss the coin away. Visimar stepped out into the cold evening air and tried to throw it, but found the coin would not leave his hand. Rogeiros flicked it away with magical force, but when Visimar checked his pocket, he found the coin still there. The coin was bound to him, somehow, and would not be removed. Unnerved, Visimar asked for Rogeiros' advice. The archmage's first thought was to destroy the coin, but it could not be as simple as that, for infernal iron can only be melted by that which minted it: hellfire. Visimar suggested continuing the experiment together and monitoring the progression of the curse, but Rogeiros refused. He had lived too long to make foolish gambles, and, after all, curiosity was what got him exiled from his enclave. He dug too deep into subjects the preceptors did not approve of, and was punished for his transgression. It would not do for Visimar to make the same mistake. 

Tealeaf's infernal coin

After a moment of reflection, Visimar took out the shard of glass that had once lodged in the chest of Lancion Strong. He explained that it was a keepsake from a dead companion whom he had known only fleetingly, but whose words had had a great effect upon him. Talk of unbridled curiosity and foolish obsession had prompted him to think of the shard again. Visimar wanted it gone. After ensuring this was what Visimar wanted, Rogeiros agreed, and set his staff against the glass. In a flash of blinding light, the shard was reduced to dust. Visimar scattered it over the balustrade, where it drifted away on the wind. Inspired by the memory of Lancion's corruption, Visimar decided to break the curse. The archmage touched his staff to Visimar's shoulders, as if knighting him, and the dhampir felt as if a great weight had been lifted. The whispers had quieted.

Visimar thanked the archmage, and asked him one last thing. For decades he had been plagued by questions about his past, and about what could he do to find more about the red-hooded kidnappers - the Sanguinari - who turned him into a monster. The archmage regretted that his records were incomplete. He had seen and heard and learned many things in his age, but since his expulsion from his enclave he had been denied access to the full extent of the knowledge that was once available to him. If there was one place Visimar's answer resides, it was deep within the archives of Vanga Irina. 

Brawl in the Badgers

Back at the bar, Kharmir and Callidus were well into their cups. Kharmir was trying to make conversation, but Callidus was distracted. He had his eyes on a pale-haired woman who looked oddly like Arania of the Deep. When he drunkenly leaned over to smooth-talk her, his haphazard effort earned him a drink to the face. A familiar man with hammer tattoos came up to the bar, and Callidus realised that he was the lover of the woman he had just propositioned. The tattooed man accused Callidus of lechery. Despite Kharmir's protests, Callidus spat in the man's face, and a stunned silence settled over the bar. Then the tattooed man punched Callidus off his stool. Before he could rise, Kharmir had retaliated with a strike to the face, knocking the man down in one blow. Grimley lunged across the bar to separate the brawlers, but the tattooed man was unconscious, so he merely reprimanded the Reforged and told them not to bludgeon paying customers.

Thrilled by their brush with combat, the two men continued their merriment, and ended up sat at Grimley's table up on the mezzanine, along with an entourage of middle-aged women. Callidus tried his hand again with the most buxom of their number, but the woman in question seemed far more interested in Kharmir, given his unique stature and triumph in the (albeit brief) brawl. Kharmir graciously refused her advances, but assured her that his human companion was a far more willing lover. To Callidus' surprise, the woman agreed, and took him to bed for a lively night indeed.

Saturnas 25th Concord, 30 Fifth Age

The following morning, over breakfast, Kharmir tried to crack Callidus' stoic exterior. Though Kharmir pointed out that the other members of the Reforged had exposed painful truths, the rogue had rejected all efforts to pry into his personal affairs. However, it was to no avail. Frustrated, Kharmir went back to his meal, though he did not know that Callidus was privately touched by the dwarf's stalwart show of friendship the previous night. 

On his way downstairs, Visimar checked at the bar to see if Pandora had stopped by, but Grimley had never heard of her. Somewhat disappointed, Visimar joined his companions at their table and filled them in on what happened at Turnshale Tower. The relieved party then discussed their next moves. Given that Vanga Irina lay in the North Raumridings near Sturmenfell, Visimar wanted to head along the Mountain Road to the capital, to which the others agreed. However, they wanted to acquire a little more gold before they set out on such a long journey. Recalling the rumours he had heard in the tavern, Kharmir remembered a notice on the board in Dunstan's Square, promising a reward for mercenaries who could tackle a group of bandits on behalf of Lord Stylflint. The party agreed to head to the House of Talus on the King's Cairn and investigate.

The House of Talus

Surrounding the city's main street, which ran from the Old Gate to the top of King's Cairn, the Stonestairs district was home to the most affluent residents of the city. The upper reaches were steep, wooded and winding, threaded by a steep flight of uneven stone steps, worn down by centuries of footfall. The crag itself was ringed by no less than three crenelated battlements flying the four-arch banner of House Stylflint. Each wall bore a heavy portcullis, each carved with the bearded stone faces of long-dead kings. Within the castle complex, behind the first of the Cairn's defensive gates, lay a grand courthouse surmounted on all corners by four-armed gargoyle statues. The Stone Drum castle loomed above in vertical tiers of grey stone, casting the courtyard in pervasive shadow. 

Inside the House of Talus was magnificent stone chamber with a row of arches running down the centre. Beyond the arches lay the courtroom itself, with rows of benches surrounding a high pulpit. Attendants in smart woolen tunics, dyed dark blue and pinned with amber brooches, scribbled at scrolls on their desks. The room was busy; an overhead buttress had fallen in the storm and crushed furniture beneath, and the Stonemasons' Guild was operating pulleys to remove the damaged architecture and ferry lumps of newer stone up into the rafters. A human male in his late sixties, bald with a well-trimmed beard, with hard features that were a mix between brutish and regal, was overseeing the repair. Callidus identified him as Odda the Elder, Lord Constable of Stonecross (ergo the de facto master of laws) as well as former regent of the city.

The Reforged introduced themselves, and Lord Odda recognised them from the Pit of Proving. He  praised their performance, and asked if they were experienced in mercenary work. However, he was quickly interrupted by a young man with prominent ears, who addressed him as father and spoke of urgent news. The Elder angrily dismissed Odda the Younger, who eyed the party with suspicion while his father spoke. The Elder apologised, and explained that the brigands did not appear to be the usual kind of petty roadside criminal. The lone survivor of their latest attack claimed that the men managed to easily kill or abduct the other members of their caravan, despite the fact that they were entirely blind. Odda believed the bandits were holed up inside Fort Siward, a ruined Ceonred-era stronghold at the mountain's edge, roughly a five-day ride away. The party agreed, and - after initially considering buying horses for themselves - decided to hire a cart to take them out of town, to avoid the costs of saddling, stabling and the like until their trip to Sturmenfell. They hired from a shaded paddock in the Stonestairs, and the stern stablemaster sent his teenage son, Alric, as the Reforged's driver. Not wishing to waste any time, the party set off with haste, with Alric at the reins. 

The first few hours of the journey went smoothly, but as they passed through a wooded area, Visimar began to hear heavy footfalls coming from the trees. He squinted, and at first thought - judging from the creature's size - that it was a bear, but as it thundered closer, he noticed that the bristly fur on its thickset body was mixed with feathers. The creature's avian head, complete with limpid pupils and a hooked beak, was owl-like, and its terrible screech recalled a bird of prey in the height of frenzy. Visimar shouted a warning and the panicked Alric lashed the reins, spurring the horses onward. Kharmir told the boy to ride ahead and wait in a safe place, before jumping off to engage the beast. Callidus was next out of the cart, then Visimar - however, as Visimar landed, the cart shot out of sight and revealed a second owlbear approaching from the other side of the road, and this one had a pair of wings furled over its back. The Reforged did battle - while Kharmir and Callidus engaged the first, the winged owlbear chased Visimar to the top of a withered tree, its talons leaving strips in the bark. Visimar lunged down at the winged beast and drove his bloodflame blade into its face, killing it. Meanwhile, Kharmir tried to soothe the other bear, but Callidus' projectiles enraged it and it charged. Though it clawed at Kharmir's armour and found purchase, a few strikes from Kharmir's greatsword caused the owlbear to turn tail. Willing to let the creature go, Kharmir was horrified when Callidus shot the fleeing beast with his crossbow, remembering his murder of Unlaf at the Brewery.

And so it is written.

Campaign One: Chapter XIV - Hunting the Ghohlbrorn

Blood, Eyes and Hands

Lunas 22nd Concord, 30 Fifth Age

Upon their return to the city, the party found that a huge section of the Old Road had been torn up as something massive passed below. Grimley apologised for the mess inside the Three Badgers - as the creature went by, it left tremors in its wake that caused damage to the interior of the inn. The party went upstairs to rest after their dangerous encounter with the beetles. As they slept, Visimar was struck by visions - flashes of gold, accompanied by unintelligible whispers, though acquiring any definition was impossible.

Tondras 23rd Concord, 30 Fifth Age

The next morning, the Reforged found the Ranger of Roamere at the bar. He called himself Cadman, though he is known in town merely as Yellowcloak. Cadman asked if they were warriors, having been hired by a man named Gilderbone for a task too difficult for himself to complete alone. Though the party were preoccupied with tracking the ghohlbrorn, they offered to meet with Cadman and Gilderbone once the creature was dead. The group then split - Kharmir headed to Cliffhollow Garrison, Visimar to the forge, and Callidus remained at the bar to drink - agreeing to meet at the inn in half an hour.

Black clouds massed on the horizon. As Kharmir walked through the Old Town toward Petra's Cairn, he saw locals putting bags of sand outside their homes, in case of flooding. At the Garrison, he met with Varick in his offices. Varick said that he thought the party were dead when they never returned to the Marsh Town. He revealed that the ghohlbrorn had made its first incursion within the city walls, causing a breach in a side street in the Old Town. The whole shopfront fell into the crater, and blood at the scene implied that another victim had been snatched. 

Meanwhile, Visimar went to Hewan's forge to ask about the silver crown and if he could buy it back, but he found that Hewan had already melted it down into silver. Disgruntled, Visimar went off in search of something to replace his ruined eye. Following Hewan's vague directions, Visimar came across a dingy-looking shop with a bejewelled skull in the window, run by a hunched white dragonborn. After a brief browse, Visimar chose a chunk of bloodstone - dark grey with red flecks - which the shopkeeper polished down into a smooth sphere. He also found his eye caught by a withered black hand, and was told by the shopkeeper that he had bought it from an antiques collector. The hand once belonged to a mummified wizard, and was a rare piece used in the days of the dwarven undercities to find veins of precious minerals. However, its magical nature could also make it aggressive, and the shopkeeper advised Visimar to keep it in a locked box. Visimar bought the hand, and returned to the Three Badgers twenty-five minutes late, to Kharmir's displease. Callidus was already drunk, and fell off his chair at the sight of Visimar's new eye.

The Ghohlbrorn

The party followed the tear in the road to a cramped street near the foot of Petra's Cairn, where the ghohlbrorn's latest attack had caused a shop to collapse. The city watchmen guarding the site tried to prevent their approach, but Visimar explained that they were mercenaries working for Captain Varick. The party delved into the crater, to the shock of the nearby civilians, and followed the tunnel east, where it inevitably emerged at the circle of bones. Inside the central hollow lay a freshly-digested halfling, still covered in the creature's acidic, yellowish bile. Kharmir tried to identify tracks, but the place was riddled with them, so many that it was impossible to find which way the creature had went. After investigating the blocked tunnels that pitted the surrounding landscape, Visimar took out the mummified hand in the hopes it would seek out what he desired. The hand merely waggled, limp. 

Kharmir suggested setting a trap, and - with the others' help - took the halfling's rapidly-decomposing body into the extant tunnel and pinned it to the ceiling. He clanged his armour, and even cut his palm in the hope that the blood might attract the creature, but to no avail. When Visimar tried to suck from Kharmir's wound, he decided to take a different tack. The party climbed up into the trees at the edge of the Fenmarrow Forest and watched the circle of bones as the storm broke overhead.

The ghohlbrorn (a.k.a. a bulette)

A few hours later, Kharmir spotted something through the driving rain: a dark shape moving across the ground, like a shark's fin through water. The creature broke through the dirt and revealed itself: a massive bulk on four thickset legs, nine feet tall from foot to shoulder, silhouetted in the stormy evening night. Yellow eyes burned in its pointed head, and blueish plates of stony armour descended down its body in sheets. The ghohlbrorn walked to the edge of the pit and vomited a fresh hail of bones into the crater before crushing them into powder with its flat claws. Kharmir fired an arrow at the opposite edge of the pit, catching the creature's attention, and while its back was turned Kharmir and Visimar slipped out of the trees and crept up to the edge of the pit, the rain muffling their approach. However, Callidus - still drunk - slipped and tumbled down the slope.

Before anyone could react, the hulking beast turned and, with extraordinary agility, leapt an extraordinary height into the air, landing heavily on top of Callidus, almost crushing him to death. Kharmir drove his glaive into the weak point below the ghohlbrorn's 'fin,' distracting it enough for Callidus to roll out from beneath it and flee. Visimar and Kharmir battled the creature in close-range, but as Kharmir tried to back away, it clenched him in its jaws, its thick teeth penetrating his armour. Callidus staggered around the edge of the pit to avoid the beast while the others fought, until finally the ghohlbrorn leapt over Kharmir, allowing him to slice its underbelly with his greatsword. It landed, and died swiftly from its injuries. 

Dreams of Gold

Battered but victorious, the Reforged dragged the ghohlbrorn's corpse back to Cliffhollow Garrison, dumping it in the rain-soaked courtyard. Captain Varick thanked them for their service and sent them off with a hundred gold pieces each, as well as first pickings from the ghohlbrorn's corpse. They decided to peel off its chitinous plating and take it to Hewan to fashion into armour. Callidus, injured and intoxicated, led the way on the walk back to the Three Badgers, which was crowded with people seeking shelter from the storm. Kharmir, seized by an idea, decided to write an advertisement for local dwarves, or any folks who were interested in the repopulation of an ancient city, and posted it on the noticeboard in Dunstan's Square. He then lingered in the bar for a while, listening for rumours, and overhead a conversation between two merchants. They spoke of bandits on the Old Road between here and Blackmont - rumour had it that the bandits had no eyes.

Meanwhile, Visimar and Callidus retired to their rooms. Visimar took out the black iron coin and the mummified hand, lay them on the floor, and began to meditate. He found himself dreaming of a palace of gold: a hall hundreds of feet tall, with gilded columns that gleamed in the sharp yellow sun. Gemstones littered the floor - diamonds, rubies, sapphires - like spilled caltrops. All around him, objects of obscene wealth shone on plinths: urns, gold-framed paintings, crowns, brooches, brocade gowns, tapestries inlaid with precious thread. Something moved at the end of the hall: a great, thick serpent scaled in golden metal plates. It shimmered and shuddered, raising a humanlike head to look at Visimar, before whispering: 'All of this… can be yours…' Visimar asked how, and the serpent responded: 'Follow the voices, and they will lead you to prosperity.' Visimar tried to reply, but the room began to melt, drowning him in gold. As it splattered down from the ceiling, running down the columns, the air shimmered with the heat. 

The Pennant of Red and Gold

Faustas 24th Concord, 30 Fifth Age

The next morning, the party reflected that it had been a whole week since they slew the monster in the Hellmire. To celebrate, they decided to stop by the Rockery to watch a performance before they spoke to Rogeiros again. Before they went, Visimar went back to the trinket shop to ask the shopkeeper about the inert hand. The dragonborn explained that it had been sold to him by an elderly gnome. Recognising Victor's description, Visimar realised that he had been duped. Disgruntled, he rejoined the Reforged at the Rockery.

The Rockery

According to the poster, the Pennant of Red and Gold was a tale of two queens, of murder and vengeance, of great battles on land and sea, of slain dragons and eaten hearts, of blood, love, fire  and steel. The venue itself was a longhall with stained-glass lanterns hanging outside, casting myriad prismatic colours across the cobbled street. The interior had a cozy, mead-hall feel to it. Huge standing stones lay around the edge of the room like a broken henge: each at least seven feet tall, carved with faces of different expressions, grins, scowls, weeping, cheering. Benches and stools were arranged in an oval around a central stage, which itself was hidden from view by a ring of crimson velvet curtain. Kharmir went to buy drinks at the bar, electing to avoid Emerald Brew in favour of a golden mead, while Visimar bought five mutton pasties. They took their seats, with Visimar seating himself next to a human woman in her mid-thirties, with blonde hair tied back with a bejewelled dragon-shaped hairpin. Visimar attempted to be charming, but the woman seemed wary.

The lights went down, and the troupe's leader - a spindly half-elf - emerged from the curtain, sporting a painted face and a jacket glittering with red stones. He introduced himself as Lord Cobble Robin, Mummer King of Stonecross, to rapturous applause. The curtain rose, disappearing into gold confetti, revealing a fat knight in rusty armour (painted gold), sword aloft.  A halfling in a belled hat stepped out and narrated over a musician playing an ocarina.

"Sons of Haelion, children of the sun!

A hundred bloody battles won -

Watch as these warriors of divine fame

Stand fast before the fright of flame!"

A cloth dragon, long, serpentine, blasted fire into the air. Visimar looked closer, and saw through the dragon's maw that it was puppeteered by a gang of four gnomes. The fat knight duelled the dragon to 'oos' and 'aahs' from the audience. His sword cut through the cloth, revealing the four gnome performers within, who spilled out and mimed dying in an extremely exaggerated fashion, to the audience's delight. The knight removed his helm and armour, taking the mantle of God-Emperor Hazeran, and lay down on the floor as chorus members throw a blanket over him. The halfling returned: 

"Behold, the sleeping emperor lies,

Not a fear behind those dormant eyes,

Hazeran's lands, won of war,

Sleep in peace forevermore

But what is that our good king saw?

A spectral knocking at the door --?"

Hazeran woke, and communed with the veiled ghost of his dead first wife Elmariya. She warned of danger ahead: the fall of a great dynasty. Hazeran comically dismissed the claims by grabbing his crotch. Elmariya vanishes, and he returned to his slumber. As he slept, Lord Cobble Robin snuck onto the stage in a flamboyant, bloodstained Quisline costume, drawing a long knife. Visimar wolf-whistled.

"Second married, second loved

A dagger held in fingers gloved

And after did this ghost depart -

The Mad Queen cut and ate his heart!"

Quisline drove the blade into Hazeran's chest, inciting a long and messy death scene, before yanking a pig's heart from Hazeran's chest and miming eating it. Someone in the audience fainted. The play went on in a similar vein, mixing comedy with shocking violence in a parade of tonal whiplash - the lands fell to the Mad Queen's power, with her two blood-children at her side: the halfling bounded around like a savage dog in the role of Othmut, to laughs and revulsion from the audience. Two dragons fought, Aion ventured into the mountains before falling into a volcano, Cathmaris seals herself away in the Blighted Lands, and Anaxandros kills the Mad Queen, emerging the lone hero of the story. After bows and tumultuous applause, the audience were freed for revelry. Lord Cobble Robin and his troupe stayed to mix with the patrons. Kharmir complimented the mummers for their show, and Cobble Robin explained that they were a touring troupe, but began here in Stonecross. 

Meanwhile, the woman beside Visimar asked if he was from the Sunless Lands. She had recognised the touch of the angels - the iscafaene - and told him she had a great reverence for that part of the world. She introduced herself as Pandora, a local financier whose loans funded Lord Cobble Robin's troupe. The pair exchanged stories, and Visimar mentioned the legend of the Olath: the source of drow long life, a great fallen star that only the most powerful matriarchs have seen. Intrigued, Visimar divulged the location of his lodgings, if Pandora ever wanted to talk more.

And so it is written.

Campaign One: Chapter XIII - Beetles in the Burrows

Hewan's Forge

Mercuras 22nd Concord, 30 Fifth Age

The following morning, the Reforged came down into the Three Badgers taproom and found no sign of the Bannerless, only the bartender and a yellow-cloaked man in the corner, whom they recognised as a Ranger of Roamere. The mercenaries' absence was more unsettling than their presence. The group recommended that Vilwyn lie low somewhere, perhaps Cliffhollow Garrison, where the city watch are headquartered. Visimar suggested housing Byron and Alice in the same place for their safety, but Kharmir countered that Byron needed work, and he needed to find a forge anyway, to find some use for the monster crocodile's hide. While Vilwyn bid them farewell, the others went out in search of a forge.

They found one in the Old Town, Stonecross' eldest district, which was primarily timber and plaster, old thatch houses, some made of piecemeal stone, all leaning so far into the cobbled street that they almost touched. At the end of the Street of Smoke, they found a courtyard behind a particularly well-maintained house, where a cavernous stone barn billowed with smoke from the forge. Inside, the dark barn was full of firelight and thick coal smoke, with shapes moving in it - smith's apprentices. The party found the lead smith: a heavyset man named Hewan who wore a large sapphire on a chain around his neck. Kharmir asked him if he could turn the crocodile's skin into something useful. Hewan warned him that it would be pricey, but that they wouldn't find another smith who could do it. Lord Stylflint himself purchased armour from his smithy. Kharmir persisted, and Hewan offered to turn the pelt into scale mail for the sum of five hundred gold pieces. Kharmir handed over a few of Lord Larassan's gold bars as payment, and the sight of a lord's seal impressed the blacksmith.

Hewan turned back to his forge, but Visimar stepped up to ask if he had room for another man. He brought Byron forward, and explained that he was a dedicated worker and a good man, who had escaped the dead end that was Correnwald. When Hewan seemed skeptical, Visimar produced the silver darts and his silvered scimitar as proof of Byron's skill. Hewan asked what Byron and Alice were to do about lodgings, saying that he'd prefer his smiths to be in stable living situations lest they become unreliable. Byron offered the crown that the party had found in the mausoleum, and Hewan, surprised, agreed to arrange their housing at Frida's boardhouse with the rest of the apprentices, with the warning that, no matter how he did things in Correnwald, Byron would have to do things Hewan's way now. Delighted, Byron accepted. The party went to leave, but before they did, Visimar stooped and gave Baesellor's witchmetal necklace to her, telling her that it belonged to a close friend and asking her to keep it safe for him. Alice whispered her thanks, and Byron shook Visimar's hands. With their farewells bid, the Reforged parted ways with the blacksmith and his daughter.

Missions and Memories

Now, with Vilwyn in hiding and their friends safe, the party found themselves, for the first time, without a quest to drive them on. Kharmir suggested going to the noticeboard to find something that might earn them coin or repute, but Visimar wished first to stop by Turnshale Tower and speak to Rogeiros. Callidus said he'd do anything that let him kill something. As they set off, Visimar heard a whisper drawing him towards Hewan's forge - 'the crown…' - but he ignored it and left with the group. 

Turnshale Tower

Turnshale Tower was a corkscrew-like building, spiralling up into the sky in an unmistakeably Elven fashion, topped with solid crenelations and a dark blue spire. An iron fence surrounded the tower gardens, in which cobbled paths criss-crossed through patches of pale green grass, studded with benches, rose arbours, and rhododendron bushes. There was a fountain in the centre, carved in the shape of a serpent coiled around a stone archway, a stream of water pouring from between the snake's fangs. A chapel-like library was built into the side of the tower, hosting a large stained glass window. Brown-robed Scholars shuffled around the gardens, reading on the benches, or pruning back the flowerbeds. The party entered the library and found a young half-elven woman at the desk. She explained that the archmage was indisposed, but offered an appointment at sundown on Faustas. 

Disgruntled, the party revisited the noticeboard to find a quest to occupy their time. Visimar's interest was drawn by the report of a 'roaming creature', seeking to flex his monster-hunting skills. Kharmir was also intrigued by the poster for the play at the Rockery - the Pennant of Red and Gold. Visimar recalled the masquerades in the Sunless Lands, which he had attended with Illivarri, before her vanishing. Kharmir, in turn, remembered the revelries of Nolod Dulum, in which he honed his ability to urinate on command. Simultaneously impressed and repulsed, the party moved on to Cliffhollow Garrison to ask about the roaming monster.

The Beetles Below

Built into the side of Petra's Cairn, some way past the Pit of Proving, was Cliffhollow Garrison, the central barracks of the city watch. It was a primarily limestone fortification that seemed to have been cut out of the mountain itself, supplemented by timber roofs and palisades. A short, steep flight of stairs took the Reforged up to the garrison's arched entryway and through into an expansive courtyard with balconies overlooking the Old Town. City watchmen sparred with straw dummies and loose arrows on archery ranges. Asking around, the party was directed to a captain by the name of Varick, who received them in his office. When asked about the roaming creature, Varick said that it was a complex situation, and that he'd do better to show them rather than tell them. Taking a four-man guard escort, he led the party out of the garrison and north into the Marsh Town beyond the city walls, to a shack on the east side, where the door hung menacingly open.

Lacking the need to respire, Visimar led the way inside, in case of dangerous substances in the air. Instead, he found that the shack had been a candlemaker's shop: sparsely-furnished and bedecked with weeping wax. A huge hole had been burrowed into the floor: a crater over two metres wide, with slopes of dirt shored up around the hollow in the centre. Looking down into the pit reveals that it travelled between ten and twenty feet down before curving off into the darkness. Visimar jumped into the pit and slid down the dirt while Kharmir and Callidus waited at the top. Examining the soil, Visimar spotted grooves along the edge of the tunnel, suggesting scrabbling claws. He spotted something buried: a chunk of bone, stained yellow. There was a scent on it: something sulphurous and acidic, like bile. Kharmir slid down into the tunnel, and recognised Visimar's findings as congruous with the existence of a creature known as a ghohlbrorn - a burrowing monster, heavily armoured and heavily dangerous, that would often disrupt mining operations in Norod Dulum and other dwarven communities. 

Varick explained that the candlemaker, who had vanished (presumably snatched by the creature) was not the first to be attacked. He led them to the remnants of a cheesemonger's home to the west of the Marsh Town, which had been almost completely levelled when the creature smashed through its foundations. Kharmir dared Callidus to eat some of the remaining, severely decaying cheese, but even Callidus had stronger survival instincts than that. Together, Visimar and Kharmir lifted the debris from over the crater and slipped inside, noting that the tunnels veered in the same direction as those below the candlemaker's. Suspecting that the tunnels might lead to the creature's lair, the Reforged set off into the dark.  

Along the way, Visimar found another bone; this time, a large animal skull, also partially digested. The tunnel then opened up into a point of convergence between many tunnels, some smaller than the ghohlbrorn's, just large enough for the party to squeeze through single-file. There was a faint skittering noise from nearby, and the party crept from tunnel to tunnel, searching for the source. Visimar spotted a large shimmering creature, covered in chitin, with a large spiked horn, crouched in the dirt. Kharmir checked the next opening, and found another giant beetle, this one with a ram-like protrusion instead of a horn. A third beetle was nestled in a tunnel ahead. Keeping quiet, the party tried to follow the larger burrow onward, but were surprised when a fourth beetle - this one even more gigantic than its brethren - dropped down from the ceiling above, crushing Visimar beneath its bulk. 

Beetles in the ghohlbrorn tunnels

The party did battle with the attacking insects, but found difficulty in penetrating their chitinous hides. Callidus climbed into the smaller tunnels and fired bolts from a distance, but was followed by one of the smaller beetles, which squeezed into the tunnel after him. Meanwhile, the disturbance caused a cave-in, dropping tons of dirt into the tunnels below. In its stampede to escape the collapse, the king beetle charged at Visimar, and its huge frontal horn impaled Visimar's left eye, bursting it and half-blinding the dhampir. Callidus and Kharmir slew the smaller insects while Visimar reeled, his pained strikes flailing far from his opponent. Luckily, with Kharmir's intervention, the beetle was slain, and Kharmir took up his head before rallying the party to flee. 

Cave-In!

With the beetle's severed head in hand, the Reforged sprinted down the tunnel as it collapsed behind them. As chunks of dirt and rock fell, gouts of marsh water spilled through, flooding around the party's feet and filling the place with a rancid stench. They reached a slope that led up towards sunlight - Visimar climbed up with ease, but Callidus tripped and landed face-first in the dirt. As Kharmir used his glaive to pole vault up the slope, he grabbed Callidus' arm and heaved him up towards the exit. They breached the surface just in time, and lay out on the wet grass while the opening behind them filled with soil. 

The tunnel had led them to a ring of white and yellow matter at the edge of the Fenmarrow Forest: bones - animal and human - lain out in a perfectly concentric circle. In the centre was a deep, fifteen-feet wide crater, inside which lay more bone matter, ground up into a fine powder like dust in a mortar. Visimar sifted through the crater, finding a small gold band amidst the bone matter, as well as a few lumps of crushed wax. Kharmir spotted footprints nearby: large, three-toed, claw-like. Ghohlbrorn footprints. 

And so it is written.

Campaign One: Chapter XII - The Pit of Proving

A gladiator faces a test of endurance in the pit

An Unsuccessful Ambush

Luctoras 21st Concord, 30 Fifth Age

Shocked by the appearance of figures from his past, Vilwyn took the Reforged aside and warned them that something was wrong. He told the group that the men were dangerous bandits that he knew from his past. Surprised by Vilwyn's association with such villains, the Reforged decided to lure them out of the bar to a place where the party could ambush and slay them. Vilwyn magically disguised himself as the bandits' leader, Aedwerd, and went over to their table. The men were shocked by his arrival but greeted him enthusiastically, saying that they had not expected to see him, but assuring him that they were looking fastidiously for new recruits. Vilwyn-as-Aedwerd told them stonily to meet him in the alley beside the butcher's to give a full report. 

Meanwhile, the Reforged took up their positions in said alleyway. Visimar clung to the wall, high enough to be unseen; Callidus hid behind a disused barrel, while Kharmir hid inside it, peering through a hole in the wood. Vilwyn arrived, still in Aedwerd's guise, and prepared for the bandits' arrival. They did not appear. Undeterred, the party waited longer. A halfling and a young woman arrived in the alley, and the Reforged readied their strikes, but it quickly became clear that the pair were lovers in a secret rendezvous. Vilwyn cleared his throat, and the pair hurried away. Kharmir ventured back into the Three Badgers Inn, and found that the bandits' booth was empty, their drinks abandoned. 

Guessing that the bandits had suspected their deception, the party inquired with the barman as to their steading. Grimley revealed that the men were staying in room number four, and Vilwyn suggested a midnight ambush to the group. Meanwhile, Callidus asked more about the note that had been left for him at the bar -

Grimley explained that it was left by a young woman in her twenties, with a trace of an Armathainian accent. Callidus didn't recognise the description, but knew the spider seal of his mistress, the Collectress. They still had a few hours before sundown, so the party decided to head into the River Village to investigate the note.

The Collectress' Agent

The River Village was a smoky, roughly oblong settlement clustered around the muddy road towards the mountains. The streets were small and crowded, bustling with fishermen and tradespeople making their living from the half-hundred quays along the river. Its leaning timber buildings housed bait shacks, pot shops, warehouses, merchant's stalls, alehouses, and brothels. Along the walk, the party asked Callidus about the Collectress, otherwise known as 'Arania of the Deep,' in whose name Callidus had slain Otis Bolger for the crime of slander. Visimar recalled the words of Mama Marianne, who had described Callidus as 'indebted to the spider queen', but Callidus resented the moniker. He explained that Arania was the woman who took him in and taught him the value of culture and collection - it is in her image that Callidus accumulates trinkets from his travels.

After searching the River Village for an hour, Callidus happened across a house with a red crab painted over the door. He and Visimar went in, while Kharmir and Vilwyn stood guard at the door. Inside were racks upon racks of woven rugs, with an open door onto a quay in the River Stane. Operating a loom was a woman, whose pale blonde hair was clasped in a spider clip behind her head. The stranger ran to Callidus and embraced him, saying 'Callidus! It has been so long!' before whispering in his ear: 'You're in deep shit.' As it turned out, the woman was an agent of the Collectress by the name of Lorie, and she had been waiting for Callidus' return on behalf of their shared benefactor. After making sure that Visimar could be trusted, she demanded a report on Callidus' mission. Awkwardly, Callidus explained that the Swamp Snakes endeavor had fallen through due to soured negotiations, while the Emerald Brewery deal had done the same due to its proprietor being a dangerous cult leader that Callidus had to put down. Lorie asked who he wanted to relay the news, and Callidus decided to do it himself, hoping that his close relationship with the Collectress would lessen her wrath. Lorie agreed. 'Looks like you're not getting out, after all,' she said.

Outside, Kharmir asked Vilwyn about the men at the inn. Vilwyn explained that they were members of the Bannerless, the dregs of a formerly noble company of sellswords that turned to brigandry after the Battle of Mar Mulkaan decimated their numbers. After Mar Mulkaan, the band splintered, turning on each other and hanging several on suspicion of treachery. The three men in the tavern were some of the worst that remained - Peeler, a torturer with a penchant for skinning his victims; Ohtar Kondhorie, an elven archer from the Fenmarrow swamps; and Rask, a huge and brutally strong lizardfolk with a cannibalistic streak. Peeler was personally responsible for skinning the Bannerless' spymaster, Gilvolio, alive. Though murder was typically against his code, Vilwyn believed that ridding the realm of such men was a mercy, not a sin.

The Pit of Proving

Callidus and the Reforged bid farewell to Lorie and, as the sun began to set, went back through the River Gate into the city. Crowds massed on the rough stone steps leading up Petra's Cairn, the second of Stonecross' great crags. The Pit of Proving - a huge stone colosseum built out of the mountain itself - stood beneath a canopy of grey stormclouds that gathered overhead. The dusty iron gate clanged, and the swell of the crowd carried the Reforged towards it. The party spotted a red-bearded man moving against the flow of the crowd - he appeared to be searching for someone, frantically addressing stronger-built people in the crowd. Vilwyn approached him and the man asked if they were warriors. The Black Hammers, a team of fighters, had dropped out of the imminent games and the organisers required a replacement. When the man mentioned the potential prize of one thousand gold pieces, the party enthusiastically agreed.

The Pit of Proving

Inside the arena, the air was abuzz as spectators anxiously awaited the fight. The seats of the colosseum stretched upward row after row, and the Lord's Box was cloaked in shadow. The Reforged were taken to the holding area, a bleak rough-cut stone cell beneath the pit itself. Slats in the ceiling provide a better view of the Lord's Box. The barefoot Marshal, now wearing a heavy chain of office over his roughspun grey shift, sat with a smith's hammer lying across his lap. Beside him, sat on a stone stool, was the Lord of Stonecross, Slean Stylflint, Son of the Hanged, with a bleak-looking face and premature grey hairs in his auburn beard. Around the Lord was his court - his wife, children, advisors and huscarls, as well as his court mage: an elven man with pale, white hair, clutching a staff made of glittering black stone. There was also a place in the Box for foreign dignitaries, which was occupied by a long-haired old man in a wheelchair, a circlet around his head, a white and grey shawl over his legs. 

In the holding cells, the Reforged were faced with their fellow fighters - The Mountain Birds, a group of tribespeople with painted faces and feathered cowls; Storm's Call: a group of human, half-elf and halfling soldiers wearing uniform armour; and The Stonecarvers: a more colourful assembly of adventurers consisting of an elderly human wizard named Thandemar, a hulking goliath brute named Baldur, a lithe and agile catfolk named Rufus, and a cunning half-elf named Aelfric. Aelfric introduced himself and his troupe, and engaged in a brief trade of barbs with the Reforged. Kharmir became aware that the half-elf's words were laced with an enchantment, perhaps designed to intimidate his opponents, but luckily the Reforged resisted his magic. 

A blaring horn marked the beginning of the ceremony, followed by the beating of hooves. Ten horses emerged from the huge gate at the end of the arena, armoured and painted with blue spirals across their necks and flanks, ridden by shirtless riders daubed with the same patterns. A Stylflint banner - four arches on blue and black - flew behind a flag bearing the fist-clenched lightning bolt of Borrak the Stormlord. A march of shaven-headed priests entered, their grey robes cut low to show off their painted, muscled chests. They were followed by a procession of axe dancers - thickset men and women tossing hand-axes to one another in a dazzling display of physical aptitude. War horns blared, and the procession livened with dances of joy, rhythmic chants accompanied by the clapping of hands, making as much noise and celebration as possible. Finally, the last of the priests brought out a heavy stone bowl, and presented it to the Marshal in the Lord's Box. It was ferried to the Marshal by attendants, and - using thick stone tongs - a sparking crystal was carefully lifted from the bowl and placed before the Marshal, who proclaimed, 

'My pilgrimage is at an end! Your Marshal has sat upon the peak of his ancestors and weathered the storm. All weakness is eroded, and I return, my body and soul honed. It is my honour to announce the commencement of this great ceremony, in the name of Slean Stylflint, Lord of Stonecross, and Borrak the Stormlord, our divine protector!'

He took his carved hammer from his belt and smashed it upon the crystal, which broke in one blow, releasing a bolt of lightning into the sky that momentarily darkened all else. The crowd drew back in awe. And the games began.

The Beast Hunt

First came the minor hunts, conducted by teams of hunters from the town. A few mountain lions were hunted and slain, followed by hyenas from the far south of Cyrenos that were released and killed with throwing axes to cheers from the audience. Then came the major hunts. The Mountain Birds took on a two-headed giant, which smashed one of their number to a pulp. Storm's Call fought a giant crocodile, though two of their number were irreparably mauled. Next, the Stonecarvers fought and slew two owlbears without taking injury. Throughout the hunts, the arena molded and changed, operated by a complex network of pulleys and chains in the mountain. As Aelfric returns to the holding area, covered in the blood of the creature, he laughed. 'That leaves you with the big one,' he said, and did not elaborate.

Finally, it was the Reforged's turn. As they rose from the holding area, they saw that the arena had altered again: a maze of 10-foot-deep trenches had sunken into the stone. In the centre of the arena, chained to a stake, was a large winged lizard, about 20-feet long, covered in slate-grey scales. Orange eyes gleamed in its serpentine face, and its jaws were filled with sharp teeth. It had a pair of hind legs below its sinuous body, and its tail - comprising almost half of its body - ended in a thick cartilage knot with a stinger protruding out of it, not unlike that of a scorpion. As it assessed its new adversaries, its neck swelled and vocalized a throaty growl.

Callidus dealt the first blow, firing a crossbow bolt into the wyvern's sinewy underbelly to cheers from the ground. Kharmir rushed forth with his greatsword, while Vilwyn concentrated a harmful bane upon the creature. Visimar slipped into the trench and ran along the wall, alighting his blade with blood-flame. As the wyvern lashed out with its claws and made to take flight, Kharmir's binding oath held it within a certain radius, while Visimar hauled himself onto the creature's spined back. The wyvern's wings beat furiously, lifting it to the limits of Kharmir's oath, as the floor above the trenches sizzled with underfloor fire, heating everything in contact with it. The Reforged lunged into the trench maze, attacking from below while the wyvern swung down fruitlessly with its claws. Visimar stabbed the wyvern in the wing, tearing through the leathery skin, but was not prepared for the wyvern's stinger that impaled him through the back and out the chest, pulsing poison into his veins. As Visimar fell, Kharmir rushed from the trench, lunged onto the creature and decapitated it with his gleaming greatsword. The crowd erupted in cheers.

The Grand Feota

The Reforged had little time to recuperate, for next came the Grand Feota, the great game at the heart of Alagosian pit-fighting. Soon, they and the Stonecarvers were hauled back up to the pit. Huge chains had been strung across the upper reaches of the arena. Wrapped up in iron, two slabs dangled in the centre, each carved by the stonemasons to bear the bearded visage of Borrak. A herald stepped up, and proclaimed: 

'And now, for the main event! Our Grand Feota differs every tournament. Over centuries, blood has stained the stone below, the weak have been weeded and the strong have triumphed to fame. Tonight, the great game is a test of strength, team-play and endurance. Who can carry Borrak's Burden?' 

The object of the game was to carry the stones to the 15-foot-tall platforms at either end of the arena, placed upon the anvil, and sundered. The first team to carry their slab to the anvil and break it wins the contest.

Starting at opposite ends of the arena, the first major scuffle between the Reforged and the Stonecarvers came in the centre as they struggled to loose the stones from their chains. Rufus displayed an uncommon speed, darting across the arena, though her attempt to break the chain failed. The Reforged engaged her and her team in combat, trying and failing several times to break the chains, before Kharmir decided to climb onto Visimar's shoulders into melee range. He swung his greatsword, slicing through the links, but as the stone fell it was instead picked up by Baldur, who began to run (though encumbered) across the arena towards the Stonecarvers' anvil. Kharmir gave chase, knocking it from Baldur's hands and stealing it back. Meanwhile, Callidus targeted Thandemar, whose magical attacks had been harrying the party from afar, and severed his right leg, knocking him prone.

Tailed by Baldur, Kharmir dropped his stone to leave his hands free to turn and knock the goliath unconscious. Rufus dived in to steal the stone before being intercepted by Vilwyn's mace. Though the tides seemed to be turning in the Reforged's favour, Aelfric dropped Callidus to the ground before Thandemar (from the floor) conjured a cloud of magical fog that obscured the fight zone. The party glanced around, seeing only hazy silhouettes moving in the mist, before Rufus darted out and scooped up the stone, having been revived by Aelfric. On the steps of the anvil platform, Vilwyn healed Callidus, who rushed over to silence the wizard for good, only to be caught in Thandemar's magical flame and incapacitated. While Kharmir put Aelfric out of the fight, Visimar yanked the stone from Rufus' grip and knocked Rufus to the dirt before making his way up to the anvil. At last, the Reforged had won. Kharmir tended to Aelfric's wounds while the crowd roared. The Marshal gave a nod of respect. A crate of gold was placed before the Reforged, who took their winnings with delight. However, before they descended back into the holding area, Vilwyn spotted three figures in the crowd who were holding their applause, and could tell from the third man's hulking frame that they were the Bannerless. 

In the holding area, the veiled pit attendants tended to the fighters' wounds. The Stonecarvers' regarded their victors with begrudging respect before being taken deeper into the arena for specialist treatment. The pit attendants were ushered out, and a visitor entered the room: the pale elven man from the Lord's Box. His name was Rogeiros, Archmage of Stonecross. Rogeiros said that he recognised the fighters' description from the scholar's report earlier that day, and was curious to know why gladiators would be investigating such esoterica. He healed Kharmir's stomach wound and Callidus' burns, and asked the Reforged to elaborate on their inquiries. Grateful for the elf's help, Visimar explained what had happened to him when he was abducted from the Sunless Lands by men in red hoods. With Visimar's abnormal abilities in mind, Rogeiros recalled the name 'Sanguinari' in relation to a shadowy cult of kidnappers with a penchant for blood magic. The group's activities were shrouded in obscurity, and that was the extent of even Rogeiros' knowledge on the matter. The Reforged thanked him, but Visimar wasn't quite finished. He drew from his cloak the black iron coin taken from Osborn Tealeaf's locket and showed it to the elf, who identified it as an infernal coin, minted in the molten halls of the Nine Hells. He warned the group of the danger presented by such an item, and suggested taking it with him to Turnshale Tower for analysis. Visimar declined, and the party was surprised by Rogeiros' lack of protest. When asked why he was willing to let strangers keep such an artefact, Rogeiros said that it was for the same reason that any man turns to the arcane arts, and why he was exiled from the elven enclave of Vanga Irina: curiosity. After all, they were not strangers any more. 

And so it is written.

Campaign One: Chapter XI - Arms and Arrivals

Attack of the Pallid Men

The Pallid Men

Dametras 19th Concord, 30 Fifth Age

With his new friend lying dead, Vilwyn's warning alerted the campsite to their attackers, and Alice woke to find a pair of Pallid Men dragging her from her bed by her ankle. The Rangers scrambled for their weapons, Kharmir rushed to his feet and drew his blade while Callidus melted into the trees to harry the forest dwellers from afar. It became clear that one of their number was a shaman of some kind, whose blood magics caused a nest of spikes to spread across the campsite, endangering all who walked upon it. Injured by Callidus' thrown daggers, the shaman tried to flee, but was beheaded by Kharmir's flaming sword. Visimar and Byron lunged at Alice's attackers, with Visimar sinking his teeth into one. Byron was injured by one of the Pallid Men's spears, but retaliated with a hammer blow that caved in its head and freed his daughter. While Byron and Alice staggered away, Vilwyn healed a wounded Kharmir, and Visimar's Curse of the Fallen Puppet reanimated a dead Pallid Man to finish off the last. 

The group gathered around while Vilwyn cast a prayer of healing to close their wounds. Looting the bodies of the slain Pallid Men, they found that the strange leathery masks they wore were made of tanned human skin, peeled from previous victims and worn as a kind of ritual attire. Kharmir also revealed that he had taken a spear to the belly, causing a punctured stomach which could not be healed by the magic Vilwyn was capable of. Alarmed, the party made plans to hurry to Stonecross and allow Kharmir some time to recuperate naturally. The following morning, they bid farewell to the Rangers of Roamere and continued along the Stumpmarsh Trail.

Leaving Fenmarrow

Lunas 20th Concord, 30 Fifth Age

The Reforged carried on along the road after the night's encounter with the Pallid Men, soaked in blood and muck. Alice trembled from the shock, held tightly in her father's arms. The trees began to thin, the canopy overhead letting more and more sunlight through as the cart neared the edge of the Fenmarrow Forest. The mud here was thicker than it was upon arrival in Correnwald, giving the impression of recent rainfall. Several times, the party had to slow down to let the horse navigate its way through waterlogged dips or sinking mud patches.

After a while, Vilwyn's keen eye noticed that the path ahead was blocked by a pool of grimy black mud overlain with rotten leaves and plant matter. Bubbles of displaced air burst on the surface, releasing a foul sulphurous stench into the air. Vilwyn hurled a stick into the muck, and it sank down fully beneath. Realising that the path was impassable in a cart, the party freed the horse from its restraints and continued the rest of the way on foot. 

Finally, after two weeks of murk and misery, the dim pink light of evening sun shone through the trunks. Not quite believing their luck, the party burst out of the treeline and found themselves, at last, outside the Fenmarrow Forest. Ahead, the Stumpmarsh Trail continued along a soft boggy plain, lined with the stumps of chopped tree trunks. A few mills and farmsteads littered the marsh, farming bogroot, while a ruined watchtower stood nearby, abandoned. Exhausted by their march, the party decided to make camp inside the watchtower, where they found the remnants of an old campfire, as well as a nearby pond, in which Byron washed the mud and blood out of his daughter's hair. Visimar found a rusty helmet amidst the rubble, bearing the mark of a regiment of the old Stonecross armies, during the days of the Swamp Kings and Storm Kings. It was most likely an army under one of the many King Dunstans of Stonecross, though they were so numerous throughout history that the scholars stopped counting. The party settled down to rest, with Kharmir keeping well away from Visimar to ensure that his injured belly did not trigger any uncontrollable bloodlust within the dhampir. 

Luctoras 21st Concord, 30 Fifth Age

The next morning, the party continued their walk for another few hours across the marshland, past patches of bogroot, hops and wild rice, and windmills that spin dully in the breeze. In the distance, a few farmers stood knee-deep in miniature lakes, cultivating their wetland crops. Cresting the fold of a hill, a dark wall of jagged peaks broke the skyline ahead, before slowly unveiling out into the massive Dragonspine range, blocking the horizon behind a spiked ridge of rock. The mountains were unfathomably vast, and only the foothills of the larger mountains to the north. Below these grand summits, at the edge of a large river that gleams in the midday sun, lay the Most Ancient City of Stonecross, Alagost's oldest settlement. 

Stonecross Ahead

Where Correnwald was a ramshackle handful of buildings clustered at the water's edge, exposed to the dangers of the Fenmarrow Forest, Stonecross was massive, encircled by 15-foot stone walls studded with watchtowers and its four huge gates, one at each compass point. Since the Sack of Stonecross thirty-three years ago, considerable amounts of time and gold was poured into the city's not-inconsiderable fortifications. Two vast crags dominated the city skyline in the north and south corners, fringed by sheer cliffs on the outer side and natural stone stairs on the inner. The northern crag, named Petra's Cairn, was surmounted by an ancient stone ringfort that now houses an imposing temple to the Stormlord. The southern crag, the largest, bore a vast and terrific stone keep, roughly-drum shaped, surrounded by threefold walls that fly the blue-and-black banners of House Stylflint. 

The Stone Drum of Stonecross

Awe-struck, the Reforged took in this impressive sight, only to be interrupted by a farmer's cart coming from behind, laden with hops. The party got talking to the farmer, who introduced himself as Edric, and asked if they were heading into Stonecross to celebrate the Marshal's return. Curious, the party inquired further, and learned that Marshal Dulgrum, head of the Stormlord faith in the city, had been into the Dragonspine on a pilgrimage, and the Stonecross was hosting a festival for his return. Having only stopped briefly in the city before their excursion to Correnwald, the party asked Edric for advice - namely, where Visimar and Kharmir could find a centre of knowledge, and where Byron could find work. Edric told them that Turnshale Tower was the home of the city's resident archmage - an exile from the elven enclave of Vanga Irina - which had a small library attached to it, accessible by appointment only. He also directed them towards Hewan, a noted smith who might be able to provide work if he had need of a new apprentice. The party bid thanks to the farmer and allowed him passage.

As they walked down towards the city, Vilwyn noticed Alice trembling, and asked Byron about her welfare. Byron was disturbed by the ceaselessness of the torment she had endured, from the death of her mother, to her imprisonment by the Needlefang goblins, and now the attack of the Pallid Men. Vilwyn asked if he might be able to ease her distress by magical means, and Byron acquiesced. Taking Alice's hand, he spoke to her in soft tones, and promised her that she was safe now, that the party would find her comfortable lodgings in the city, and that she and her father could start anew. In doing so, he allowed a warming magic to pass through his hand into hers, and he noticed her troubled expression cleared somewhat. For the first time as long as they'd known her, Alice spoke, whispering a thanks.

It began to rain, the clouds overhead broiling in typical Alagost fashion. Shored up against the city's north wall, the ramshackle Marsh Town lay dirty and in a widespread state of disrepair. The streets between the tightly-built, crooked buildings were made of packed dirt: uneven, rutted and muddy. Structures had received similar low levels of care, and most were built out of splintery timbers. Pigs and sheep grazed in narrow pens, soaked in mud. The smell of wet earth and manure was rife, accompanied by the sound of hooves, mingling conversations, distant shouts, and the barking of dogs. As they went, the Reforged got a few intrigued looks from the passers-by, who were unused to travellers, even at the height of summer. 

The foot traffic grew heavier near the gate: a huge, 15-foot wide portcullis kept shut. Decorated with tree-root patterns and crocodile bones, the gatehouse was poorly-maintained, its much-crumbled stone walkways and towers replaced by wooden banisters and thatch roofs. As the Reforged approached, they found the gate manned by guards of the Stonecross City Watch, dressed in blue-and-black surcoats stamped with the four arches of the Stylflint crest, over chainmail and greaves, and pointed half-helms with nasal strips. The party glimpsed a cart ahead being searched for contraband, and quickly resolved to stuff any suspicious or illicit items they discovered in Correnwald into their socks and the seams of their jackets. However, as they approached, the guards saw the impoverished Alice and Byron, and allowed the ragtag group through the gate without much delay.

Market Games

The city within the walls was very, very old. The streets were wide, former dirt tracks that had recently been cobbled over. Some buildings were timber, but most were stone, with steeply-pitched roofs of dark grey slate. The rain came down in sheets, and the clouds cast a gloom across the whole city. Locals ran to and fro, shawls, cloaks and hoods pulled over their heads to shield them from the wet. 

The four main roads of Stonecross converged at Dunstan's Square, named for one of the many King Dunstans of this city during the pre-Ceonred days. As the Reforged arrived, the forum hosted a kind of multicoloured bazaar of cloth tents and awnings, all clustered around a natural dais in the centre of the square, which hosted the First Stone - a large, roughly-cubic boulder with a notch in the top, still used as a chopping block. All around, hooded workers perched on precarious ladders replaced the golden ribbons of the just-passed Highsun festival with lightning-bolt banners to celebrate the pilgrimage's end. Despite the overcast sky, the market was alive with chatter and music that carries over the harsh wind. Alongside the merchants, a few games stalls were set up within tents to keep them out of the rain. Judging from the streamers still attached to some of their tents, they had been here since Highsun, but stayed up for this extra day of festivities in the city.

First, Vilwyn went to the taskboard at the edge of the square to investigate the state of things in the city. It was mostly plastered with information about the Marshal's return, including a programme for gladiator games at the Pit of Proving that night, which the party resolved to attend. Also on the noticeboard was a flyer for a local play - The Pennant of Red and Gold - at a theatre called the Rockery; a note stamped with the Stylflint sigil, warning of bandits taken up at Fort Siward along the mountain road; an official-looking note from the city watch, inquiring after sellswords to slay a roaming beast; and tucked away, almost hidden beneath the rest, was a scrawled note: 'HELP WANTED: Must be discreet and skilled with arms. Ask for Gilderbone at the Three Badgers Inn.'

Meanwhile, the rest of the party decided to unwind by partaking in some games. First, they went to a game called Dwarven Anvil - run by three members of the Stonemason's Guild, the object of the game was to dislodge a heavy stone cube from a fulcrum-mounted bar by striking the opposite end with a hammer. Visimar tried first, but failed, so instead he went in search of food. Despite his injury, Kharmir stepped up and succeeded first try, winning the pot of thirty-eight gold pieces and stunning the stonemasons. Callidus returned from an archery competition with all three prizes - a basket of raspberries, a stone medallion shaped like a bird of prey, and a mouse from a cage - and joined the party beside the First Stone, where they all ate some local lamb pasties, relishing the taste after weeks of gruel. The party then turned to the arm wrestling tent, hosted by a shaven-headed member of the Stormlord's clergy, and after playing a few games against each other, Kharmir challenged the champion - the priest himself - and narrowly won.

The Marshal's Return

Victor, the travelling merchant

After partaking in the festivities, the party happened across a familiar elderly gnome, who had relocated to Stonecross since leaving the swamp. Despite the party's warm greetings, Victor inexplicably pretended that he had never seen them before in his life. The party cast an eye over his offerings, and Vilwyn decided to buy a jar of beige jelly. However, when he tried to open it, Victor shrieked in panic and lunged to prevent him. The party bid farewell to the merchant and hoped to see him again. Before they could leave, however, a fanfare rose from the city's south, and the sound of a parade drifted down the River Road. A crowd materialised and the party were pressed up against the stalls, knocking Victor's table over to the gnome's indignation. A man in blue led the way through the square, ringing a bell. "Make way! Make way for the Marshal! Make way!" A man followed behind - physically massive, at least seven feet tall, musclebound and square-jawed, with a shaved head like a boulder and knuckles like marbles. Beneath the hem of his ragged grey tunic, his feet were bare and caked in mud, dust and dried blood. A cheer rose up in the square, with cries of "Dulgrum!" "Hail the Marshal!" and "Stormlord's blessings!" The herald and the Marshal turned up the road into the Stonestairs district and begin making their way up the King's Cairn.

Before turning in, Kharmir and Visimar went to Turnshale Tower, where an Ermet scholar found them perusing the gardens. Kharmir asked for knowledge on fallen Dwarven civilisations, while Visimar asked for information on cults and demonic influence. The scholar noted down their interests, and their willingness to exchange information, and promised to speak to Archmage Rogeiros on their behalf.

At last, the party went down to the Three Badgers Tavern, down Elder Way in the city's Old Town: a solid stone building on the main road, within eyeshot of the Old Gate, three stories tall with turrets and chimneys made of slate-grey stone. A thatch-roofed stable was attached to the east side of the inn, and a wooden shield depicting three gamboling badgers hung outside the front door. Inside was a spacious but cosy common room, lit by a circular firepit in the middle and overseen by three eight-foot statues of badgers on their hind legs. There was a lower area in the middle of the room and several booths clustered between wooden pillars around the outside, while a balcony ran around the entire room, forming the upper level of the tavern, connected to the lower by a cramped narrow staircase. The bartender was Grimley, an overweight man in his sixties with an ugly cleft in his head and a silk wrap around his right eye. He often claimed to have lost his eye in the Sack of Stonecross, having managed to fight off three men himself with only a tankard and a broken sword. Grimley asked his guests to write their names in a ledger, and recognised Callidus by name, handing him a note which had been left at the bar for him by a young woman in her twenties.

Meanwhile, Vilwyn looked around. The taproom was stocked with people, and he could tell from the girded tunics and amber brooches that they were locals, or at least Alagosian. Their simplistic clothing made the non-locals stand out ever more. A man in a yellow cloak sat alone in the furthest corner, keeping a keen eye on the room over the rim of his tankard, and three figures sat at a table in the middle of the room, drinking and laughing loudly between themselves. The first was a bald man with a pockmarked face, wearing a bandolier of wickedly sharp knives of various shapes. The second was a fairly small man, who wouldn't be much over five foot if he was stood up, with a narrow, clever face and slightly pointed ears, with a skin tone bordering between tan and very pale green. The third was a massive, fearsome-looking creature, scaled all over, with the flat head of a lizard, his spine, brow and jaw studded with bone spikes.

Vilwyn blanched. He knew these men, and they knew him.

Campaign One: Chapter X - The Draw of Fate

Leaving Correnwald

Saturnas 18th Concord, 30 Fifth Age

After collecting some foul bilgecap mushrooms and transferring Vilwyn's thundertoad to Kharmir's care, the Reforged made their way back to Correnwald, where the moon was high and the mud-soaked streets empty of life. With a bottle of Kastalavic wine between them, they sat upon the roof of the Taproot Inn, looking up at the sky, drinking to their bittersweet success, and discussing their theories as to the origin of the world. Kharmir explained that, in Dwarven tradition, all life is believed to have sprung forth from the Great Crucible, including the gods - and those gods have different faces to the pantheon of Ia. Visimar pointed out that every culture has a different understanding of the divine - in the Sunless Lands, the stars are worshipped as immortal angels and givers of eternal life. Vilwyn recalled a tale he heard from a turtle, who believed that all matter once existed in confluence: a pinprick of boiling soup that burst all things into being one day, without the touch of the gods. The group laughed at that idea. 

The next morning, Visimar went to prepare Byron for their leaving. When he went to the library, Ario declined to abandon Correnwald, believing that someone must stay to record the town's goings-on, or else news of plots like Tealeaf's might never leave the confines of the forest. Though saddened to part with the librarian, the party wished him farewell, and hoped to see him again one day. With their goodbyes bid, the Reforged took the Emerald Brewery cart that Visimar had parked behind the inn, piled it high with supplies, collected Byron and Alice from the forge, and set off into the swamp. As the cart trundled away through the muck, passers-by turned up their hoods and hats to fix the party with a dark stare. As they passed through the dilapidated Planks district and onto the Stumpmarsh Trail, Alice and Byron looked back at the town, and Byron lay a hand on his daughter's shoulder. Together, they left the puddles, roadplanks, and stench of decay behind, as Correnwald disappeared between the bow-backed trees, and the rest of the world lay before them.

While Vilwyn drove and Callidus kept watch from the passenger seat, Visimar and Kharmir sat in the back of the cart and discussed their plans for Stonecross and beyond. Sturmenfell was their ultimate goal, but it was unclear which way their path would take them after that. Visimar explained that he had loved a woman in the Sunless Lands, but she disappeared. Before he could find her, Visimar was abducted in the dead of night, stolen by a gang of men in red hoods. Under a powerful sleep enchantment, Visimar was bundled into a cart, then a ship, then a cell. When he awoke, he was thousands of miles away. What happened in the cell remained a blur, but the experiments they performed on Visimar were long, complex and agonisingly painful. For years, their scalpels tore him apart and reshaped him into something new. When it was done, he was but a shell of himself, drained of blood and desperately hungry. His body was stronger, and a new, terrible power stirred within him. But his spirit was broken. They called him a ‘vessel’, but Visimar felt like nought but a monster. Ripping free of his restraints, Visimar slew his captors and fled into the night, braving Kastalav’s haunted wilderness. Chased by twisted abominations of flesh and magic – the failed experiments that came before him – Visimar travelled south across the Middle Kingdoms until he reached Alagost. His skin blistered under the sun, so he travelled at night, flitting between inns and dives. One day, he wished to return to the Sunless Lands, and redeem himself for the monstrous acts he has committed in the throes of his blood-hunger. Kharmir promised to help him, assuring him that a man's dark deeds do not define him. It is what comes after those deeds that matters. Kharmir spoke of a sister that he lost in the fall of Norod Dulum - if he could not avenge her, he would at least do his part to honour her memory.

The Witch Hut

Mama Marianne's House of Fortunes

Past the spot of the Needlefang ambush twelve days ago, the party made camp under a withering tree, near a pond clogged with algae. Visimar managed to forage a few struggling brown minnows and berries from tangled thickets. That night, Vilwyn dreamt of Mar Mulkaan - of an iron fortress engulfed in emerald flame, of compatriots boiling in their armour, of coating himself in mud until he sank lower and lower, suffocating him. When he awoke, bolt upright, he noticed something flitting between the trees: a mote of golden light, gently bobbing in the night. He took his mace and moved closer, noticing a second light further ahead, then another, then another. Suspicious, Vilwyn roused Visimar, who stalked ahead, following the trail while Vilwyn awoke the rest of the party. Leaving Callidus to keep watch over Alice and Byron, the three ventured into the woods, and found that the lights were leading to a huge domed hut on an island ringed by shallow water and reeds. Orange light glowed in the windows, and smoke billowed from a chimney above, the chirp of crickets and bellow of frogs resounding all about the clearing. Tentatively, the party made their way inside.

The door creaked open at a touch. Inside was a strangle, multicoloured chamber, gossamer-thin gauzes and woven veils hung over the walls' splintery beams. Chimes and chains dangled from the ceiling, jangling and clinking. Some were connected to cages of live animals (rats, toads, canaries, tarantulas) and the walls were lined with shelves upon shelves of jars - each stuffed with mysterious objects pickled in brine - wax stalactites of burned candles, bottles of insects and bones. A vast looking glass the size of a human stood draped in a red linen sheet, and on the tabletop in the middle of the room lay a brilliant red-gold tourmaline gemstone mounted on a spike; beside it, a charcoal etching, framed in gold, of two beautiful women.

Vilwyn called 'hello?', and a whisper answered, as if part of the winds whistling between the boards: 'Welcome, my dears. Won't you sit awhile? I don't see visitors very often. '

Suddenly, at the table sat a beautiful young woman with dark skin and dark hair tied up in a loose bun, wearing a very thin silk dress that hung quite suggestively from her form. Her fingers steepled in front of her, crowned with long, fine nails. In dulcet tones, the beautiful woman before them introduced herself as Mama Marianne, and bade to sit before her whomever wished to seek their fate. She brandished a deck of cards, each emblazoned with a unique sigil. For each who sat before her, she would draw three cards - one for the past, one for the present, and one for the future. Brazen, Visimar sat first, and demanded to know how she possessed such insight. Marianne waved her hand over the tourmaline, revealing it as no tourmaline at all, but a jaundiced yellow eye, with a horizontal pupil like a goat, veined red and staring with malice. 'I had a sister,' explained the witch. 'She was younger than me, but had not the means to preserve her beauty. Envy is a powerful thing, and so we came to feud, and then to violence. It only settled when I took her eye. She is always with me. Not even blood can wash away the stain of love. And there is much use in a witch's eye.'

Drawing the Cards

Visimar's first card was The Beast, depicting a slavering wild monster. 'There is something dark within you, Visimar Von Tann. A bestial sickness festers in your heart. You believe it was put there by an outside malefactor, but you are wrong. Your sickness grows of pain. All they did was match your body to the monster within.' His second was the One of Swords, depicting a weary warrior clutching a bloody sword. 'Interesting... you have embarked... or perhaps finished?... a quest for revenge, to right a great wrong. You have stitched the wound in your soul, and your blood-hunger has faltered.' His third was The Ghost, depicting a veiled, translucent woman. 'Your path cries out to be seen. The Ghost portends the looming past: the return of an old enemy, or the discovery of a secret buried long ago. Perhaps both. Time will tell.'

The tarot of Mama Marianne

Vilwyn was next. Sat opposite Mama Marianne, he pointed to the charcoal portrait and asked if it showed her and her sister. Marianne only smiled, and drew his first card: The Horseman, depicting a knight astride a withered steed. 'The horseman rides ahead of death. A terrible defeat lies in your past. I hear the sound of beating hooves, the roar of flame, the screams of burning men. You have bled, and have clawed yourself from the mouth of hell into divine redemption.' His second card was the Two of Swords, which showed a helmed swordsman bathed in sunlight. 'I need no card to see that you are a holy warrior; the talisman at your neck speaks to that. But your faith runs deeper than meaningless ritual. Your honour lies deep in your heart. I see a rare honest soul within you, Vilwyn Amel.' His final card was the Four of Glyphs, which showed a lonely man clutching a crook. 'The shepherd guides those who cannot guide themselves. The blind and the tempted, the cruel and the weak. Though your resolve will be tested, you must stay the path. Your flock will perish without you.'

Lastly, Kharmir took his place in the seat opposite Mama Marianne. His first card was the Three of Swords, depicting a lone sentry on a great castle wall. 'You have lived a life of war and sacrifice. You have stood as a watcher on the walls as blood ran between the bricks. Hardship struck you down, and from the ashes did you rise. But you are adrift, unaligned with the ages. My condolences. Which of your lost ones do you most yearn for, Kharmir Stoutbreaker?' Second came the Eight of Glyphs, bearing a mitred hierophant with a halo about his outstretched hand. 'You cling to a code or belief, unyielding. This code guides your hand, for better or for worse, whether it be to raise your shield over the innocent or swing your sword as executioner.' And finally, The Mists, a card showing only opaque gloom. This was the first card that seemed to surprise the witch. 'Great mystery lies ahead of you. Something unexpected and yet as inexorable as the turn of winter. Whether a great quest or an arduous journey, it will try your spirit under a weight you have never borne.' 

Kharmir stood, but Marianne was not yet done. She pointed out that one of their number had not come to the hut: the rogue named Callidus Archia. She had the cards for him, if the party wanted to hear. Vilwyn and Kharmir were unsure - given Marianne's demonstrable divinatory power, they feared that hearing Callidus' fortunes without his consent would be tantamount to a betrayal of confidence. Visimar, however, took the seat again, and the world stood still. The wind fell silent. Vilwyn and Kharmir were gone. When Visimar looked down at his hands, they were no longer pale and long-fingered, but fair and callused, with nails bitten down to the beds. And Mama Marianne addressed Callidus by name.

The first card she drew was the Seven of Coins, bearing a hooded figure with a dagger in one hand, and a coin purse in the other. 'You came from nothing. The street is a cold cradle: one that inspires survival at all costs. All that you have, all that you are, you have taken. And anything that is taken can be lost again.' The second card depicted a marionette dangling from strings held by unseen hands. 'You are entwined in the grip of another woman, a knife turned by pale fingers. Shame. Some blades could be better handled by another. How long will you be indebted to the spider queen, Callidus Archia?' Last, the Eight of Stars bore a figure in black robes, a candle illuminating the skull beneath its hood. 'The Necromancer. This card stands for those who harbour unhealthy obsessions, and follow destructive paths. Unless you sever your strings, you will be led into danger.' For a moment, Visimar stared at the witch, and saw something else reflected in the sliver of glass visible behind the cloth: a hideous and elderly creature of spindly and skeletal proportions, withered and bare-breasted, jagged teeth leering beneath a hooked nose, scraps of hair clinging to a spotted scalp. And then the illusion was dispelled, and Visimar sat at a table opposite no-one. The eye was a gem once more, and the wind whistled through the empty hut. Equally unnerved and enchanted, the party took one last look around the shack before leaving, and as they stepped back onto the marsh, the hut lifted itself onto a crop of spindly spider legs and crawled off between the trees, vanishing into the night. 

A witch is never all she appears...

The Rangers of Roamere

Dametras 19th Concord, 30 Fifth Age

Leaving the night's strange magic behind them, the party set off in the early hours with aching bones and stiff joints. Kharmir found that his face had been bitten by flies in the night, and his scratching brought them up in red welts. A few hours went by, the cart passed a merchant and his mercenary guards heading the opposite way, before Callidus spotted a dark shape in a tree up ahead. Vilwyn hailed it, but it did not respond. Visimar leapt into the branches and stalked closer until he realised it was a corpse, perched halfway up the dead tree, covered in rotted clothes, with a half-torn backpack dangling from one bony arm. Visimar cut down the body and searched through its pack, finding a few tarnished coins, along with a vial of faintly glowing, honey-coloured elixir, the label long since faded. The elixir smelled of acrid vinegar, and Visimar was hesitant to touch it, but Vilwyn recognised it as an insect repellent and handed it to Kharmir. Visimar inspected the corpse closer and found feathered darts embedded in its neck, tipped with traces of purple moss. Alarmed, the party made an expeditious exit, fearing that what killed this poor unfortunate was lurking somewhere nearby.

As the day turned to evening and then to dusk, the road became pitted with bumps and stones, but Vilwyn managed to keep the cart on track. A twig snapped ahead. Vilwyn spotted shapes moving in the trees: flashes of yellow between the murky green leaves. Three people in yellow cloaks stepped out from the forest. Their armour was piecemeal and their skin streaked with muck, but all of them were armed. A man with short blond hair and a scarred face drew a shortsword from his belt and stepped in front of the cart, spooking the mule to a stop. An older man with thinning grey hair and doleful eyes followed behind, a hand on his own blade. A dragonborn with dark green scales stepped out, holding a knife in each hand, and Vilwyn luckily noticed a fourth: a yellow-cloaked woman with a square jaw in the tree nearby, an arrow nocked in her bow. The blond man called out: 'Hark! Halt! You have crossed paths with the Rangers of Roamere. State your business, and pray you are men of honour!'

Vilwyn held up his hands to defuse the situation, and promised that they had no qualms with the Rangers of Roamere. They explained their business and their cargo of civilians, which relaxed the wary yellowcloaks. Their leader, Leolyn, apologised for the intrusion. They were on high alert for the Pallid Men, depraved and murderous wildfolk living in the swamp, who have lived in solitude for so long that they have lost the Common tongue. The Rangers warned of an ambush, and offered the party a sanctuary in their camp for the night. Grateful, the Reforged agreed.

The camp was set in an open clearing, off the trail, surrounded by stonebrick clusters suggestive of a sunken or collapsed fort. The rangers had set up a few simple tents, amounting to boar-hide canvases strung across support poles. Settling around the campfire, the older man, Sherward, played a mouth organ while Grymat the dragonborn whistled a tune. Raedmona handed Alice a knife with a pantano hilt, carved in the shape of a crocodile's head. Sat with Vilwyn, Leolyn explained that the Rangers of Roamere were originally a race of wandering people, the descendants of the original inhabitants of the Fenmarrow Swamp. They were united into a chivalric order under the patronage of the Swamp King of Roamere. Identified by their yellow cloaks clasped by a mangrove brooch, they still persist, though the Swamp Kings died out. They exist to patrol the forest, protecting the lands from brigands, monsters and black magic, though their numbers are severely depleted, and the last of them to venture into the swamp (in search of the source of infernal corruption) never returned. All of the Rangers in the campsite had seen bloodshed. Sherward was a cobbler whose family were killed in the Sack of Stonecross. Grymat saw his son burned when bandits lit his farm ablaze. Raedmona slit the throat of her violent husband and fled the law. The Rangers have fallen far from their glory days, and are now little more than a band of outcasts and broken men. Leolyn pointed out the burn scars on his face, and explained that he was part of a mercenary company who fought at the Battle of Mar Mulkaan, and watched men die by the hundreds on the burning fields. He was taken prisoner by the hobgoblins and tortured in their cells, but escaped and fled back to Alagost. He swore that no amount of gold would ever send him to war again. Vilwyn, a fellow veteran of that dire battle, shared his sentiment, and spent the evening sharing old war stories with Leolyn, and bonding over their rationed food and skins of ale. 

The party settled down to sleep, and Alice watched Vilwyn cast an enchantment to make the fire dance. Leolyn offered to take first watch, and promised to wake Vilwyn for the second. However, when a noise woke Vilwyn in the night, it was not Leolyn, who remained sat still against a ruined wall with his sword across his knees. There was only silence in the camp. Unnerved, Vilwyn went to investigate, and found that Leolyn's throat had been slit like a pig, his lifeblood staining his yellow cloak scarlet. Vilwyn turned to see freakishly pale people emerging from the trees, fully nude save for a strange leathery mask worn over the face, their bodies' pale with the sickly white mud they had coated themselves in. Vilwyn shouted a cry of horror and warning to the campsite. 

And so it is written.