2022/11/30: Downtime Report
General Summary
Knight, Rodger, Senal, Zaran, Locke, Sunderfury Their mission complete, the party took some time to split the treasure they had gathered and learn more about it. Malakai is great at investigating items and Knight still needed to get the leg of his armor repaired, so the group went to visit him. He identified that the horned helm of the dwarven lord is sort of part of a dwarven lord set. Putting the helmet on will make you into a dwarf, permanently. The helm also enhances dwarven abilities. These enhancements partly come from ancestor soul of a dwarf who will come back, empower the helm, and influence the wearer a bit. The helm is good for headbutting. The dwarven greataxe is just a really nice axe. The crown and sceptre of the Acid Lord are part of a set: There is an ancient acid elemental linked to those two items and to a throne that the party hasn't encountered. If someone attunes to all three items, they get all the powers of the acid elemental, who was practically a demigod. However, the elemental is Chaotic Evil; there's probably a drawback, even if the details remain unknown. The Champion's Short Sword is great if given to a low-level character. It gives a bunch of extra fighter levels while wielding it, it makes leveling up easier, and leveling up with the sword unlocks more and more of its powers. Knight claimed it for use by his Sentries. The Majestic Hair Charm grants the wearer magnificent hair (including a mustache if the wearer is male and/or having one is funny), enhanced charisma, and the skill and speed to engage in fisticuffs with the strongest of opposition. Knight and the dragons are skeptical about this "hair" business, but Sunderfury did end up taking it. No one in the party wanted to become a dwarf or risk the drawbacks of the Acid Lord set, so they headed to Radaghast to sell off the dwarven and acid items. Radaghast is the home of Dane's Weapons and Armor, the founding shop of the Thorandul Empire and one of the homes of the Renegade Legion. Across the street is Herb's, buying and selling practically any magic item that is not a weapon or armor. Radaghast being a good-aligned and "normal" human-majority city, the guards gave Senal and Knight a serious side-eye. Senal wears sinister-looking black plate mail and Knight is... Knight. Still, the two chose not to hide, allowing a barrage of questions about their origins and intent and ignoring the guards following them throughout the city. If they hide every time, they'll always need to hide. If they move openly and make their intentions clear, perhaps someday familiarity will replace suspicion. Dane's is a giant stone building full of weapons and staffed by dwarves. The sounds of dozens more dwarves enthusiastically hammering away echo from the back room. The large suits of armor in the front that initially appear to be statues are actually two Blackmoores standing guard, still and silent until action calls. Even Zaran's keen sense of smell struggled to detect them as alive. (Note: Apparently Blackmoore armor is vacuum-sealed; you can dump them in a room full of poison gas and they won't care.) At Dane's the group turned in the dwarven bones from the cave fisher nest. They might just be put to rest, or, if divinations and the souls of the dwarves permit, they might be made into enemy-bane weapons against drow or cave fishers. The Thorandul dwarves, highly capitalist as they are, gave 3000 gold for those. Then they paid 6000 for the axe and 20,000 for the helm of the dwarven lord. Dane's wasn't interested in the Acid Lord items, so the group crossed the street to Herb's. Herb's is a little three-story shop with a small flight of stairs in the side. It's a cozy little place with lots of shelves of esoteric items, including a "reduced" rack for those of reduced size, not reduced funds. The proprietor, a bored-looking wizened "human" of gnomish proportions with Coke-bottle glasses and a green and brown robe, didn't even look up when the party came in. When the party dropped the Acid Lord items on the desk, he flatly asked "Identifying or selling?" Knight responded with "Selling." Herb grabbed the items and took them into the back room. After a minute or two, he came back out and slid a piece of paper back across the desk. "If this is acceptable..." Written on the paper was "250,000 gold". He also bought the four unclaimed cave fisher eggs for 1000 gold total. Zaran, Rodger, and Sunderfury split the proceeds of most of the items, since they had chosen fewer items from the loot piles. Money having been acquired, Sunderfury bought a lot of weapons from Dane's to continue eating them and enhancing himself. He and Zaran acquired a golden katana that is apparently linked to a fiefdom in the Eastern Realms, and the wielder will be gradually forced to go there and protect it. Senal acquired the Ocean's Tides, a big sword with a water pattern and related powers. Knight finally got decent fire resistance via a necklace from Dane's. Various other items were purchased. The group then went to visit Mithangor and drop off a variety of weird magical bits that he could use to make interesting items. With that, the group headed to their various homes to finally rest. The group spent the next month in downtime, handling their own homes and personal projects. Research by Knight and his allies revealed that the nature goddess in the crystal, Nadira, predates the Ancient Alvidarian pantheon; she was the one they killed/defeated to become gods originally. Very little info is available, since that's at least 8000-9000 years ago. Aside from that, Knight is studying with Ngel, dealing with threats that have cropped up in Darkhome, and doing research and gathering allies for freeing Nadira. Further investigation revealed that the solcite in the Darkhome mine is a lot of shattered souls of guardian and paladin types who may or may not have been defending Nadira against the forces of Ancient Alvidar. It's literally what's left of a lot of her people. For the most part they're good-aligned, which is promising for the question of Nadira's trustworthiness. The crystals do have a tendency to return from whence they came if moved too far from the area, teleporting back to the mineral vein. This is bad for making items out of the solcite, naturally, but good for getting pure mithril. Some of the more experienced adventurers pointed out to Knight that if he's looking for skilled combatants, there's a bar for high-level adventurers in Castle Fallingstar. Called "The Rook", the place is a gathering place for expert adventurers, redeemed villains, and even a few amiable monsters. Across the street is "The Knight", where all the normal people go to drink. It's best if the patrons don't mix between the two; too much risk of disruption or collateral casualties.
