The Story So Far...

[GM Saint]

In our first session our heroes came together at the camp of four missing hunters. Empyrean's Rest was facing a famine as entire herds of prey animals as well as farms full of livestock had been going missing. Some of the heroes were seeking these hunters to deliver news, some had been investigating the bounty on the mysterious new predator killing everything.

 

They found the hunters missing but clearly dead as well as a strange blue metal staff. After dealing with some tree blights, they sought out the local druid, Omnus. Omnus is an unclean, rude, mountain of a man who protects the lake and doesn't care for company. He told them that the strange entity was new to him but it didn't like the lake so it wasn't his problem. Still, he did suggest this enemy was some kind of wild magic abberation.

 

Back at town, the owner of the mystery staff ambushed them in an attempt to reclaim it. Even unarmed and half dead, the mystery attacker proved formidable but was brought to heel. They captured him but discovered him unable to speak. By morning, he'd swallowed his own tongue and drowned in his own blood. The mayor didn't know the man but informed them he was a 'skorn,' a member of an elite mercenary group of slaves trained and dehumanized from birth and specializing in killing mages. He warned them that skorn were seldom sold as singulars and to be careful.

 

In our next session, Barkvin told the group about Sylvania. She was a sorceress who died last year after losing control of her magic. A victim of her own family, Sylvania was basically sold to her husband, a wealthy lord in Carysand who wanted magic in his bloodline and hoped she'd give him a wizard son or two. When none of her children had the magical spark, the relationship became abusive and Sylvania fled to the Vale with her two sons.

 

About a year ago, Sylvania's magic went out of control and seemed to consume her. The group felt this was worth a look and visited her old house west of the town. There they found two 'Shadow Babies,' bulbous monsters with dozens of tentacles covered in toothy maws that darkened the area around them and could teleport through the shadows. After defeating one outright and running the second down as it tried to flee, they also discovered a portal to the Shadowfel in the doorway of the house. The group poked around inside before deciding to destroy the portal by knocking the walls over.

 

Now that they'd seen their enemy, they revisited the hunter's camp and Souris was able to pick up the trail. Not the trail of the shadow but of the Skorn it had nearly killed before. They ran it down and discovered one of the hunters had survived the attack but had been taken captive by the remaining skorn. He was being held in the house of the Mory family, whom they'd massacred. The party skirmished with the skorn a bit and rescued the injured hunter, who Barkvin was able to mostly patch back up.

 

Our next session was a detour. Two new girls in town, Ethel and Aria, were investigating the mysterious history of the Vale. They'd made a deal with Ved Sr, father to one of our heroes, and it had gone poorly. After some drama, the heroes agreed to help the two girls find a lord's private library that was buried out west.

 

Outside of this library, the group was attacked by bandits who turned out to be a pack of werewolves. Some of their number had gone into the cave leading down into the library, having seen the girls flee the area days earlier. When the fighting started, those wolves emerged from the cave in a panic, pursued by deadly black puddings. Sandwiched between the heroes and the oozes, the bandits didn't live for long. One was taken prisoner but eventually set free.

 

Inside the library, they discovered an infestation of black puddings and a trapped otyugh as well as several preserved tomes, some coin and some magical spoils. Among their gains was a magic sword trapped in a regenerating slab of stone. It's mysteries still remain to be unlocked...

 

The girls disappeared into their rooms back in town to translate the discovered journals, the contents still pending...

 

In our next session, some new arrivals made it to town. Lady Illuvia Xanathel, a rich former baroness from Carysand, had commissioned the construction of a large manor house in town. She arrived with an entourage of guards and servants and the company of Ser Gaven the Sunsetter. After throwing a bit of coin arround to sweeten up some of the locals, she claims most of the rooms in the inn.

 

The next day, goliaths raid the town. The mayor had called in most of the farm families in the area, warning them they should move into town with their livestock until the mystery predators are dealt with. The goliaths go directly for that livestock as it seems not only has the famine touched in the far north but may be even worse there, perhaps even originating there. The only villagers killed are those who raise arms against the goliath raiders but the heroes eventually defeat them and kill their chieftain. The goliath shaman surrenders and attempts to flee but Ser Gavan runs her down and executes her with a hint of zealotry and madness in his eyes.

 

After the dust of the battle settles, the heroes head north. The goliaths had given them a bit of a lead in that their quarry may have gone far north. On the road they encounter Aegis, a gnomish master wizard and his entourage of monster hunters. This group is heading south but stopped to slaughter some more werewolves. The two groups share a camp and Aegis offers more illumination on the potential nature of their enemy. A wild mage's power consuming them and turning them into a monster. The first hint that Sylvania may not have been killed by the monster but IS the monster.

 

It is here Nikoletta decides to part ways with Aegis' group and join this new group to seek out a greater evil. Aegis agrees the Shadow is a greater threat but made his own oaths to aid friends in the south that couldn't easily be broken.

 

In the next session, Souris receives a distressed magical calling from her surrogate grandmother who was in danger nearby. They rushed to her aid and found two mind flayers taking her captive but also discovered an older, more powerful of the Shadow monsters in control of those mind flayers. After a dangerous battle with the Shadow, the illithids and a small host of thralls, Baba Birianna was saved.

 

She took the heroes to another of her lairs. Here it was revealed that Aaliyah seems to have been made by Birianna to be a servant and protector for Souris, quite against her will. The group breaks a part for a bit to discuss some things separately. Eventually, Birianna offers them a magical tea that will help them resist the psychic powers of the Shadow creatures. The group accepts and go into a deep slumber.

 

In this sleep, some of the heroes find themselves connected and share memories with each other. When they wake up, they all decide to never speak of those memories again... =/

 

When the group awakens they find themselves separated in pairs. Souris and Nikoletta are in goliath lands and narrowly avoid discovery through clever use of magic. Barkvin and Aaliyah find themselves in cart, having been discovered by mercenaries and were being carried to Exile's Pass, the town the group had set out to venture to. These same mercenaries were carrying the dead body of another Shadow Baby, having lost many of their number in killing it. In the town, they meet Ser Dawn, a paladin of Carysand taking considerable risk by entering the Vale. They negotiate a very high bounty for killing the Shadow Mother so that the knights aren't forced to operate inside the Vale, an action akin to treason in Carysand.

 

Ved and Murdain awaken outside of an old latrine and scurry away before dangerous carrion crawlers inside the waste pit slither out after them. They find an Umbral cleric performing last rites for several men atop a small hill and he offers to cast a spell to let them speak to the dead. They accept and discover the men were all werewolves, cut down by Iaeus, the Howling Knight. This is apparently the progenitor werewolf of the Vale (and maybe Aaliyah's father?) who is culling their numbers, disappointed in his 'children.'

 

The group here meets up in Exile's Pass again. Niko and Souris scout the city for signs of the Shadow Mother, deciding she is hiding in the long unused sewer tunnels beneath the city. Murdain reaches out to an occult proficient contact of his and finds more information suggesting Sylvania IS the Shadow Monster.

 

The group meets a new friend and descends into the sewers... where the story is still being written.