Chapter 1: Stormguard

General Summary

Session 1

Four of our five main characters arrive at Stormguard prison and have orientation. Juju almost starts a food fight, or just a fight over food. Tealeaf tries to escape by walking out the front gate, which is locked. "Karuk" takes out half another player's hit points in one punch. Rose uses Tealeaf as a projectile weapon. Quinn proves her dexterity with some rocks.
Important plot points:

• Arrival at Stormguard
• Assignment to a mining detail
• On their first day on the mining detail, all PCs are attacked by rats
• Because of damage from the fight, the mineshaft caves in and traps them there.

Sessions 2 & 3

Our crew slips out through a crack in the mining tunnel and spelunks. They kill some shadow-casting tentacle beasts. Quinn finds the Ball of Glory, which Rose takes. They skip a fight with some giant spiders. They recover some shiny equipment in a guard tower where a spider has hoarded it, including a lightning javelin and the Acorn.
A barrier reacts subtly differently to each character before popping like a soap bubble. Rose geeks out over frescoes. Tealeaf breaks one. Everyone gathers some mushrooms, at least some of which are hallucinogenic.
Juju finds some tiny jewels in the bottom of a closet. Quinn finds the Ear Buddy and a lucky stone.
The party takes apart some old walking suits of armor and takes a long rest. They also arm themselves in an armory, where Karuk finds the Greatest Axe.
The party explores a library, makes friends with a tiny servitor robot and then one of its tiny servitor robot friends using, of all things, animal handling checks. A hidden room in the back of a chapel yields jewelry and meteorite iron daggers.
To everyone's surprise, Tealeaf solves a math puzzle.
The party fights two angels and discovers a sarcophagus with an apparently perfectly preserved Elven man inside. This is Zared. 

Session 4

Climbing a staircase lands the party at the bottom of the warden's tower. After camouflaging the entrance underneath a rug, the party is separated into two groups and interrogated about how they got to be there.
Karuk reveals Iliric Valann's plot (using him to replace the dead man named Karuk) to his compatriots, bribes Nathalie with drugs and cash money.
Karuk, Tealeaf, and Quinn each receive dream visitations apparently from Zared . He says that he will help them escape if they take him with them, and claims to be a high-level cleric of the god of Tempest and Trickery. Karuk, Tealeaf, and Quinn scheme about how to break out of the prison.

Session 5

The breakout is planned.
Unanalore attacks the party and then ends up making friends with them once he realizes "Karuk" didn't murder the real Karuk. "Karuk"s name is revealed to be Jandar Aftroden.
The breakout goes ahead as planned. Nathalie makes a significant amount of hallucinogenic mushrooms. Rose and Juju slip them into the food, primarily for elves, because of their low constitution and high magic scores.
Unanalore and Jandar stage an arm wrestling match in the courtyard. Quinn charms Gwen Hyacinth, one of the guards. As the riot begins, Gwen leads them down to "safety" by the sarcophagus, which the warden has discovered.
The party fights three guards and the warden, Iliric Valann, and loses by a hair. All three are in death checks, struggling against the current of the river Styx, when figures from their past show up to help them keep their footing. The three of them save each other, and a child runs out of the mist to guide them to the world of the living again.
Healed and empowered, the group easily wipes the floor with the remaining guards. Quinn kills the the Warden, Iliric Valann. Jandar loots the bodies and gives Unanalore the warden's head. Gwen wonders what the hell she's done. The sarcophagus containing the mystery cleric appears to vanish.

Session 6

Jandar, Tealeaf, and Quinn use the still-charmed Gwen Hyacinth to get them up into the warden's tower and remove their tracking bracelets. They quickly loot as many valuables, papers, and magical items, including a signet ring for the Imperial family, as they can find in the warden's tower, and then successfully sneak out through the ongoing riot and make it through the prison gatehouse with keys taken from the warden's study.
After their first day of travel, they take shelter in a hidden nook of a cave. At this point, they realize that Quinn is wearing a necklace that looks just like the sarcophagus.
The cleric of tempest and trickery, Zared , appears in illusory form next to them, and says he's carried his end of their deal: by dunking them in the Styx, he gave them the extra power they needed to defeat the warden and get out of there, and in exchange, he hitched a ride. He also encourages them to try their brand-new spell slots.
Tealeaf discovers he now has the power to cast Tiny Curse, a first-level spell that causes a minor inconvenience to someone. Jandar tests out his, and finds that he has the power to Put That Back, a spell that restores a displaced object to where it was a few minutes ago. Quinn finds that she has the spell What the Fuck Is That, which transformed the fire in front of them into a chicken for about a minute.
Zared affirms that he intends to stick around as long as he can, and that he wants to get out of the sarcophagus but doesn't know how.
Unanalore locates the party in their cave and joins them, having separated from them in order to pack the warden's head in salt and put it in a bag. He also got his big quarterstaff and some of his own stuff on the way. On reviewing the papers recovered from the warden's study, Jandar finds that there is a piece of one letter that seems to be warning Iliric Valann that there's danger with regards to his switcheroo plan with Jandar and Karuk. This implies that the plot goes up higher than first anticipated. Unanalore wonders aloud if his duty should involve going back to his clan, Batul, with the head, or trying to investigate higher up in the Imperial chain of command.
The party continues on the next morning to Byrocan, a town that's by Rocani Mountain. They take a trip to the blacksmith and then take rooms at an inn for the night, the escape from Stormguard Prison complete.

Rewards Granted

Magical Items

• Ear Buddy
• Greatest Axe
• Ball of Glory
• Lightning Javelin
• Indestructible Spear
• The Acorn
• Charging Mace
• Nightcap of Pleasant Dreams
• Shifting Ring
• Cloak of Wound Closure
• Heward's Handy Spice Pouch
• Pipe of Smoke Monsters
• Orb of Direction; Orb of Time
• Dust of Corrosion (one use)
• Candle of the Deep
• Charlatan's Die
• Wand of Frowns

Character(s) interacted with

Prison Staff

Iliric Valann Gwen Hyacinth Thea Hyacinth Laurok Lonecaller

Inmates

Nathalie Uncle Ned

Other

Zared Unanalore The Wizard Claybryne

Report Date

23 Aug 2021

Primary Location

Sturmgart Prison

Secondary Location

Byrocan

Related Plots

• The Death of Karuk Batur

Key NPCs

Prison Staff

Iliric Valann
Gwen Hyacinth
Thea Hyacinth
Laurok Lonecaller

Inmates

Nathalie
Uncle Ned

Other

Zared
Unanalore
The Wizard Claybryne