DRAMATIS PERSONAE:
PCS:
BADGER: young female gnome rogue.
GRUMBLE: outcast dwarven fighter/ barbarian, and a heavy drinker.
HEIDIANA: beautiful but egocentric young human sorceress (currently incapacitated).
NIALIA: young elven druidess traveling to gain experience outside her grove.
ROWAN: half-elven ranger woman bitten by the wanderlust bug.
MAJOR NPCS:
ARAVEN: female Lythari of the Wolf Clan.
BRISTLE: unicorn cleric of Ehlonna.
BURN: male Lythari of the Bear Clan.
FATHER TILOK: head priest of Pelor’s temple in Miel.
GRISTLE/ RASCAL: handsome gnome rogue, one-time friend of BADGER.
JARVIS: male sorcerer from Havensford.
ORDERIK: tavernkeeper in Havensford, now employed in Morwen’s in Havensford.
POTTER HOLM: half-elf blacksmith in Miel. Sweet on ROWAN.
QUIRKY “BAND-AID” TIMBERS: gnome cleric of Pelor traveling with the party.
ROBIN: hyper but brilliant gnome inventor who makes custom weapons in Miel.
VICTOR VON HAWKMOOR: head of the Scarlet Claw, has a contract out on the lives
of Grumble and Badger.
THE STORY THUS FAR:
Badger was a young gnome girl living in the kingdom of Cardinia, in the city of Blackreach, where her father ran a successful locksmith shop. She had contacts in the local Thieves Guild, who offered her some freelance work. She took the job, along with Grumble, a surly dwarf who’d been outcast from his kind whom Badger had befriended.
Their job was a success, but during the heist they were forced to kill a young woman who turned out to be the daughter of one Victor von Hawkmoor, a powerful man who headed an organization known as the Scarlet Claw. The Thieves Guild offered Badger and Grumble safe conduct out of the city as caravan guards. On the caravan they met a young sorceress name Heidiana and her familiar, a tiny viper named Mr. Wiggles. Some of the caravan guards turned out to be agents in the employ of the von Hawkmoors, and one night they dragged off Grumble, Badger, and accidentally Heidiana as well, into the Old Forest. Things looked bad, but a pack of wolves attacked the Scarlet Claw men. While that happened, a young elven Druidess named Nialia and her owl Anealis arrived on the scene. She had been tracking the wolves with the aid of a half-elf ranger woman named Rowan. Freeing the bound dwarf, gnome and human sorceress, the five of them fought off the wolves then tracked the leader, a huge black wolf, into the forest. They found the buried ruins of an ancient underground tunnel system thousands of years old. Within these halls they found a towering hulk of a man who called himself Burn. Burn gave them a message to carry to the nearby town of Havensford (which was where the caravan was going), that the forest had once more been poisoned by evil magics, and thus would no longer tolerate the infestation of the sons of men, dwarf, and even elf.
Arriving in Havensford, the party relayed the warning to the town council. An elven bard sang an abbreviated version of the War of Oruk-Thrun, a demon lord brought into this world through dark sorcery and treachery, and how the Elves and the first Druids finally banished the demon and his armies back to the Abyss. The bard believed these first Druids, like elves, but creatures of the Earth possessing great power, are the ones issuing the warning, and warned the council not to take their warning lightly. But before a decision could be reached, the town hall was attacked by a horde of plant creatures led by a werewolf. The party killed the werewolf and the plant creatures, and discovered that a sunken citadel lay nearby that might be the cause of the “infestation” spoken of. The local druid and her unicorn companion had gone there to investigate, but had not been heard from. The party journeyed to the location while the town was evacuated.
Exploring the sunken fortress, the party was beset by goblins, orcs, and fouler things. They rescued the unicorn, Bristle, and a gnome named Quirky, who claimed to be a traveling cleric of Pelor, imprisoned here for many months, avoiding starvation only by his command of healing magic. The party began to be beset by disturbing, horrible nightmares. Descending further into the earth, they found the source of the plant creatures, a twisted ex-druid named Belak who tended the Gulthias Tree, a tree grown from a still-green stake driven through a vampire’s heart. The tree was infused with a terrible energy, and the druid was using it to graft plants, animals, and even creatures from other planes into twisted, unspeakable creations.
A terrible battle was fought deep beneath the Earth that day. Belak was slain, and the tree destroyed when the unicorn Bristle drove his horn through his corrupted former druid and into the tree. The resulting backlash killed both of them and the tree. However, Burn soon appeared, resurrected the unicorn, and then left with Bristle in tow.
Before the party could leave, however, a terrible visage of a twisted old man of uncertain race appeared before them. While he never named himself, the figure claimed to be a servant of Kovan, and also to be of the House of Bel. He raged at the party for ruining his plans, and when Heidiana sassed off to him, he struck her down with a terrible spell that stripped her mind from her. From the spoils, Grumble found a dwarven waraxe. When he touched it, he found himself in a darkened dwarven hall surrounded by shadowy giant figures. They hinted he had a destiny, and it was tied up in the weapon he held. They bade him uncover the mysteries of the weapon, and he would be rewarded beyond measure. Grumble doesn’t know much about it yet, but the waraxe will transform in to any dwarven weapon on command.
The party regained the surface and traveled south out of the Old Forest into the Kingdom of Fall and the Dukedom of Pythia. They met the ghost of a Gynosphinx named Ujaset. After abysmally failing to solve a few riddles, Ujaset demanded them to avenge her death at the hands of the goblins who killed her. Ujaset promised them all the treasure the goblins missed, and threatened to haunt the party forever otherwise. The party took out the goblin encampment only to find that the sorceress responsible for actually killing the gynosphinx had left with the bulk of the treasure two days previous. She had traveled south to the town of Miel to commission weapons to be made for her goblins.
Still suffering from the occasional nightmare, the party traveled to Miel as well, finding that the refugees from Havensford had come to the city as well. The adventurers informed the mayor and knight of the city about both their findings in the underground citadel and the goblin sorceress. The mayor gave the party leave to track the sorceress.
While the party hunted and explored the city, Badger encountered an old friend in a gnome shop: the very gnome who had gotten her the job for the Thieves Guild in Blackreach! The gnome was traveling under the pseudonym of Rascal, and he was being pursued by some vicious Bounty Hunters called the Twinblades. Rowan had a dream in which Potter Holm, a half-elf blacksmith who fancied the attractive ranger, told her “This is what you have to watch out for,” and proceeded to turn into a faceless naked gray humanoid. Rowan has a hard time being comfortable around the blacksmith after this dream. Nialia’s dreams have been of strange rituals, where she sits under a moonlit sky in the center of a glowing, rune-inscribed circle, where dark figures chant softly around her. These dreams un-nerve her, but they also fascinate her. She has encountered a woman named Araven, who turns out to be not only one of the Lythari, but was one of the wolves the party first encountered in the forest. Araven apparently has a liking for Nialia, but to what purpose is not known.
The party has spotted the Twinblades, and had a few barely civil encounters with them. The bounty hunters are obviously disdainful of the adventurers’ abilities, and make dark threats unless the party gives up the gnome. Specifically they hint that they know there’s a connection between Rascal and Badger, and won’t hesitate to grab Badger and force her to divulge what she knows.
This last was related by Zalania, the apparent leader of the Bounty Hunters. Zalania accosted Nialia as the druidess walked alone outside the walls of Miel. As Zalania and Nialia squared off against each other, Nialia noticed two more of the bounty hunters on the wall, crossbows aimed at her. Araven shows up, effortlessly subdues the two on the wall, then lightly hops down a fifty-foot wall and walks up to the two women. After telling Zalania that Nialia is under HER protection, she takes an unresisting Nialia off into the nearby woods…
