Session 1: Ill Portents and New Opportunities

General Summary

The Beginning

The session starts with split perspectives: Visayan and Hodari are traveling on foot across the plains, while the others are residents of Gundrir Boll. From the city, the group sees the pair in the distance, catching up slowly. They prepare to lower the lifting platform to the ground. Visayan and Hodari crest a hill, seeing the city for the first time. It is a ramshackle, plodding city but at least it's off the ground.
The party meets in the meeting hall of Gundrir Boll. The meeting hall is in the hollowed out stump of an ancient dead tree (its roots holding the clump of earth together is what inspired the Boll part of the name). Uthwyk the tavern owner (male elf) heard a rumor from some recent traders that Burrhenge has fallen. He wants to send out the party for two reasons; locate any survivors, and loot as much as they can from the body. He wants a 10% information fee (a pretty standard rate for information trading).
His main hook will be that he's heard Visayan is looking for a library, at that Burrhenge had a wizard who lived there.
Other patrons of the bar:
Vanderbiek (Female Tiefling), the mayor. When she overhears, she will push for the rescue side of the mission. Burrhenge had generations of farmers living there, experienced in growing untainted crops on the move. She is also a peaceful person, and genuinely wishes to help people in need.
Night Antelope: an orc scrap trader from the plains.

Show spoiler

He is secretly from Bristlebelly, and is following a day behind the party as they head to Burrhenge.

Kestrel purchased a draft horse and a cart. ______________________________________________________________
The party made their deal with Uthwyk, and they decided to head to Burrhenge. The newcomers were not very forthcoming with their purpose, so Khashayar decided to secretly look into the past of Visayan. Satisfied, he agreed to guide them toward Burrhenge's last known location.
The first night, they came upon a safe zone that Khashayar uses sometimes. They found a strange rune-like symbol on one of the rocks that seemed to repel the grass in a small area. As Visayan is studying ways to repel the carnivorous grass, he began to draw the symbol. Attempts to study the symbol led to feelings of queasiness, and revealed that some form of deep magic was involved. His insights revealed that magic can indeed repel the accumulation of corrupt magic, but that something else was at play here. The symbol is almost alive, and Hodari was able to gaze at it long enough to see it was microscopically changing constantly. When Visayan tried to copy it to his notebook, it looked nothing like what was on the rock. He came away with the sense that this was more akin to smaller predators fleeing when they sensed a shark was near.
The second day, as a thunderstorm rolled in, and the party had to set up camp in the rain. That night, a small herd of Ghost Boars caught their scent and attacked. The use of magic and the gathering of living bodies attracted the corruption of some grass, which picked off one of the boars at the edge, but was dissuaded from coming too close due to the spell Dancing Lights from Visayan. The party managed to kill the remaining boars.

Notes

Khashayar sacrificed his story about Kestrel's encounter with a wolf to know the location of Burrhenge and to learn Visayan's backstory.
Khashayar knows the meaning of the symbol on the rock where they camped.

Report Date

14 Apr 2021