Tiernan Greendew
Dawn Knight Tiernan Greendew
Tiernan is firbolg from a city far away. This kind soul almost lost his life trying to help the wrong person and had to flee. Coming to a new frontier, looking for a new life and a society worth helping, he feels more at home than ever.
Physical Description
General Physical Condition
Massive. What else do I need to say?
Identifying Characteristics
Bright colours of the dawn, a large shield and a mace that looks like it hurts. Big ol' sheep ears.
Mental characteristics
Gender Identity
Cisgender Male.
Sexuality
Demisexual, Biromantic.
Education
He grew up very poor, he got a little bit of teaching when the Dawn Knights found him and took him in.
Employment
A Dawn Knight, even after leaving the order.
Failures & Embarrassments
He helped keep a merchant alive (who he isn't sure deserved it), but the only reason he needed to help him was because some interesting folk were really intent on making sure he died. These individuals forced him to flee his home city.
Morality & Philosophy
There is always hope, there is always a new day, there are always new possibilities!!
Taboos
Very superstitious and religious.
Personality Characteristics
Motivation
He owes it to those he's lost to help out those he hasn't.
Somewhere on the new continent, he knows that a relic of his ancestors is lying and waiting, armour in the colours of the dawn, he will reclaim it, and bring daylight to these settlers and these new lands.
Savvies & Ineptitudes
Good at knowing what to say, terrible at saying it.
Likes & Dislikes
Likes: Cooking, helping, healing, fighting!
Dislikes: People thinking that he hates the night because he's a cleric of the dawn, thats not what its about! Oh, and cats, not a big fan.
Virtues & Personality perks
Actually does want to help people, I know- hard to believe right?
Vices & Personality flaws
For all his talk of doing the right thing, he gets wayyyyy too involved in fights... think he might enjoy it a bit much.
Hygiene
He's met better than him, but by god he's met worse than him.
Social
Contacts & Relations
Anyone he had has either died or been abandoned on his voyage to a new land.
Religious Views
He worships the dawn and everything it stands for, a new day, new hope and new possibilities.
Social Aptitude
He wouldn't be able to order food for himself.
Hobbies & Pets
His mouse Algernon from home! The one connection he brought with him, because everyone knows that bringing a mouse to a new continent is a great idea!
Wealth & Financial state
He's wearing most of it...
A tall (regular sized firbolg) man wearing gleaming colours of the dawn. This loud, large man most certainly makes himself known a good bit before you can see him!
View Character Profile
Alignment
Good
Honorary & Occupational Titles
"Dawn Knight"
Age
112
Children
Gender
Male
Eyes
Black Pupils
Hair
Dark Brown
Skin Tone/Pigmentation
Lightly Tanned
Height
7ft 5"
Weight
130kg
Reporting on the tragedy of the Mourning Mists.
Greetings Compatriots, I have returned from another quest, although I am in much worse form than usual (despite being of much better health than usual).
It all began when I spotted a notice placed in the centre of the outpost. The notice was looking for adventurers to thoroughly investigate a large pocket of magical mist to the North-West, one found by a party of scouts. One of these scouts had died, another injured and two escaped unharmed. I must apologise, this is quite the journal entry, but it is of dire importance.
Myself, Vyla, Sidus & Strepsil gathered at the scout hut outside of town, where we were informed of our quest. We signed some waivers, and set off. The journey to the Mists was uneventful, but as soon as we reached it, we noticed the magical properties. We had to push through, and all around us were dead trees, not trees that had been killed, or died from any natural reason, they were all hearty trees- that had died instantly and simultaneously. It was a sign of what was to come looking back on it.
Suddenly, we were separated; myself and Vyla brought to a large pedestal, and Strepsil and Sidus brought to a manor, both areas surrounded by the same mist. Myself and Vyla immediately saw the large pedestal, a few hundred feet in diameter, with one set of steps onto the platform. In the middle, separated, were two statues. I made an attempt to detect good and evil, I was overwhelmed with the vision of Undead, this land was desecrated unlike any place I had ever seen, someone shouted in my ear “SILENCE”, and I shut myself off from that sense.
Strepsil and Sidus found themselves at a faintly glowing manor, one they quickly discovered was ethereal, but at the front of the house, a gathering of ghostly dancers and musicians made merry. The conductor of the event wore a mask, whereas all the other people had no faces at all. Of note was that the people attending were wearing a miriad of outfits, including one caveman by the looks of it. The Conductor filled them in on the situation we had found ourselves in, that I will now explain to you.
The Mists are a game, a story and a trap. Long ago, a woman (who I shall refer to as The Bride), was betrayed and suffered greatly. Somehow, she created the Mourning Mists to tell her story, to process her immense grief and in some ways, get revenge on those that had wronged her. The mists hold a number of locations that tell her tragedy, but you may only visit 3 in your time there. After you visit them, you must return to the podium area (that myself and Vyla first stumbled onto). There, the statues (Mourning and Malice) ask a riddle each to the people present. Should you get one wrong, as we did, you have a chance to escape. Should you get both wrong, The Bride will make quick work of you, and your soul will be trapped eternally to serve a ‘role’ in her game. Throughout the Mists, there are ‘characters’ from her life, forcibly played by those who have perished to her fury.
The characters we encountered were as follows. The Conductor/The Father, The Groom, The Priest, The Best Friend/Abby, The Mother-In-Law, and The Doctor. Of these, the Father and The Mother-In-Law are not played by poor souls who wandered in, they are who they say they are. The Groom was unfortunately played by the poor ranger who lost his life in the mist. The people who have been forced to play roles do not have any choice but to do so, asking them about their own lives was fruitless.
We visited the Manor, The Church and the Birch Wood Walk. There may have been characters- and other elements of her story- that we missed in the Village, the Graveyard and the Lake. It seems that these places may change their time in her story depending on when you visit them, for instance, we visited the manor first and it was well before the Wedding in her story, but when we returned there after exploring other areas, it was after the Wedding.
We found the Father and the Groom in the Manor originally, we then found the Priest and Abby in the Church (Abby was in the belltower!) and we found the Mother-in-Law in the Birch Wood Walk, before returning to the Manor and finding the doctor (seemingly only because we found and questioned Abby).
I am explaining all of this so that if anyone else ventures here, they know where to go and what to do, perhaps through multiple visits we can save this poor woman and the people she has stolen. I will now tell the Bride’s story to the best of my ability, but I may be missing pieces, and some pieces may be wrong, multiple of these characters lie (whether they want to or not). Abby is a particularly vile character, the soul that played her did her best to stay truthful, but was forced to lie about certain things. The Father lied about actually being the Father, pretending to be a trapped soul, until we realised, he is a tricky figure.
The Bride has lived in the Village her whole life, she became a florist, but she wished to explore, to escape. The Groom was the son of the town’s nobles, and also wanted to leave the village. The Father did not want his daughter to leave, and the Mother of the Groom did not want him to leave, so they came to arrange their marriage. But the two did love each other, for 2 years they did, it just meant that they could not explore. 2 weeks before the wedding, the Groom proposed to her in the woods nearby.
The day of the wedding arrived. Preparations were in order. On the fateful day, a gathering of the relations were outside the church in a large gazebo, drinking and celebrating the marriage to be. Before they could however, a spell was cast, a Chill Touch on the groom. This would not have been enough to kill him, but it activated a poison that was strong enough to do so. In the chaos that ensued it seemed like the Bride had cast the spell. The priest rushed in and revived him, and he immediately started screaming “Why?”. Abby, perceiving her best friend (the Bride) to be in danger, rushed in and stabbed the Groom with an odd red blade. Following this, the chaos really began, the Bride was hysterical and ended up being dragged away by Abby, who cast Pass without a Trace to escape. The events culminated in a Fireball being cast in the tent, as well as the Groom’s corpse disappearing.
Abby dragged the Bride into the woods, where she told her to leave. 2 days later, a wrathful spirit came and attacked the town, splitting into multiple forms. The Bride destroyed the town and many who lived there, especially those who had wronged her. Soon after, Abby was pushed off the clocktower for being the last one to have seen her.
I know, it is an odd series of events. That is how we first found it, but there was much more at play here, although this was indeed at the surface level, what occurred. So what was the truth? Where to begin? Here are a number of areas we had to uncover.
It all revolves around Abby. Abby was immensely charismatic, she was in everyone’s good books (except for the Father-In-Law). She informed the Doctor that the Bride was going to kill the groom in an attempt to become a Lich, the Doctor then created a poison to kill the Bride with before she could kill the groom. But Abby had other plans, she switched the poison, making it kill the Groom instead, and she was the one to cast the spell to activate it.
Why would the Bride attempt to become a Lich? After interrogating the Father, we found out that he was once a member of an adventuring party that had multiple necromancers in it. They gave birth to a daughter, she was to be sacrificed in a vile ceremony, one to make them Liches. The Father killed them all. He adopted the Bride, and kept her true heritage a secret, not wanting her to escape and become a Lich somehow, he devised a plan to keep her in the village.
When the Bride was young, she went with a friend to the Lake, they were playing on boats when the friend’s boat sank and she drowned. The friend was the daughter of the Manor Family, and the Bride thought she had killed her by accident. The Father not only covered this up to make it look like the daughter had gone missing, but was actually responsible, he had sank her boat. He did this to try and keep the daughter here, but years later arranged a marriage to the Manor Family’s son to make sure.
So how did Abby know of this? We never found out, but Abby seemed to want to become a Lich herself. You see, Abby did not leave the Bride in the woods. Abby killed her, and took the body to her basement. When she was found in Abby’s house, Abby feigned ignorance, but the Doctor realised he had been a fool, and pushed her off the Clocktower soon after, as well as raiding her home and destroying everything necromantic. The body of the Bride was buried near the graveyard, in an unmarked grave.
Soon after the Bride returned and destroyed the town. The Doctor survived by playing dead (aided by a potion). I don’t know when the Bride returned again, creating the Mourning Mists. It is worth noting that everything in the Mists is a creation, and much of it is symbolic. But everything you see is not the original, that town is somewhere else in place and time, lost forever.
There is much tragedy to this tale, but one of the worst elements I have not told you yet. 2 years before the wedding, the plot of marriage was created, Abby possibly began her plot at a similar time. The Doctor was brought into town by the Mother-In-Law, brought in to apply a Love Potion, every 2 days, on the Groom. Even during the Groom’s proposal, the Doctor was there to make him love the Bride. At the proposal, there were 3 parties watching in the shadows, invisible. The Mother-In-Law, the Doctor and a small entourage with them were the first party. The second: The Father and the Priest.
I barely made out the third, but she was there, Abby. Near Abby was a tree, covered in items; a child’s skull, a vial of poison, a set of flowers and a vase. Marked into the tree itself and the Vase was a Necromantic Sigil. These items were involved in an attempt at lichdom, probably Abby’s attempt, the vase seemed to be an attempted Phylactery, and attacked us when we touched it. There was one other item on the tree, a ghastly Scythe. The scythe was also in Abby’s chair at the wedding. There was someone attached to the Scythe, being held down, when I touched the handle she flew off of it. We think she was the Bride. Many things there were symbolic in hindsight, but the Scythe is important, if you do venture into the mists, find it.
This is as much as we managed to learn. We returned to the plateau, where we came to the two statues. One represented her Malice to those who wronged her, one her mourning of her life. We were asked a riddle by each. The Malice asked us about the word that defined her life. Strepsil gave the answer, Betrayal. The Mournful asked us another riddle, “Tell me Seekers, on that day of proposal, why are all these feelings [joy of the proposal] thrown to disposal?”. We thought we knew the answer, I placed my hand on the totem and spoke, “No one in her life truly loved her, they all used her in one way or another”. The totem whispered “Close”, before disappearing. I had failed. The Bride appeared, a ghastly and terrifying figure, “You got it wrong, now LEAVE!”. I did not wish to fight her then, for fear of my compatriots' lives, and for genuine sorrow at her tale, we turned and left, apologising as we did. As soon as we touched the mists again, we appeared at camp, with new items we had never seen before.
If you’ve read this far, I implore you, go to the Mourning Mists, find the rest of her story, perhaps if we get her riddles correct, we can set her and the souls she has captured free. I have a feeling that she cannot truly be killed until this game is over.
I will continue my search for the Daybreak Armour, perhaps its light will allow me to burn away the Mourning Mists.
-Dawn Knight Tiernan Greendew
Session III- To Save a Cyclops from a Wizard
Session ? Recap
Greetings Compatriots,
I, Dawnknight Tiernan Greendew, have once again traversed back to the Manshoon Dungeon. This time, I ventured with my dear friend Sidus as well as a few adventurers I had yet to meet. Arkxix the Bard, a wondrous performer who fought valiantly and showcased beautiful music. Stefn, the massive goliath who had the strength to carry Cyclops, but also the heart to bury them. Then, before we set out, I met a strange fellow, Duncan, or as he preferred to be called Dunny. Dunny indeed worships the celestial bodies similar to myself, although he praises the coming of the Twilight versus my worship of the coming of the Dawn. There was an odd familiarity to him, I intend to explore these lands with him again.
Firstly, we stocked up, including acquiring 4 sheep [maximum sheepage, once again] to… help out our good friend Bront, the purpose of this trip.
Travel was uneventful, but upon reaching the site of the Manshoon Dungeon; we were met with tragedy. The forest surrounding the well was burning to a crisp, we found a corpse of a cyclops as well as evidence for the disintegration of another cyclops, within the last 10 minutes of us arriving.
Looking into the well, we saw Bront, sickly and emaciated. Quickly, we went down, firstly with sheep. With mine and Dunny’s healing, he recovered quickly. We then tied our ropes together to create enough support to bring him up. Stefn and I (with aid from the others), pulled Bront up.
Bront informed us that the corpses were indeed his brothers. We held a funeral for our dear Bront’s brothers; Cront & Bront. Dunny held the funeral, while I performed the rites on thier graves. Bront told us how his family struggled with emotions, and we let him know that his brothers cared for him, enough to protect him from evil wizards. Bront also told us about how his father accidentally killed his mother, for he thought she was a sheep in her fleece. This problem seems to plague Cyclops Culture, someone must do something!
We rested for the night and let Bront mourn. In the morning, we went down to face the wizard’s dungeon. We noticed that very recently, something had dismantled an Iron Golem that was previously very alive. We discussed which way to explore, but out of the South Eastern Door, a Manshoon exited and recreated the flickering golem behind him. We pleaded not to be killed, that we would leave immediately but the mage silenced us. He explained that he was a 3rd Generation Manshoon Clone, and that he would offer us 10000 gold if we could deliver to him a Manshoon Corpse. Suddenly, another Manshoon flew through the ceiling and was immediately met with obliteration by the 3rd Gen Manshoon, who we shall henceforth call, Clive. Clive then opened a portal to hell and went through, with not-so-cryptic warnings.
Marching down the South West door with the now non-existent golem, we came to a chamber covered in vegetation, with small, dug-out hole in the roof. In the hexagonal room are 2 more doors. The one going South-East was into a burnt Library with 2 water-elementals fighting a fire elemental. We decided to close that door. Going through the south door, we reached a dark room with an evil-looking tree in the middle. It told us to take a piece of it and plant it somewhere. Sidus quietly shaved off a piece of the tree, which I warned him against. The tree then summoned multiple large tree monsters which attacked us. Through our efforts, we trimmed the plants.
Unfortunately, a water elemental burst in from the library room. We began to fight the beast but then 2 more Manshoons burst through a wall, slinging powerful spells at each other. We knew we were in over our heads, Two Manshoons and a Water Elemental is too much for us. We fled back the way we came, yelling to Bront to run away from here.
Session II- Manshoon Two Electric Shoogaloo
Malya, Ozil, Tiernan, Horatio and Sidus (Otherwise known as the M.O.T.H.S) decided they wanted to further explore the Manshoon Cave that Chad and Co. had previously journeyed into and out of.
Tiernan managed to get a hold of Joseph Christ’s (RIP) flock of 6 sheep. From the outpost village, we journeyed north and then north-west, before reaching their destination.
On the way, we encountered a number of Rust Monsters who were distracted by Sidus throwing his scimitar and Malya and Ozil creating an illusion of clanging noises a distance away.
We pass through the Forest Of Christ, which lacks any animals and seems very eerie, worth investigating further for sure.
The party reached Manshoon’s cave as described by the previous adventurers and got ready to go in.
Horatio was sent up to the top of the well that led into the cave, he looked down and saw Bront, a Cyclops with a broken leg who seemed friendly all the same. Horatio spoke Giant and conversed with him, brokering a deal to help him out and let us explore the cave. We gave him one of the sheep and promised more, we tied some ropes and went down the well, into the dungeon.
Inside the hexagonal chamber were 5 doors. The 2 northern doors had been explored by the previous party, where one of them had died, so we decided to tread new ground. Malya cast Detect Magic to tell whether the Iron Golem’s guarding each door were a threat. One most certainly was, of the other two, one was dead. Malya detects an illusion behind the door of the dead golem (South Door). Malya sends her rats down the stairs to find that the stairs are an illusion and it’s a 45 degree slope down. She sees through her rat’s eyes and remarks that its safe.
We use the last of our rope and make our way down. At the bottom is a decently sized room with a large pool opposite the slide down. A door is at each of the other walls. Malya notices that the pool is gleaming with Conjuration magic and stops Ozil from touching it. Crisis averted, the group goes on their way. Just kidding, Sidus throws a stone at the water, naturally. The pool effectively gets up and turns out to be a water elemental. Malya debuffs the elemental and sends all sorts of spells it’s way. Tiernan and Horatio get up close and personal, they both get huge chunks of damage thrown their way, but Horatio hacks at the water and Tiernan gets a massive Inflict Wounds in on the mass. Ozil hurls insults that really make the water salty, stopping them a couple times from killing party members. Horatio almost gets trapdoored to a punji pit but avoids it. Tiernan gets knocked out but then Sidus makes up for his mistake by being an insane healer and bringing everyone back from the brink. Malya ultimately gets the final blow, bringing the elemental down.
Following this encounter, the party sift through the bottom of the pool (full of copper pieces), Ozil finds a cool sword with an eye on the pommel, Tiernan finds a ruby worth 50gp and the rest is copper. Sidus floats down to the bottom of the trapdoor pit and finds a dead Manshoon, he takes a wand off his side as well as the mask he is wearing, as well as more copper on the floor. Tiernan uses his Goggles of Object Reading to identify the wand as a busted Wand Of Wonders, it only has 2 charges left but could be fixed to replenish its charges each dawn if the artificers in town help out.
From here, the group takes the West Door. The East door side is unexplored. We come to a large, pillared room with a living Bigsby’s Hand that seems pretty chill, but we all take it very carefully to not alarm it. Behind a statue of Manshoon at the end of the hall is a pit of copper pieces, certainly worth a lot but would be exceptionally hard to do anything with.
Both the exit to the large room and room behind the statue lead to another room, but the corridor from the room behind the statue leads to a small room with a cloning urn similar to the one that the previous party found. The urn is glowing but next to it are two kobolds using a golden thread around the urn to siphon it’s power and get high off it. Malya freaks them out and they run.
The party reaches a large library room with the corpses of 7 Manshoons littered about. It looks like another manshoon was dissecting them. On one side of the room is an entrance to a cavern and on the other side is another door. Opposite the entrance to the room is a cauldron full of poison, which Sidus takes a vial from. Malya finds a black leather bound book emanating evil vibes on one of the bookshelves. Everyone picks up a few more Manshoon Masks. A ghost Manshoon comes out of the walls and gives out to us, about how he was fighting a Manshoon 30 miles away, worth investigating. He also mentions one of the bodies is a 'trick body'.
Suddenly, many, many kobolds swarm us and we run back the way we came. Bront and his dire wolves help kill the kobolds as we escape, shouting “Those are my friends!”. We drop the remaining 5 sheep down to him as we leave and rest. Over the following days Tiernan identifies the items for the party, and Ozil and Sidus before we leave use a magic item to reveal the surrounding areas.
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