Treasure Hunters of Jesenreth Campaign

Campaign taking place in Jesenreth (Crystal Sphere) (mostly). This campaign's first session was 2020-01-04.

Ship of Fools

Session Date: 2020-01-04

Late in the year 1115 CY five disparate individuals receive letters summoning them to the city of Sablos, Ketten Islands, to attend an audition to join a adventurer's guild called the Legion of Llandos. Given free sailing ship tickets, they sail aboard the Splendid Anger from the city of Lutran. Kostix, Bostix, Ember, Lunafreya, and Arkakas (and Chicken!) get to know each other. With only a week left in their journey, after a raucous new year's celebration, the party awakes to find something wrong on the ship: it is silent, and drifting. It seems that the whole crew is paralyzed, and the walkway through the cargo deck blocked by a strange overturned chest, apparently opened by a crewman. A weird purple glow comes from within.

Before the party can find out more, they are attacked by four minor ghosts called shrouds, who are in some way connected to the strange, curse-producing chest. They defeat the shrouds, and eventually correct the course of the ship and figure out that tossing the chest overboard may break the curse. It works, as several feet of salt water block the chest's magic.

Captain Braveros, awakened with the rest of the crew, angrily punishes the crewman responsible, Bunkle, locking him in the ship's tiny brig. She rewards the crew with a 10 gp gem each, and promises them one free passage on the Anger. The ship sails on and docks in Sablos, the PCs all knowing that they have the same mission: find the guild hall of The Legion of Llandos and participate in the audition, hoping to gain membership and the rich rewards it promises.

Adventuring 101

Session Date: 2020-01-12

After another week at sea, the Splendid Anger docks in Sablos. The party takes their leave of the captain and crew and make their way through the city to find The Legion of Llandos guildhall. Once there, they meet Camarion Llandos VII, who makes them welcome and tells them that tomorrow will be their audition for membership. He also admits that the Legion has fallen on hard times, and he is the only member left, being well over 60 and walking with a pronounced limp. He hopes, however, that the party will prove to be worthy of restoring the Legion to its former glory. The party settles into the dorm rooms, and gets to know the city, including The Lower Deck.

The next morning the party assembles near the banquet tables and Llandos tells them that he is taking them to the building's lower basement, which is magically mutable and has been set up to duplicate many of the challenges and dangers of exploration and reclamation work. The party descends a set of steps from the wine and rations room, and works their way left through several rooms beset by traps, talkative paintings, a strange pool of water, and Devet-worshiping Drow, who the party slays. In the next room, the party finds the ghostly remains of of Lua Llandos, the young wife of Camarion Llandos IV.

In the next room the party finds the way up to the street and out of the dungeon, completing the test. Llanos VII congratulates them and offers them guild membership, telling them the benefits and responsibilities. They accept his terms, sign contracts, get the tour, and move fully into the guildhall. There follows a week of downtime, in which the PCs pursue their interests: research in the library, annoying Clowder Finisbaer, setting up the workshop, teaching themselves blacksmithing, cataloguing the city's bars, etc.

At the beginning of the third week of the first month, Llandos calls the party together: they have a job! A local noble wants to reclaim an old lighthouse his family owns near the town of Liparo, three days up the North Coast Road. The party's job is to travel there, assess its condition, drive out anything or one dangerous, and report back. The party accepts the job and sets out toward the town.

One their second night on the road, the party is assaulted by bandits, whom they swiftly and gorily defeat, capturing one of them and tying him to Kostix. The next morning they take their captive with them, hoping to turn him into authorities at at town or village along road or in Liparo.

The Darkhouse

Session Date: 2020-01-18

The party, with its bandit captive strapped to Kostix's back, head up the Road and discover the village of Jinto. There they meet village head Dagur Dain, who reveals that their captive is actually wanted criminal Beff Touff, the leader of a bandit gang called The Jackals. The village can't hold Touff, so Dain advises the party to take him up to Liparo and Sheriff Hodbar. Before they can do so, however, Touff attempts to escape, leading Bostix to kill him. However, they share some fine brandy with Dain and get some very fine handmade soap from Tella Dain.

Camped along the road that evening the group finds a scout from The Jackals, but lets him go. The Jackals trouble them no more, and the party makes it late the next morning to Liparo. Asking about the lighthouse at Phosabo's Inn and Bar, they meet local wood merchant Malzahar Del'anor. As a concerned citizen and someone familiar with the lighthouse, he offers to guide them up there the next morning. The PCs accept, and spend the rest of the day and night mostly getting drunk. All come home safely save for Kostix, who finds himself in the town's drunk tank. After he swears it will never happen again, the Sheriff let's him go, and he tries to find the inn. He fails utterly, winding up at the Shrine of Raketra, where the priests are delighted to discover that he is a true believer and has a lovely singing voice. The party finds him leading a song service, and eventually pry him away from the appreciative believers.

The party and Malzahar make their way to the top of the cliff and enter the lighthouse. They slay a swarm of rats and discover a secret door in the cellar's floor, but cannot open it. Moving up the tower, the party finds the remains of the last lighthouse keeper's life and finally, on the top, the remains of him. Then his ghost appears, warning of an "Evil Below" and asking the party to drive it out, "find my treasure" and "release me." Determined to find out what this evil is and what lies beneath the cellar, the party tries the secret door again, which Malzahar eventually gets open.

They find a tunnel sloping down into the cliff, and come across a cavern full of bats, which attack them as a swarm. Defeating the bats, they venture on and find some sort of temple cavern, containing small huts, a grisly sacrifice altar, and a deep pit. Kostix tries to sacrifice Chicken, but fails as usual. Ember, looking in the window of one of the huts, sees movement and alerts the party. When she, Bostix, and Lunafreya investigate, five cultists spring out and attack. Malzahar reveals himself to be the evil mastermind behind it all as he turns the floor of the cavern into slippery mucus and attacks.

A savage battle ensues, in which the powerful sorcerer and his aberrant minions knock several of the party out and slay Kostix. With determined bravery and the surprising assistance of Chicken, the party battles back, slaying the cult leader and the cultists...but Kostix is dead. Bostix, desperate to save his twin brother, ties his body to his back and sprints back to town, the party on his heels. Crying out for a cart to transport his brother back the Legion, where maybe Llandos can help, they are found by one of the priests from the Shrine, Clisteme Bortus who, devastated at the loss of one so faithful to the goddess, brings them all to the Shrine.

There, the head priest, Mylani Cuturo, manages to raise Kostix from the dead. He sees his ancestors galloping the celestial plain, and they salute him, but his brother's grief and his Lady's will bring him back. But at a price: she places upon him an as yet unknown burden...

The Long, Hard Road

Session Date: 2020-01-25

On the road back to Sablos, the party is attacked by two displacer beasts, whom they force to run and then pursue into the woods, losing the beasts but discovering an ancient, ruined keep. Exploring it, they call into an abandoned underground hideaway for the kings of the Ketten Islands. The party explores the dungeon, encountering and befriending a tribe of kobolds whom implore them to ride the complex of its dangers, in return for being shown the way back to the surface. The party agrees, following the path described to them, battling giant spiders before clashing with a sinister "flamewrath" wizard, using the place as his lair. Lunafreya is killed by his Fireball, but the party defeats him.

Owing the party for clearing out their home, the kobolds use a scroll of Raise Dead to return Lunafreya to life, and the party returns to the surface.

The Thuvium Job

Session Date: 2020-02-01

The party takes stock after two of them die and are resurrected within three days, and decide that they just want to go home. The trip back to Sablos takes another night of camping out, but soon they are back at the guildhall, and Llandos is happy to see them. Happy, and astonished at the extent of the danger they have faced. He throws them a feast and grants them a month off, as he negotiates a big new contract with an important client.

During this month off, Arkakas finally makes inroads with Clowder Finisbaer, getting accepted as his apprentice IF he can find out exactly what his patron is. And Arkakas does get some important clues: a female tiefling, and a pillar of violet flame, coming to him in dreams. Meanwhile, Kostix masters the basics of blacksmithing, Ember tinkers with her tools, Bostix becomes the most famous bar lizard in Sablos, and Luna goes shopping.

One month after their last mission, Llandos summons the party to his office and introduces them to Dreder Kohn, a blacksmith who has been granted an amazing commission: the Royal House itself wants him to reforge the ancestral sword of King Oriel, shattered by magic long ago in slaying an evil wizard. To do so, he needs a very rare metal, that is known to be found in only one place on the planet, the Mines of Godrum. The party accepts the mission, and the next day sails on The Pegasus for Greta.

Arriving two weeks later, they find the River Road leading towards the Mountains of Mourning and travel north along it for a month and half, finally finding the collapsed entrance into the Mines. Before they can enter they are assaulted by a fearsome camo-troll, and defeat the monster, despite grievous injury to Ember. Finding a passage inside, they explore the dark, cold, wet, dirty interior, finding plenty of signs of the struggle of the dwarf miners against the monsters, so long ago.

Going left, they find a mined cavern in which floats a horrific oculo swarm, but manage to defeat the aberrant being. Extensive mine passages lay ahead of them, but no sign of any thuvium.

Terror in the Mines

Session Date: 2020-02-08

Having slain the weird oculo swarm, the party ventures into the next chamber. They notice two things, a corpse in a rotted black cloak holding a metal rod, and, in the distance, heat, fire light, and creatures laughing and giggling. After Dog triggers the trap on the corpse and eats a fire blast, the party finds a chamber light by a very hot wall of fire and four agnibarra, who, in awe of Ember, but thinking she'd look better on fire, attack. The party slay most of the them, but the last escapes into the rift of flames.

The party treks on, coming across a strange sight: then dwarven skeletons, hand axes in their hands, around a pool of dark, thick red liquid. They quickly discover it is a blood elemental, which attacks. The elemental animates the skeletons the party does not destroy, but they destroy it before they can attack.

The party goes right, finding the nest of a three-headed cobra. In the battle, Kostix, already wounded, leaps up on to the creature's nest, and gets torn apart by its bites. Dead, his body slumps across the rocks. The party slays the beast, but Kostix is gone. Shattered, they carry on with their mission, meeting Sigismund the Keg Golem, who joins the party after they convince him that his mission, protecting the miners' ale, is... no longer necessary. Sigismund warns them of the trollkin who live further into the mines.

The party battles a patrol of trollkin warriors, who kill Chicken, but the fight is stopped when a female trollkin shaman arrives and interrogates the PCs. She denies them access to thuvium, unless they destroy a "spider monster" deeper into the mines. The party agrees, and journeys to meet the monster, leaving Kostix's corpse with the trollkin. They find the drider in its lair at the edge of a great pit that goes very far into the earth. They slay it, and return it's head to the shaman, who is as good as her word, giving the party six ounces of what she calls "power metal". The party exits the mines, with corpse and metal in tow.

Brotherhood

Session Date: 2020-02-15

The party leaves the Mines of Godrum, having found what they were looking for, the thuvium, but losing their beloved brother and friend, Kostix. They bury his body by the side of a tranquil tributary of the Illusarnae, each party member leaving a touching tribute. Bandits who try to loot the grave are brutally disposed of. Confident that Kostix's soul is in a better place, the party travels back to Greta with Sigismund the Keg Golem in tow.

There they sail The Pegasus back to Sablos, with Sigismund deciding to become the butler at the Guildhall. They arrive back almost 4 months to the day after they left, where they relate the bad news to Llandos, who is devastated, and blames himself. He gives them unlimited time off, in which Bostix and Sigismund found a bar in what used to be a meeting room, and Arkakas Malbolgia, having discovered the identity of his patron, Y'chak, successfully becomes a scroll-making apprentice of Clowder Finisbaer, though his initial attempts at making a Charm Person scroll go badly awry. Eventually, however, he feels he has a good one, which he saves.

Two weeks after their return, Llandos has another mission: he introduces them to Nystra the Dark, who relates that a powerful magical artefact, the Chalice of Reekz, has been stolen from her tower, Cloudburst. She teleports the party there and tells them all about the city of Xios. The party decides the best lead on The Brotherhood of the Six Fingers, the magical thieves responsible, is to be found at The Flask and Ghost, where they eventually meet its owner, Cilia Reyne. Reyne decides to reveal to the party that the Brotherhood's hideout is indeed underneath her bar, hoping the party removes this thorn in her side, and cleverly stages the party's entrance into their lair.

They venture down, fighting increasing numbers of thieves in the extensive underground complex, eventually battling elite Brotherhood agents in a storage room. There Lunafreya Stargazer is knocked out but survives, but Arkakas dies. The party gains the upper hand, however, and the leader of the Brotherhood, an elegant gentleman calling himself the Master of the Six Fingers (and who has six fingers on both hands), appears and offers them a deal: take the Chalice and begone, killing no more of his men and not revealing the lair's location.

The party takes that deal, and returns to Nystra with Arkakas's body. There she is delighted to have the Chalice back, which she relates holds powerful magic relating to reproduction and pregnancy. The party declines to take advantage of it, and choose to have her call in a favor to revive Arkakas rather than taking a Wand of Wonder as a bonus payment. A priest arrives, and as his temple owes Nystra, succeeds in reviving Arkakas. The party is teleported back to Sablos and reports their success to Llandos, who grants them another extended time off.

New Blood

Session Date: 2020-02-22

The party retires to rest for the evening, in their various ways, save for Arkakas Malbolgia, who leaves to find materials with which to re-summon Chicken. Just as he leaves the guildhall, however, he hears beating wings overhead. Perched on the roof of the hall's tower is aarakocra ranger Zinra Ravara, come at last to answer the same letter the rest of the party received. After Arkakas brushes her off, she goes inside and meets Bostix and eventually the rest of the guild, who question her briefly before accepting her as a member of the Legion without an audition. She moves into the central room on the second floor.

A month of downtime follows, in which the party pursues their various interests: drinking, poison buying, setting up a kiosk and selling mechanical toys, enlisting criminal minions to to surveil Clowder Finisbaer, or ending the same by taking an urban bounty. During this time, Llandos is meeting with various clients, but no job presents itself...

Until he gathers the group and shares that an old adventuring friend of his, currently part owner of the Xerxos Pit on Zaxos, has asked him to send a capable group to adventurers to rid the mine of hordes of salt mephits which has effectively shut it down in the last month. The party accepts the mission and sails for Lymoxersia on the Swallow's Wing, and arrives their three days late after the ship stops in Euphro on Kefalon so the group of elven scholars it carries might visit a book vault.

The party goes to the mine and meets Llandos's friend, Grigary Molden, who shows them into the mine, where they head down the walkway of the massive pit. Fighting through salt clouds, many mephits, salt zombies, and just stupid amounts of salt, the party arrives on the shores of the brine pit at the bottom of the shaft. There they find strange, glowing, floating, salt crystal, which raises a salt elemental, who attacks. The party battles the elemental, but figures out that destroying the crystal might destroy the creatures, and they are correct.

Once both are gone, Ember finds a ring with four tiny gems in it, which she studies but pockets for later. The party heads up to the surface, where the find Molden wounded in a battle with a huge flock of salt mephits, which has left the pit as they are resting. His staff are dead, and most of the mephits escapes. Fearing the worst, the party heads for town, only to discover it unharmed by the mephits, who have disappeared.

Molden beings to rebuild his business while letting the party stay at his mansion in town. The party meets Luciel Braveros in a tavern and she offers them free passage back to Sablos, but not before Lunafreya Stargazer gets herself arrested for trying to purchase illegal items (poison, again). Ember pays her penalty and frees her, while Zinra obtains for her a deadly poison from a strange hag who lairs in the town wall. The party then sails back home, arriving without incident.

The Catacombs of Rurk, Part I

Session Date: 2020-02-29

Back at the guildhall, the patty is welcomed home by Llandos, who has an unusual guest, the lizardfolk cleric Sibok Ecot Yaool, who hails from Varlask on Marbindor. He brings the Legion their next mission: to accompany him to Leftkada to discover and recover sacred artifacts from some recently discovered ancient lizardfolk burial catacombs. The party accepts the job, and leaves the next morning, sailing aboard the dwarf ship Sturdy to Sicomnos.

The party arrives not long before the culminating party of the island's yearly Harvest Festival, where they spend the evening stuffing themselves silly, watching plays, and engaging in competitions, with Zinra and Bostix triumphing in archery and arm wrestling, respectively, winning gold. After a night's carousing, the party departs in the morning, traveling towards the village of Bhrytarnacia, where Arkakas and Sibok think they are most likely to find lizardfolk ruins, according to local lore.

The first day out of the village ends in a hamlet tavern, avoiding a friendly bar fight. Moving along the road towards the center highlands of the island, the party travel across open grasslands, where, the first night they meet and befriend Bush, who travels with them. Passing through a forest, the party is attacked one morning by a savage owlbear, which they slay. Moving into arid, rocky highlands, the party is hunted and attacked by three fiendish leucrotta, but manage to defeat them, with Sibok's mastery of the line between life and death proving handy.

The next day the party descends into a fertile valley, walking along a road between harvested fields. There they discover a lost child, Tia Telric, crying in a ditch. She explains that her mommy was taken by some mean men, and the party sets out to find the child's mother, tracking the vile kidnappers into a some dark woods, where, with the "help" of a quickling named Poppo, they find the kidnapper's shack, slay them, and rescue the mother, Maera Telric, who explains that she was fleeing the village with her daughter from her abusive husband, named "Telric", some important man in the village, who beats her and the child, and has many other wives. The party tells her to wait for their return in the shack while they finish their mission.

The PCs arrive in the village at night, and are promptly accosted by the village guards, thugs really, who say they serve Boss Grommo Telric, leader and richest man of the village. The guards tell them that if they don't want to be arrested, they had better go drop a lot of money in the Boss's tavern across the village green. The party complies, drinking at the bar, before a round of drinks is bought for them by Boss Telric. Bostix, wary, figures out that the beer is poisoned, and confronts the boss with Ember. The Boss denies trying to poisoning them, and tells them that there's no dirty lizardfolk ruins in or around his village (which Ember knows is a lie), and they'd better blow the village, now, or there will be trouble. Strangers are not welcome. The party weighs their options and decides to camp along the road outside of the village, strategizing how to find the ruins and get revenge for themselves and Maera and Tia on the evil Boss Telric.

The Catacombs of Rurk, Part II

Session Date: 2020-03-07

Passing the night outside of Bhrytarnacia after being driven out by Grommo Telric, who party arises in the morning and discusses strategy for a full hour. They try asking nearby farmers if any know of the lizardfolk ruins, but strike out. They ultimately decide to return to the village and make Telric tell them where the ruins are. In the process, they fight his guards in the village streets, then his thugs on his property, and ultimately him, slaying them all. With the villain and his henchmen dead, his wives take over his estate and authority, forming The Sisterhood, and bringing a new era of democratic rule to the village. They also find records in his office which reveal the location of the ruins.

South of the village, in the dense wilderness, the party finds a demolished obelisk of lizardfolk origin, which Sibok Ecot Yaool is able to decipher and use to open a portal into the Catacombs of Rurk. Venturing down, his heart is broken when the party finds that the catacombs has been not only raided but purposely desecrated by troglodytes, which Sibok claims are degenerate forms of lizardfolk. He collects what sacred relics he can, and the party clashes with a gelatinous cube and several troglodytes.

Exploring further, the party finds many huge mausoleums, some of which contain undisturbed relics, some of which contains portions of the wealth and prized items of the ancient lizardfolk rulers, which Sibok gladly gives to the party. The party encounters a strange pit of Abyssal fire, and battles two barlgura, summoned from the Abyss by the desecration of of the holy sites performed by the troglodytes. The battle defeats the demons, finds more relics and items, and leaves the catacombs.

Back in the village, the party is celebrated by villagers and The Sisterhood, the new rulers of the village. The party spends a couple of days there recovering, bring Maera and Tia back from the kidnapper's shack. The villagers decide to honor the orginal lizardfolk inhabitants of the area by renaming the village after Sibok, and the party departs for Sicomnos. Sibok takes a ship for Marbindor, after saying a grateful goodbye and thank you to the party, and the party sails for Sablos which a large haul of gold and items.

The Rivals

Session Date: 2020-03-14

Returning to Sablos, the party arrives at the guildhall late at night and soaking wet from an autumn thunderstorm. Llandos welcomes them home with towels, and takes their scattered mission statement. He tells them they have at least a week off, as there are no good clients at the moment. The party spends a week drinking, scaring citizens, reading, flying money back home, and getting out-competed in the market place.

One very early morning, the Llandos summons the party to the banquet tables with an urgent and stupidly well-paying mission. It seems the Baron Pyron Emarkos has a strange library showing up in his mansion and wants the party to find out how to remove it. The party goes there and meets the Baron... and the Baroness Tula Emarkos... and another adventuring party, who call themselves The Searchers of Glory, hired by the Baroness. The Baron and his wife decide that both parties should explore the strange library, and both enter. The other party is very together and professional, and after investigating the strange chamber, full of book shelves and with an open sky, clouds and moon overhead, decide to go right, with the Legion going left.

In the next chamber they party runs into four grell, who seem to be acting as librarians, shelving books. Very hostile librarians, who attack. The party has little difficulty defeating them, however, and, in the next chamber, discover the fiendish Index Incarnatus. Each of them tries to read it, getting a question answered by the book if they can resist its psychic attack. Arkakas, Zinra, and Luna also learn a Forbidden Secret, a horrible truth. Zinra learns that the Archive's doors can open to anywhere in the multiverse. Luna says the book told her that Ember is cursed to be a thrall of Elemental Princes, and says so, but the party cannot convince Ember to part with the Ring of Elemental Power, and ultimately can't decide if they trust the book.

Bostix finally asks how they party can remove the Accursed Archive from infesting the Baron's mansion. He is told "Spread. Growth. Extension. Spread the books," which the party figures out means that they should take books out of the library and spread them around other places. Arkakas is very happy to do so, and he and the others load themselves down with heavy, sinister tomes. They then go back the way they came, and exit the Archive through the door they came in, with no sign of the Searchers.

But they are NOT back in the Baron's hallway when they go through the door. They find themselves in some large, well-appointed noble's bedroom, with a human woman asleep in its giant four-poster bed. They manage to sneak out of the room and down the hall without waking Lady Trinia Fondam. With the help of Zinra's bluffing skills, the party gets past the house's butler, out the door and down the lane, convincing some very confused guards to let them out of the gate. They run and run, with no idea what the large city they are in is. They find out from a passing youth that it is Evensell, capital city of the Confederation of Uth. They are several months from home.

The party decides to throw themselves on the mercy of the church, and finds their way to the Cathedral of Hephemia. Their friendly priests take them to see Vergen Dalbor, the Cathedral's head priest. This gentle and good man complies with their request to use the Sending spell to contact Llandos to ask for instructions. The guild master tells them to stay put, he will come get them. In the meantime, the party rests and sees some of the Cathedral and city. That evening, the party and other souls needing help feast with the Head Priest and the other priests, and tell their stories, which amaze Dalbor.

Later Llandos shows up by means of a borrowed Ring of Teleportation. He scolds the party like a stern dad, but Dalbor welcomes him, and allows the whole Legion to stay in the rectory. Before bed Llandos demands the whole story from the party, and is horrified to learn that they have simply complied with the wishes of an obviously malevolent entity that wishes to spread its sinister influence. He orders the party to destroy the books, which Ember is all about, but which Arkakas vociferously refuses, willing to fight the whole party and Llandos to protect the books. Llandos finally says that Arkakas can keep the books, but forbids him to keep them at the guildhall, on pain of being kicked out of the Legion, and leaves to go to sleep. The party look at each other, not knowing what to do...

Some Like it Hot, Part I

Session Date: 2020-03-21

Teleporting back to the guildhall with the party, Llandos immediately commands Arkakas Malbolgia to get all of the books from the Accursed Archive OUT of the Legion's building. Arkakas complies, struggling under the heavy weight of the books that won't fit in the bag of holding. He finds his way out of the city and to the outskirts of the town of Jemnos, discovering a mysteriously abandoned farm. In the farm's barn's cellar he places the books, unable to find any clues as to why this long abandoned but clearly still serviceable farm should be abandoned, besides a painting of a family which hides a locked safe in the wall. Unable to open it, he saves that mystery for later.

Back at the guildhall, while the party relaxes from their latest trials, Ember decides to visit Llandos in his office, just to ask about the news of the city, some rumors she's heard, and share some whiskey, leading a discussion of Edrigo Damm, recently put in King Oriel's dungeon to a betrayal allegedly involving an elemental cult. This leads to several members of the party sharing their backstories, with the notable exception of Zinra Ravara, who refuses.

Ember next attempts to survey the Coral Palace, with Bostix tagging along. They find it to be extremely well defended, almost impossible to break into...unless one goes through the city's sewer system, which Ember finds a map to. Back at the guildhall, she attempts to convince Lunafreya Stargazer to come with her on her attempt to break Damm out of prison, as Ember insist's he's innocent. Disturbed by this sudden change in her friend, Luna alerts Llandos, who eventually drags out of Ember that she is laboring under a curse put upon her by the Ring of Elemental Power she wears, making her a thrall of the elemental princes, in particular Imix, the Prince of Elemental Fire, who has commanded her to free Damm, help him escape the Islands, and burn down the Royal Palace.

Ember finds it nearly impossible to resist the Prince's commands, rationalizing away the parts she'd normally find repugnant, but her friends convince her, with great difficulty, that she is cursed after Clowder Finisbaer confirms it, and reveals the only way of breaking this primordial curse: they must slay 1 fire elemental, 1 earth elemental, one water elemental, and one air elemental, capturing their essences and brewing them into an Elixir of Elemental Chaos, which Ember must drink and survive. The earth elemental is easy enough: they use Ember's Elemental Earth Gem and slay the creature, though Ember tries to escape. The group is able to capture the elemental's essence and persuade Ember to accompany them on quests to find and slay the other elementals. The Legion is able to determine that the nearest place they are likely to find a Water Elemental is the Strait of Armahze, the nearest place to fine a fire elemental is the active volcano the island of Rytaeus, and the nearest place to find an air elemental is up in the clouds by means of Spelljamming ship.

The party elects to travel to Rytaeus first, and sails threes weeks on the Black Swan to the uninhabited, volcanic, jungle island, where they hack their way through the sweltering jungle until evening, taking shelter in a cavern in a bluff. They discover, however, that the cavern is occupied by at least two cyclops, who attack. The party defeats the two cyclops and decides to take a short rest before a tunnel heading down in order to tend the grievous wounds dealt by the one-eyed giants.

Some Like it Hot, Part II

Session Date: 2020-03-27

After taking a short rest via Rope Trick, the party ventures further into the caverns and tunnels leading to the volcano. In the cavern of and underground river, they battle and defeat three ropers. Further on, in another cavern, they meet Lem the stone giant and his family, who, once they learn the party intends to slay the what he calls the fire people, welcome them to a meal and send them through their tunnels towards the lair of the fire elementals, while warning them against a mysterious evil giant known only as the "Bag Man".

A day's trek later, the party encounters and battles the Bag Man, who turns out to be a fomorian in the possession of a Bag of Capturing. They defeat him and a couple of fire elementals he captures. With the elemental essence collect, the party travels back the ruined town, finding in it nothing of interest... and no ships. Zinra flys off in pursuit of one she sees in the distance, though her manner with them when she reaches the ship ensures her a frosty reception. She trials the ship until it make port a few days later.

In the meantime, the rest of the party has, by means of smoke signals, attracted the attention of ageing noble playboy Wylan Legon III, who, in exchange for a good story over dinner, takes them back to Sablos on his ship, the Zephyr. Meanwhile, Zinra is able to return with a ship to Rytaeus, only to find that the party has found a way home. She can only continue south on the ship, which is bound for Akupara Freenma.

Some Like it Hot, Part III

Session Date: 2020-04-03

The party, save for Zinra Ravara, returns to Sablos, reporting the situation to Llandos, who instructs them to immediately find a wizard and pay for enough Sending spells to find out where she is and how they can find a Spelljammer to reach the clouds, in order to find an air elemental. They contact her while she is at The Wizard's Cup in Rossidi. She tells them they should travel to Numia, go to the House of Stars, and book passage on the Heart of Platinum. She will meet them two days later in the air over Numia.

The party reaches the House, but the Heart is not there. The booking agent, Zigmun Zoola, takes a bribe, however, to allow them to go up the ship docking area, where a ship called the Dexy's Luck is docked. There, the party meets s captain, Fallura Firetide. Her crew is on two weeks shore leave, but, for 100 gold, she offers to take them up to the clouds herself. The party pays, and soon they are in the clouds looking for air elementals. They are joined in short order by Zinra, and, after some displays of elemental magic, manage to attract an air elemental.

Because the creature seems innocent and is not hostile, even curious and friendly, the party is reluctant to kill it in order to obtain its essence. After some dangerous trial and error, however, another way is found: Zinra, familiar with riding winds, manages to remain within the elemental's body long enough to scoop up some its essence without harming it (indeed, the elemental regards it as tickling). Captain Firetide offers to take the party to the Strait of Armahze in order to find water elementals, and the Luck shoots off, breaking the sound barrier.

Two hours later, the ship floats in the Strait. After some more magical displays, water elementals are indeed attracted: hostile ones, along with three very hostile sea hag. The party defeats them, however, and Ember collects the last of the elemental essences she needs for the Elixir of Elemental Chaos. The Luck flys back to Numia, and the captain is very glad of it. The party leaves the House and goes to The Wise Mosquito, all save Arkakas, who goes back in and makes an appointment for the next morning to see Sishem Rhasha.

With the party tagging along, Arkakas visits with the Master of the House of Stars wizards, telling them about his aim of slaying Y'chak but retaining the powers that being grants him, and does the wizard know how. The astonished wizard informs him that this would be tantamount to slaying a god, and they have no idea how one would do that....but they are intrigued by the idea. They take Arkakas's address and says they will send him a letter advising of what they find. The party makes their way back to Sablos.

In her workshop, with Llandos giving her no choice, Ember brews up the elixir. She drinks it, and it works. The Ring of Elemental Power breaks and falls off, the curse is broken, and the angry voice of Imix, the Prince of Elemental Fire fades from her mind. Ember is horrified to realize how dominated and violated she was, but everyone else is ecstatic to have her back to her old self. The next day a raucous party is thrown, with over a hundred guests and a one-man band. The guildhall entrance room is trashed and soiled, but a good time is had by all. Meanwhile, the End of Year Festival is being celebrated all through the city, in this the last week of the year 1116, and Arkakas is disappointed to not find a letter from Sibok Ecot Yaool.

The next day, after the party has slept off their hangovers, Llandos relates a curious story: a little bird told him, literally, about the Circle of the Kapok druids of the Kyrion Forest, who have recently uncovered a mysterious ancient evil artefact, and want the Legion to come and take it away. Llandos gives them an Anti-Magic Containment Chest, and they set off for the town of Messide, a day and a half away and just before the forest, along the South Road.

Along the road, Arkakas decides to check on the books he left in the abandoned farm's barn's basement, finding two disturbing things: some of the books are missing, and in the back wall is a door looking very much like those found in the Accursed Archive. He sets to cataloguing the books, and the party finds him, figuring out that what Llandos warned of has happened: the Archive has spread. Arkakas does not care, and shews the party away, saying he will meet them in the Forest after he finishes cataloguing the books. The party sets off down the road, and he does so.

Right before he leaves, smitten with curiosity, he decides to open the door, which none of the party had been brave or foolish enough to do. He finds the Accursed Archive, looking exactly as they first saw it. Satisfied with continued access to the Archive, he goes to shut the door, but right before he can, a bent rapier blade lodges the door open. It is flung open, and standing there is a wounded, emaciated, rag-wearing Slar of Chumash, of The Searchers of Glory, who looks up at him and says only "Help!"

Risky Business

Session Date: 2020-04-10

On the outskirts of Jemnos, under the abandoned farmhouse's barn, with the door of the Accursed Archive open, Arkakas looses a grappling match with Char of Chumash, and finds himself in in Archive with the door closed and a horrible tentacled abomination, The Silent One, reaching out for him. He bravely stands to fight it, but is immediately crushed.

But not, apparently, killed. He wakes up in the dirt of the road to Messide, which Chicken very cross with him. At length he catches up with the party, and they arrive the next afternoon in the town of Messide, doing some shopping at Kasia's Goods. They then venture into the Kyrion Forest, which they find to be sick and dying. They soon are meet by Ellewyn Vinoss and her druids of the Circle of the Kapok. They lead they party to where a demon cage has been uncovered by a lightning-killed tree.

Perciving that is contains demons, the party tries to gingerly place it into the Anti-Magic Containment Chest, but fail, releasing four hezrou. With the aid of the druid, the party slays the demons and leaves with the cage in the chest. That night, on the road back to Sablos the party is approached by a group drow, lead by Nildax Do'Arin. The drow mage says he serves the Queen of Shadows, who wishes the demon cage, and he asks the party what they would take in exchange, offering them as much as 3000 gp.

During the tense negotiations, however, a wizard and several agents from Syndecol Industries show up, and make a counter-offer for the cage. The three parties argue, with the agents discovering the presence of Lunafreya Stargazer and deciding they want her more than the cage. The drow allies with the party against the agents, and Luna at last kills the wizard. The drow leave, saying they are gone to get the gold, only to send an invisible drow to steal it, whom the party slay. The party takes the chest and runs for Sablos, before the drow or the Company can do worse.

Meanwhile, Arkakas had left Messide without the party the day before, and, in an argument with Chicken finds out what happened with he was defeated by The Silent One: Y'chak saved his life, at great sacrifice, by ceding certain "valuable properties" to the Archive. Chicken explains that this was done because Arkakas is important to the Elder Evil's plans to build mortals to their maximum potential, only to destroy them when they are at their greatest. Arkakas makes a deal: if he can return Slar of Chumash the Archive, appeasing it, accounts will be settled with Y'chak, who wants to maintain good relations with the Archive.

Arkakas, back in Sablos, finds Slar and coaxes him back to the barn where he is feed to The Silent One. Arkakas then returns to the guildhall, only to find himself very much on the outs with Llandos, who accuses him of treachery and cowardice unbecoming of a Legion member, and tells him to take his shit and leave (after giving him a letter from Sibok Ecot Yaool. But Ember intercedes on his behalf: if he lets them destroy his Archive books, he can stay. He agrees, telling them of his plan to slay Y'chak. The party burns the books while Arkakas dreams in his library of seeing Sibok again.

New Years Blues

Session Date: 2020-04-17

The party awakes on the first day of the year CY 1117, and goes about their business. Arkakas Malbolgia eager to see Sibok again, heads down the docks to wait, whilst the rest putter around the house, except for Lunafreya Stargazer, who leaves without telling anyone where she's going. Arkakas meets Sibok and three other lizardfolk cleric, who are spending a night in the city before heading to Leftkada. The warlock and the cleric kill and blacken some Demon Ward rats before having a date on the the hills overlooking the vineyards north of the city. Arkakas tells Sibok of his patron and his desire to be free of it. Sibok suggests finding a god to have faith in, such as his own, Symunon. Arkakas says he will look into it, and takes Sibok back to the guildhall, where everyone drinks and talks late into the night, before the cleric leaves, promising to keep in touch.

The next day passes without incident, kinda boring, except for Ember learning from Llandos of a possible long expedition: Wylan Legon III has written the Legion about hiring them to accompany him on a voyage to the islands of the northern Ocean of Nimran. The party talks it over, and agrees provisionally to accepting the offer, depending on getting more details, and Llandos sends the Legion's reply.

Late that night comes a pounding on the hall's doors and a cry for help. It's Syllesta Ashar, scared and worried, saying that The Lower Deck has been taken over (apparently by it's mysterious owner's instructions) by some cultist types who have some poor creature in a box, and seem prone to do something horrible to it. Can the Legion help? But of course...

The party arrives at the Dock Ward bar, finding the doors locked and the windows blocked. A strange chant in Abyssal (Language) comes from inside. The party tries to smoke them out by blocking the chimney, and whoever is inside breaks out the windows and continues the ritual. Bostix sees that inside are indeed cultists, about to sacrifice a pegasus. He busts in and the party slays the fiendish cultists. As they are freeing and tending to the wounds of the pegasus, a huge figure blocks the doorway. It reveals itself to be a 9ft. tall goat humanoid that calls itself Father Goat and attacks them. The battle gets the upper hand against him, and he blasts a hole in the floor and escapes first into the basement then into some deep underground dungeon.

The party gives chase, exploring the dungeon, finding several room and hallways. They discover a two-person airship and a room full of treasure, which they take. Then, using what seems to be a master key, open a door they could not before, only to be attacked by a blue pudding. They slay the creature and its smaller bits, but decide that they should exit the dungeon to tend to their own wounds. While they are above, being interrogated by the City Watchmen (the pegasus escaped), the building is shaken by a short but powerful earthquake. The party finds that the building has sunk about a foot and where the basement and dungeon were is only a massive, deep hole. Father Goat, the rest of his cult, and their hideout have somehow escaped.

Some of the party goes home, some go with Syllesta to the Watch station to give information on what happened. Syllesta decides that this is the push she needs to needs to take some friends up on their offer to go adventuring, and thanks and takes her leave from the party, headed for a new and exciting life. The party, back at the guildhall, divides their loot from the dungeon and goes to bed.

Voyage to Chibouholm

Session Date: 2020-04-24

The next day, Arkakas receives a letter by courier, one which gives him a curious obsession with stars and mirrors. That afternoon, Wylan Legon III visits the guildhall, and explains that he wishes to hire the Legion to accompany him on a long-term expedition to explore map the underworlds of the Chibouholm Isles. The Legion agrees, deciding to bring Sigismund the Keg Golem with them, and is treated by Legon to a dinner that night at his luxurious villa in the hills to the north of the city.

The next day at noon the party boards the Once Was a Mermaid, captained by Lusca Yuval, and sets sail to the north, on a voyage that will take about 2 1/2 months. The voyage is mostly dull for the passengers, day after day of nothing to do but stare at the blue expanse of the Ocean of Nimran, though the evenings are made a bit more pleasant by Legon's wine tastings. during the first month, Lunafreya Stargazer reveals that she is on the lam from Syndecol Industries, after refusing to carry out a contract she has an agent. She is afraid that her being with the party bring down the wrath of the Company upon them, ultimately destroying them. The party tells her that they will help her find a way to get out of her contract, such as by destroying records, but she thinks the only way would be offer the Company something they valued as much or more that getting her back.

Also in the first month, Arkakas and Ember ponder the cryptic words of the letter he received, which explained that if he wished to kill Y'chak, he must "show the inner to the outer" using a "mirror made of stars”. They reason that this means revealing to the Elder Evil its true being, which would, presumably, destroy even that mighty being's mind, but are stumped by what a mirror could possibly have to do with stars. Soon thereafter, the Mermaid is attacked by the fiendish pirate Rajan Nilak and his ship The Final Blow. A furious battle ensues between the crew of the Mermaid and the Legion and the pirates, who include in their number crossbowmen, a great brute, a musketeer, a mage, and many cutthroats. The pirates are eventually defeated, with all but a few cutthroats and some other crew left alive. They are left adrift in a disabled, looted ship as the party sails one. The Mermaid's dead are given all honors and buried at sea.

A month and half later, the expedition drops anchor near Nidan, the first of the Chibouholms, a flat, rocky island with a central forest, where stand four ruined towers. The Legion and Legon are rowed ashore by a crewman, and set a fast past toward the towers. They search the towers, finding not much, but encounter a small herd of disenchanters. The strange beasts drain magic from items held by Bostix and Arkakas, and the party kills most of them in revenge. The party rests the rest of the day, then inspects the final tower the next morning. They find nothing, until Legon falls through some manner of trap door and plummets into a very deep hole, caught by some kind of energy field which lowers him, and eventually the rest of the party, down to a long-abandoned underground complex. The party encounters therein and defeats a group of chuul.

I,Tyrant

Session Date: 2020-05-01

Standing ankle-deep in chuul guts and ichor, the party presses on into the structure, finding a chamber full of old, scattered and rotting books. While investigating, Arkakas overhears the telepathic communication of some spectators, who are apparently coming to investigate what happened to the chuul, worried that someone called only The Master will be angry. Soon the party encounters the flying aberrations in a hallway and a battle breaks out, in which the party easily triumphs, despite the creatures' powerful eye rays.

Continuing to explore the chamber, the party hears a cheerful whistling, produced by an approaching creature. It is a flumph named Hachoo, who apparently lives here and is a great fan of art. He shows the party several faded murals on the walls of the rooms of the dungeon and leads them around, telling them of the Master, the trash monster, The Master's other minions, and that The Master is up to some strange purpose on the lower second level of the dungeon. The party has him lead them to the stairs to that next level.

There they discover a brightly lit, tiled hallway, opening on a room where an illithid is hard at work on something at a table. The party eventually catches its attention, and it demands to know why they have intruded on what he calls "The Sepulcher of the Sleeping Eye", of which it claims it is the "Seneschal". They party argues back that Hachoo is actually the rightful owner, having lived here longer, and the pissed-off Master, for that's who it is, commands his pet, some kind of aberration called Bertolak, to kill them. The Master fights for a round, then flees deeper into the level, which was evidently the library of an ancient elven academy (Arkakas obtains several texts in Elvish).

The party defeats Bertolak with difficulty, then pursues The Master. It finds them, followed by the now-awakened Sleeping Eye, a beholder. The party wisely flees, though Zinra Ravara is hit by an eye ray, greatly frightening her. This helps her run though, and the party escapes the level. Meeting Hachoo again, he helps them explore again, feeds them some of his mushrooms (poisonous), and then flees with them when the Sleeping Eye emerges onto the level. The party returns to the area where the energy field is, which lifts them back to the surface, where Hachoo is greatly freaked out by so much light, space, and many strange things, like bushes. The party comforts him and he becomes excited to explore the world like they do.

The party rests, then decides to explore the area which the map describes as an abandoned farm. The party indeed finds a dilapidated farm, but it is not abandoned, exactly: a zombie farmer drives them off his land. The party returns to the Once Was a Mermaid, rests, then sails to the northern point of the island, where, in a ruined castle, they discovers several treasures. The Legion returns to the ship and sets sail the next day for Huwer, the second island in the chain.

Arriving the morning after, the Legion, along with Siggi, Legon, and Hachoo, treks overland to where the map indicates a complex of pyramids exists. The party finds it, in, strangely for this latitude, a full-blown tropical rain forest. The party explores a few ruined buildings, before Arkakas discovers the tracks of skeletal feet, which the party follows, to discover a secret entrance into the largest pyramid. Inside, they discovers five sick, injured, and delirious humans in a huge cage, apparently slaves or sacrifices. The party hears something approaching, and, hiding, sees a couple of skeletal warriors take a human from the cage. The party frees the others after Bostix bends the bars, and are in the processing of taking them out when a skeletal warrior discovers them, and soon a squad of them appears, ready to attack.

In the Temple of Hrux

Session Date: 2020-05-08

The Legion battles the squad of skeletal warriors, defeating them, despite Wylan Legon III and Hachoo getting knocked unconscious. They survive (Hachoo by simply getting up, his wounds miraculously healed), and immediately after the last warrior falls, Hachoo says that he remembers this place, he's been here before, how or when he knows not. He also says that the ruler of this place is even more sinister than The Master, but can't say how he knows that.

It is then, as if to prove his words, that a horrible voice resounds through the pyramid's interior, cursing the party for destroying its "fanatics" and sending a cluster of will-o-wisps to lead the party to itself. In a horrifying throne/torture chamber, the Legion meet Aman-Bouhkriss, a hierophant lich of Hrux, who demands to know who the party are and who they serve. Frustrated in this aim by their tomfoolery, he summons several four-armed skeletons and succeeds in paralyzing Ember, Arkakas Malbolgia, and Bostix. These last two are deposited by the skeletons upon the bloody alter to the god of death and destruction, while the rest of the party, including Hachoo, battles the lich.

When the skeletons are defeated, and Aman-Bouhkriss unaccountably flees from Hachoo, the party finishes him off and searches some of the rest of the pyramid, finding some odd treasures and freeing some more sacrifices. The Legion leaves the pyramid eventually and journeys back to the Once Was a Mermaid, where the sacrifices, who turn out to have been unfortunate sailors, are accepted into that ship's crew to replenish its ranks. Some music lessons are paid for and given, and the ship sails the next morning for the next island, Ottusk.

There, along its long eastern beaches, the party finds several huge stone humanoid heads. While investigating them, Bostix is approached by what appears to be a beautiful female centaur, who places a curse on him and charms him. The party battles the creature as it attempts to take Bostix away, discovering it to actually be a lamia. The creature escapes by running into one of the stone heads. The party follows, and finds itself in what appears to be a wizards' lair. Ember identifies it as that belonging to the famous and thought disappeared historical wizard Hiraculon the Mighty. The party explores the lair, finding several rooms of magical apparatuses but no creatures.

The last of these rooms contains another portal, like the one they stepped out of to get here, and they go through it. They find themselves in a dark, dank, fouls-smelling lair of spiked walls and vines, cold and full of evil sounds. They explore this second level, and are attacked by a fiendish nycaloth. Defeating the fiend, they discover that Hachoo has gone missing, wandering off during the battle, muttering something about "it's right over here." The party tracks him through some winding corridors, hearing his voice up ahead, arguing with several female voices in a language they don't understand. Carefully, they approach...

Revelations

Session Date: 2020-05-15

The party enters a large chamber, where a now-huge and glowing Hachoo is arguing with six lamia around a pedestal on which stands an immense eggs. A long conversation/argument ensues, in which the party learns that Hachoo is not a normal flumph but a "Great, or Celestial Flumph," creatures who "travel the planes doing good works and bringing the light of knowledge and civilization, and resist those who would destroy the same.” Long ago, Hachoo, whose full name is Hachoongeruadan, "came to this world long... finding it ripe for that purpose." He built and populated the structures the party has been exploring, intending them to be a beacon of good in the world, but they fell to evil, an experience so traumatic for him that he forget his identity, lost his power, and "shriveled to the poor thing you found, aimlessly studying the very same murals that I had created."

Now that the party has helped recover, he plans to rebuild the islands, but the lamia want none of it: the egg is that of a tarrasque, a world-destroying monster destroyed long ago, but regrowing, as "here’s something about the multiverse that seems to need the tarrasque". The lamia threaten to destroy the egg and release it, lest Hachoo free them from the magical bonds he placed them under when tried to steal it, long ago, AND give them control over the whole island. Hachoo struggles to know what to do, and the lamia crack the egg repeatedly, but Arkakas comes up with a solution: they can enter the service of Y'chak, who demonstrates his power. The lamia agree, Hachoo frees them, Ember repairs the eggs, and the party takes their leave of the islands, as Wylan Legon III has decided he's had enough of adventuring, thank you very much. Before Arkakas leaves, he asks Hachoo the meaning of "mirror of stars," and he the Great Flumph tells him.

The party sails 2 1/2 months back to Sablos, arriving early in the sixth month of the year. They return to guildhall, finding it empty and remembering that Llandos had told them he would travel the Ketten Islands while they were gone. So the go about their pursuits, Arkakas visiting Sibok in his new temple, playing instruments, etc., not thinking much of the guild master's absence until they find he has left no note, and the place in uncharacteristically unlived-in. The investigate at the docks, with an old friend of Llandos's, finding nothing until they get Sibok to use the Sending spell to send a message to him. The only answer is pain: Llandos is injured and suffering. They don't know where until they visit Clowder Finisbaer and get him to cast Scrying. Finisbaer describes seeing Llandos bound and and in a pit, and sees out the window a temple on a barge in a harbor, which the party realizes is in Liparo.

The next day the party heads to Liparo, arriving a day and half later, finding the town going about business as usual, until they notice some very strange behavior of drinkers in a pub: dull-eyed, mechanical, and with a ghostly gray thread lead out the back of their heads. Zinra Ravara traces the threads back to Fisherman's Commons, to a house near it. The commoners of the town, however, begin to crowd around them, and the party, not wishing to harm them, try to go the docks and Shrine of Raketra, only to get trapped by the townsfolk atop a building. Zinra and Arkakas fly back to the house and investigate, Arkakas prying open a window, only to get Eldritch Blasts in the face. The party regroups and decides to assault the house, with Bostix charging through the door.

It opens as he rushes in, and he finds himself inside, with their old foe Malzahar Del'anor, revived, and a warlock now, looming over him. A battle ensues, and the party easily gets the upper hand, until Del'anor threatens to slay Llandos by speaking a single word unless they surrender. He also begins to morph into something resembling a aboleth, they party hesitates, arguing over whether they can risk the guild master's life. Del'anor keeps changing...