Session 1: Before the Temple
General Summary
Bandits of the Northing Road
Ruhst, Percy, and Quigley have been escorting a trade wagon down the Northing Road. The Last Road is a beast, just in and of itself: ancient paving stones that are, sometimes, almost level and not spotted with potholes … but most of the time they aren’t and are, respectively. The tall, creaking wagon of the Arabelen traders swayed most of the way from the northern border, threatening to tumble over were a gust of wind to blow. Unfortunately, in high summer, few enough breezes blow through the Blackwode, let alone gusts. Sweat runs freely, even though the temperature can’t have gotten out of the low 70s.
The bandits’ crossbow bolts come from nowhere, seemingly. Ruhst was at the mess wagon, a trundling, three-wheeled thing rattling with pans and pots at the end of the small caravan -- trade wagon in front, supply wagon in the center, nearly depleted this close to Ether, and then the mess wagon. With a bowl of water close to his lips, he is startled by the first thuds of the arrows and screams of the other guards, of whom there were three, roughboys all -- Quigley and another from Arabel; the third, Percy, a fellow Elper. A quick glance reveals that of the three only one of the Belters is still alive, or up and fighting, anyway. With howls, the bandits, eight of them and a commander, his face painted a bloody red, leap out of the rootswell next to the road. The other Arabellan roughboy, Quigley, who had shorn off the left side of her raven-black hair two nights before out of boredom, meets the charge with a leaf-bladed sword and runs one of the bandits through.
A pitched battle follows, wherein Ruhst gets beat up quite badly (since the DM thought he was an ACTUAL ranger and not a rogue who had once been in the service of the Legacy Rangers) and Quigley does quite well, making her way to the roof of the main wagon so as to best fire arrows at her attackers. Still, everyone got bloodied up pretty good and it was a close fight that nearly had the backup characters come out to play.
After running off the last two bandits, the three surviving guards discover that the dead ones all have some sort of strange scorpion tattoo on their neck -- the symbol of a cult known to operate among the Amluks of the Ten Thousand Trackless Sands, but not known to be active this far north.
Night of the Firegeist:
Kelpip and Trajinous are walking briskly down Waterlathe Street, hoping to clear the warehouse district and make it to the Brave & Bold Tavern on Couch (COOch) Street without being mugged, when a commotion near an open warehouse door catches their attention. Trajinous quickly found herself kneeling next to the body of a smoldering private guardsman, his clothing all but ash; his features blistered and bubbled from ghostly red flames that lick lightly at him before they vanish. His only words: “It comes in cloaks of fire!” Entering the warehouse to investigate, they see what he means: standing on a tower of crates that it has just overturned, two of them smoldering with nascent and ruddy flames, is a smoky, humanoid creature, roughly the size and shape of a human, but there the resemblance ends. This THING is like a cloak made of smoke, with hearthfires burning within the bounds of those tatters. It lifts another private mercenary up over its ‘head’. The guard screams as flames lick at her body, searing the woman’s leather jerkin and, soon enough, flesh.
Fire and horror follow as the relatively unskilled spellslingers sling spells that the firegeist mostly ignores. The fight sprawls out into the road and the warehouse burns merrily. Guardsmen arrive and several die quite horribly. The GM begins to wonder if he read the CR tables correctly. But, at last, the firegeist is brought down, ranting about wreaking vengeance. Strange thing is, though, that firegeists aren't really seen this far north; they prefer the stifling, shadowed ruins buried beneath the Ten Thousand Trackless Sands.
The Brave and the Bold
A day or three after the heroes' most recent adventures, they find themselves all together in the Brave & Bold Tavern (with its four-frothing-mugs sign). The Bold is cool and dark, a windowless space inside one of the big stone buildings off of the market square, favored by the adventuring sort. Pipe and tobacco smoke hangs below the high ceiling like a gathering overcast, and the smell of roasting meats and vegetables is nigh on everpresent, as is the weft and waft of sweaty armor and the singed-hair smell of apprentice mages. Torches spark in sconces, and a wooden chandelier nearly six feet across and dripping with candles depends from a hook on the ceiling, lowered to just above a human’s outstretched reach. A dozen tables and half that many booths provide seating for the eclectic clientele.
After regaling one another with their heroic exploits, the table is accosted by a grizzled and grumpy old gnome who is recognized to be the servant of a mysterious nobleman called Tyranax Calyops. The gnome, called Right Eye, sneers a great deal and leaves a message tube at the party's table.
The parchment roll is sealed with red wax imprinted with a single, stylized eye and reads,
"In this past week, you have each, unknowingly, saved this poor peer more than a small amount of grief. In reward, I have a project for your consideration. One that pays well in rewards of both silver and gratitude. Your attendance in your finest garb at the following address at the tolling of the 3rd Night Bell would be most appreciated."
The address is a sub basement of the old east side watchtower. The note is signed, again, with the sign of the single eye, that of the secretive Lord Calyops, rumored to have been exiled from Court at the capital, Amerest Adone, some 800 miles away on the Black Sand Gulf. Though he is surrounded by rumors, rumors of secret cabals, dark trades, darker ambitions, and unscrupulous dealings.
So of course the adventurers drink heavily and then make their way to the old watchtower, one of those used during the Kingmage Wars to protect the city from demons and worse things:
The eastern Watchtower looms tall in the mid night. There was no chiming of the bells, of course (not from 4th Evening Bell to 1st Dawn Bell), but the time is close to that indicated by the note. The Watchtower doesn’t seem to care one way or the other. It is dark, its beacon lights not needed now that the Kingmage Wars are more than a half-millennia gone. But once the great light would flare, protecting the city from the assault of blackest magery.
Inside, the wooden floorboards creak. A spiral stone staircase rises chipped and narrow to the Casting room at the building’s apex. It continues down into a cutout in the rotting floor. Cobwebs and dirt are thick, as is graffiti. The sub basement is the same, except that the floor is stone and a crude double pentagram has been drawn there in what is, probably, not blood.
A lantern hangs to either side of the round chamber, dimly illuminating everything but a shadowed alcove across from the staircase landing. A figure stands there, barely discernible.
“Welcome, friends,” says the figure. “I am Lord Tyranax Calyops, and I have need of your services and your skills.”
But, as it turns out, this figure is NOT Lord Calyops -- it is a corpse being manipulated by the true Tyranex Calyops, who is a beholder, once beloved of Emperor Maximillian Terrillian XXIII, but now thrown out into the cold. Still, the deal is the same. Retrieve some items from various temples around the Twilight Empire, and perhaps a couple even further afield, and patronage and wealth await.
The adventurers nod, sign agreements, and become Tyranex'...
TEMPLE THIEVES!
Character(s) interacted with
Cast of Characters
Ruhst (Mike-TE)
Ex Legacy Ranger, Ruhst was (likely) engaged by Legacy to disable traps and find secret hidey holes in the ancient ruins that the order seeks to preserve. Human Rogue (he/him).
Trajinous Everytime (Laura-TE)
Missing much of her memory, Trajinous followed the path of clericdom after awakening in a mountain temple with no idea how she had gotten there and only the word “Traj” written on the wall in blood, and the knowledge that adding -inous to any name makes it better, to guide her . Dwarven Cleric (she/her).
Perseverance "Percy" Winterbottom (Sharon-TE)
Ex Moonrise Knight, Percy was always a bit hot on the battlefield, despite her well-spoken manner off the field. Human Barbarian (she/her).
Kelpip Pending (Michael-TE)
Retiring, but not reserved, Kelpip Pending found magic at a time when his peers were playing with erector sets and spin baubles. Now he seeks out the relics and lore of the ancients, hoping to preserve them before they are lost to the wilds. Gnome Wizard (he/him).
Fallenbridge (Elayne-TE)
A travelling Kenku bard, Fallenbridge has listened at the feet of the storytelling and singing masters, and memorized every bloody nuance. His renown grows, but envy and anti-Kenku sentiment follow close behind. Kenku Bard (he/him).
Quigley (NPC-TE)
A mercenary and rake originally from the coastal cliffside city of Arabel in the Belt Cities north of the Twilight Empire, now she is based out of Ether, in the northern wilds of the Twilight Empire. Quigley takes the jobs she can find, and isn’t too picky about them, until she senses something rotten in the state of Etherian Elps. Then the laid-back gambler can become a hissing tiger. Human Fighter (she/her).
Right Eye (NPC-TE)
The grizzled red Right Eye of the Beholder, Lord Tyranax Calyops, he is not a gregarious fellow. He speaks mostly in monosyllabic insults and scowls a great deal. Gnome (he/him).
Lord Tyranax Calyops (NPC-TE)
Complex and dangerous figure of the underworld (both literal and figurative), Tyranax was once the a trusted advisor to Emperor Maximillian Terillian XXIII, but fell out of favor. There are rumors of betrayals, dark deals, secret machinations, and more, but details are scarce. Now, Tyranax rebuilds his power base from the abandoned tunnels and halls of the old East Side Watchtower in the northern Twilight Empire city of Etherian Elps. Beholder (they/them).
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