Episodes 28-33
General Summary
So, yeah, I'm never skipping writing recaps again because yikes, this was awful. Sorry, there's no little lore secrets hidden in this one, I quite barely have it in me to actually write this recap and I know it'll be sparse as it is, so enjoy this brick of text. In the future, I'm just going to write shorter recaps and it'll be easier for all of us; both for me to write and for readers to digest.
Without further ado, here we go: the Flamebringers travelled to the Red Mountains at the behest of Leonidas Crane, Sovereign of the Aurelian Empire, to reforge his really fancy blade, Dawnfire, after the shattered pieces were recovered in Arcanus, way back when the Flamebringers infiltrated a blackmarket auction and stole every lot the auctioned contained (remember that? December 18, 2021). Before arriving in the Red Mountains, the Flamebringers encountered the Green Knight, just a goofy little guy who turned some of them into eagles and others into rabbits, and then they met a sky train and did not understand the early warning system the rail leaves ahead of it and were absolutely obliterated by the train, sending them careening out of the sky and nearly crashing. The train did crash, but it would have been worse if not for the heroic intervention of Pharos, which saved the life of the gnome on board. The gang did not question why there was a ship laiden with warforged heading towards the Fulminarian Empire and let the train continue on it's way. Callisto was knocked down in the crash and went into a catatonic state, and Olette was knocked down in the crash and immediately was sucked into those sick new robes she was wearing. When resurrected with Tyra's final wish, she came back as a wood elf. Landing in the city of Dur Bolduhr, they left Callisto in a coma on the ship and went about their business and celebrated Alvaroc, the New Year, with wishes sent up in little candle lanterns. From the depths, they could see a single green lantern diligently working its way up to join the rest of them. The next day, they met with King Lighthammer and Archduke Hesse to discuss how they might gain access to the Grand Forgemaster's skills, to which the king said nothing but Hesse said that if they represented Bolduhrian interests at the next kingsmoot to decide the emperor of the Aurelian Empire, he would allow them to cut the line. Agreeing to abide by those terms, they were taken down into the Undermountain and promptly ambushed by the Archduke's warforged royal guard, lead by the Lord Master, Hesse's personal bodyguard, butler, and - evidently - assassin. Though, it did it's best to distract the party and redirect their attacks into each other without really fighting them. While the Lord Master attempted to distract the party, the other guardsmen stole away Mr. Jules, such a pretty warforged, and got him strapped down in an operation theater. Bursting in, the gang reduced one member of the gnomish artificers operating on him to aerosolized red mist and intimedated the others into backing down. Freeing Jules, they continued on their way, running into a guard named Gavin. Gavin was charmed, becoming best friends from college with Olette, and showed them how to get to the main forge area. They started making their way there, but not before the guardian tried to apprehend them. This guardian was a bastardized version of a beholder, which the Flamebringers swiftly dispatched with Stormdancer. Then, they went up to talk to Grand Forgemaster Doromir, who told them they were late. Upon agreeing to reforge the blade, Archduke Hesse showed up and started making thinly veiled threats to the party. The party pulverized him, but he called the colossal warforged down upon them. The warforged grabbed the party, Vanderlith used a cheeky teleportation spell to flip the warforged sideways, but that just gravely wounded the party and killed both Vanderlith and the Grand Forgemaster. It also killed Hesse, but there were clerics previously established in the other room, so the Lord Master just brought him there and had him revivified. The colossal warforged dropped some of the party into the pit, but Valan escaped its grasp and ran, collecting the hilt of Dawnfire and the Grand Forgemaster's adamantine arm. Then he was then lit up by a dwarven hit squad sent in after revivifying the Archduke. The Lord Master picked up Valan's body, now riddled with crossbow bolts but hanging onto life, and, following Archduke Hesse's orders to the colossal warforged to the letter, tossed him into the same hole that the others had been thrown down into. Foreshadowing. At the bottom of the pit, the gang was caught by a net of specialized weaponry designed to catch warforged as they fell. Someone named Galahad welcomed them to the halls of the Ironborn. Then they talked to Percival, a Pathfinder, and Mordred, an agent of the Omniscient Dawn, and learned about the Silent War, which was waged between two factions who had varying opinions on if you should try to kill god or not and what happens when the next world comes. Callisto is still in a coma upstairs and is starting to leak black juice. Together, after meeting a colorful cast of Ironborn, the Flamebringers go to meet Emrys, the first warforged to become an Ironsoul and founder of this church of Dead Iron Gods, dedicated to the Ironborn themselves since they had invented immortality based on a bunch of dead warforged Emrys found down south when they were still a gnome. They're nuts. They send the lads on a psychadelic trip to Vanderlith's past without hardly an ask of permission, where they follow a group of characters to the Sentinel, a Precursor tower in the Golden Isles. This just so happens to be where Vanderlith, the Summer Knight, has a Mortal family he isn't supposed to have. So they go on this mission to track down Omniscient Dawn agents, which leads them to some trials. They are asked by the glowing flair symbols, which speak with the voice of legion, by what right they claim entrance to the Sentinel; by right of protection, perseverance, or power. Secretly, there is also a fourth option, the right of passage, which Tyra finds. In the right of protection, Olette lives through the eyes of Zantelar Dawnbreaker, takes an orb filled with spinning, muliticolored smaller orbs, and places it in a door. Each of the smaller spheres within the orb drifted out across the silver inlay of the door, filling circles that are each connected to the center by a braded silver wirework. The center glows with a turning purpley green, and then each other circle houses its own color; golden white, silvery blue, green, black, red and back again, sixteen spheres together making a complete circle around the center of the door. In the right of power, a space full of stars (oh right, that first room was filled with stars, I forgot to mention) coalesce into a single suit of golden armor, complete with a radent set of wings and wielding a shiny gold sword that looks really fancy. After hitting it really hard, the next doorway opened up. In the right of perceverance, Pharos was attacked routinely and pushed back by a far away enemy. The key was to survive, which he did, reaching a metallic man. Dark robes swirl around its form, hood obscuring most of its features, but he could feel dep set obsidian eyes keeping unbreaking eye contact with his. It had a silver gold ring set with an emerald stone, almost like a wedding ring. Then it sent a green-black pulse towards the door and it opened up. The right of passage, the secret right, sucked Tyra into the ground to place them in a room filled with swirling galaxies, standing upon a placid lake of solid liquid that reflected the beautiful skies above, and a few feet from a dark elf who was just... standing there. Smiling. He had alabaster white hair falling in sheets around a stern, angular face. While he held a certainly attractive visage, it is worn by years of worry lines and the echoes of old scars. He had on jetblack armor and a matching cloak of protection, touched with blood-read accents reminisce of hawk wings. He asked "What is our secret?" to which the right answer was to try to see through an illusion. After a while we got there. Next room found the gang finding these weird murals that were blurred out, then a they found the Omniscient Dawn leader that had been turned into a tree, then they found a missive detailing how to awaken the Sentinel, then they fought the Omniscient Dawn agents, then awakened the Sentinel, then they saw smoke coming from the village, then they ran to the village, then they found Vanderlith's family dying. Yikes. Omniscient Dawn agents were burning the town while creature called the Huntsman shot like three foot long arrows into Vanderlith. Then it told Zantelar to take his rightful place alongside him, and together with some members of the Hunt (who were there sort of tangentially helping the Omniscient Dawn. Not really allies, but enemies of an enemy, you know?). Then we saw the Huntsman not kill Vanderlith, but imprison him in the soul coin while Zantelar killed all his friends except the time wizard echo knight. Then, they flashed back to reality and spoke to Emrys, who had a moment of lucidity. They asked some questions: Q What is the source of the Call? A: I dunno, but everyone seems to agree that it comes from below the Sentinel. Q: What is the Dark? A: A primordial force that is up to no good. Q: How do we destroy the Soul Compendium? A: Hit it really hard. Q: What is the soul compendium? A: That's where all the souls go if you've signed a contract with the Red Mountains at any point since Hesse took power. Q: That dudes a lich, right? Using the Compendium as his philactory? A: That's two questions, but absolutely yes for sure my guy. Then the Flamebringers went up to go kill Archduke Hesse, but not before another aarakocra gave Pharos a holy avenger and word of recalled away. They woke up Callisto with a greater restoration, then he hoovered up all the Darkness that was around him, but not before throwing a hissy fit as something claiming to be the Dark or whatever, then he reintroduced himself as "Callisto Darkwind, firstborn to House Nightbringer, Harbinger of the Endless Night and High Nephilim of the Omniscient Dawn." But we didn't have time to unpack all that right then. The gang led the Ironborn up, they held the ground against the warforged so that the Flamebringers could take on Hesse. Then they destroyed the Soul Compendium with a souped up blast from Stormdancer, augmented by the Mercurial Mind (which hasn't been replicated since), and watched Hesse lose control of the warforged, who very aggressively turned on him. Shards of Soulinium embedded themselves in the Lord Master, Olette, and Tyra. Hesse begged for his life, trying to tell the party that they needed him to control the warforged that were still out there, telling them that the Aurelian Empire needs warforged, that they need him to deactivate the localized compendiums that are still out there, and asking questions like "Why do you think the forges are still running after 40 years of peace?" and "Why do you think you crashed into a warforged carrier headed towards the Fulminarian Empire?" to which the party responded with a crisp "idgaf." Then they let the Lord Master beat the shit out of him until there was an un-revivifiable mess of pulp left. It was cathartic. Then the Lord Master, single, vibrant green eye shining out from beneath its cracked mask, extended a hand to the Flamebringers and made peace. Then, the Flamebringers went forth to track down the dwarven king and found him cowering in Hesse's estate with the shards of Dawnfire, that fancy blade we set out to restore in the first place. Taking it from him, the party was still deciding what to do with him as they looted the house, taking a book of "Fairy Tales" and a gem of power word kill from his safe. Then they resurrected the Grand Forgemaster, who we recently learned was the estranged son of the king, who promptly asked why the hell he was naked.
Without further ado, here we go: the Flamebringers travelled to the Red Mountains at the behest of Leonidas Crane, Sovereign of the Aurelian Empire, to reforge his really fancy blade, Dawnfire, after the shattered pieces were recovered in Arcanus, way back when the Flamebringers infiltrated a blackmarket auction and stole every lot the auctioned contained (remember that? December 18, 2021). Before arriving in the Red Mountains, the Flamebringers encountered the Green Knight, just a goofy little guy who turned some of them into eagles and others into rabbits, and then they met a sky train and did not understand the early warning system the rail leaves ahead of it and were absolutely obliterated by the train, sending them careening out of the sky and nearly crashing. The train did crash, but it would have been worse if not for the heroic intervention of Pharos, which saved the life of the gnome on board. The gang did not question why there was a ship laiden with warforged heading towards the Fulminarian Empire and let the train continue on it's way. Callisto was knocked down in the crash and went into a catatonic state, and Olette was knocked down in the crash and immediately was sucked into those sick new robes she was wearing. When resurrected with Tyra's final wish, she came back as a wood elf. Landing in the city of Dur Bolduhr, they left Callisto in a coma on the ship and went about their business and celebrated Alvaroc, the New Year, with wishes sent up in little candle lanterns. From the depths, they could see a single green lantern diligently working its way up to join the rest of them. The next day, they met with King Lighthammer and Archduke Hesse to discuss how they might gain access to the Grand Forgemaster's skills, to which the king said nothing but Hesse said that if they represented Bolduhrian interests at the next kingsmoot to decide the emperor of the Aurelian Empire, he would allow them to cut the line. Agreeing to abide by those terms, they were taken down into the Undermountain and promptly ambushed by the Archduke's warforged royal guard, lead by the Lord Master, Hesse's personal bodyguard, butler, and - evidently - assassin. Though, it did it's best to distract the party and redirect their attacks into each other without really fighting them. While the Lord Master attempted to distract the party, the other guardsmen stole away Mr. Jules, such a pretty warforged, and got him strapped down in an operation theater. Bursting in, the gang reduced one member of the gnomish artificers operating on him to aerosolized red mist and intimedated the others into backing down. Freeing Jules, they continued on their way, running into a guard named Gavin. Gavin was charmed, becoming best friends from college with Olette, and showed them how to get to the main forge area. They started making their way there, but not before the guardian tried to apprehend them. This guardian was a bastardized version of a beholder, which the Flamebringers swiftly dispatched with Stormdancer. Then, they went up to talk to Grand Forgemaster Doromir, who told them they were late. Upon agreeing to reforge the blade, Archduke Hesse showed up and started making thinly veiled threats to the party. The party pulverized him, but he called the colossal warforged down upon them. The warforged grabbed the party, Vanderlith used a cheeky teleportation spell to flip the warforged sideways, but that just gravely wounded the party and killed both Vanderlith and the Grand Forgemaster. It also killed Hesse, but there were clerics previously established in the other room, so the Lord Master just brought him there and had him revivified. The colossal warforged dropped some of the party into the pit, but Valan escaped its grasp and ran, collecting the hilt of Dawnfire and the Grand Forgemaster's adamantine arm. Then he was then lit up by a dwarven hit squad sent in after revivifying the Archduke. The Lord Master picked up Valan's body, now riddled with crossbow bolts but hanging onto life, and, following Archduke Hesse's orders to the colossal warforged to the letter, tossed him into the same hole that the others had been thrown down into. Foreshadowing. At the bottom of the pit, the gang was caught by a net of specialized weaponry designed to catch warforged as they fell. Someone named Galahad welcomed them to the halls of the Ironborn. Then they talked to Percival, a Pathfinder, and Mordred, an agent of the Omniscient Dawn, and learned about the Silent War, which was waged between two factions who had varying opinions on if you should try to kill god or not and what happens when the next world comes. Callisto is still in a coma upstairs and is starting to leak black juice. Together, after meeting a colorful cast of Ironborn, the Flamebringers go to meet Emrys, the first warforged to become an Ironsoul and founder of this church of Dead Iron Gods, dedicated to the Ironborn themselves since they had invented immortality based on a bunch of dead warforged Emrys found down south when they were still a gnome. They're nuts. They send the lads on a psychadelic trip to Vanderlith's past without hardly an ask of permission, where they follow a group of characters to the Sentinel, a Precursor tower in the Golden Isles. This just so happens to be where Vanderlith, the Summer Knight, has a Mortal family he isn't supposed to have. So they go on this mission to track down Omniscient Dawn agents, which leads them to some trials. They are asked by the glowing flair symbols, which speak with the voice of legion, by what right they claim entrance to the Sentinel; by right of protection, perseverance, or power. Secretly, there is also a fourth option, the right of passage, which Tyra finds. In the right of protection, Olette lives through the eyes of Zantelar Dawnbreaker, takes an orb filled with spinning, muliticolored smaller orbs, and places it in a door. Each of the smaller spheres within the orb drifted out across the silver inlay of the door, filling circles that are each connected to the center by a braded silver wirework. The center glows with a turning purpley green, and then each other circle houses its own color; golden white, silvery blue, green, black, red and back again, sixteen spheres together making a complete circle around the center of the door. In the right of power, a space full of stars (oh right, that first room was filled with stars, I forgot to mention) coalesce into a single suit of golden armor, complete with a radent set of wings and wielding a shiny gold sword that looks really fancy. After hitting it really hard, the next doorway opened up. In the right of perceverance, Pharos was attacked routinely and pushed back by a far away enemy. The key was to survive, which he did, reaching a metallic man. Dark robes swirl around its form, hood obscuring most of its features, but he could feel dep set obsidian eyes keeping unbreaking eye contact with his. It had a silver gold ring set with an emerald stone, almost like a wedding ring. Then it sent a green-black pulse towards the door and it opened up. The right of passage, the secret right, sucked Tyra into the ground to place them in a room filled with swirling galaxies, standing upon a placid lake of solid liquid that reflected the beautiful skies above, and a few feet from a dark elf who was just... standing there. Smiling. He had alabaster white hair falling in sheets around a stern, angular face. While he held a certainly attractive visage, it is worn by years of worry lines and the echoes of old scars. He had on jetblack armor and a matching cloak of protection, touched with blood-read accents reminisce of hawk wings. He asked "What is our secret?" to which the right answer was to try to see through an illusion. After a while we got there. Next room found the gang finding these weird murals that were blurred out, then a they found the Omniscient Dawn leader that had been turned into a tree, then they found a missive detailing how to awaken the Sentinel, then they fought the Omniscient Dawn agents, then awakened the Sentinel, then they saw smoke coming from the village, then they ran to the village, then they found Vanderlith's family dying. Yikes. Omniscient Dawn agents were burning the town while creature called the Huntsman shot like three foot long arrows into Vanderlith. Then it told Zantelar to take his rightful place alongside him, and together with some members of the Hunt (who were there sort of tangentially helping the Omniscient Dawn. Not really allies, but enemies of an enemy, you know?). Then we saw the Huntsman not kill Vanderlith, but imprison him in the soul coin while Zantelar killed all his friends except the time wizard echo knight. Then, they flashed back to reality and spoke to Emrys, who had a moment of lucidity. They asked some questions: Q What is the source of the Call? A: I dunno, but everyone seems to agree that it comes from below the Sentinel. Q: What is the Dark? A: A primordial force that is up to no good. Q: How do we destroy the Soul Compendium? A: Hit it really hard. Q: What is the soul compendium? A: That's where all the souls go if you've signed a contract with the Red Mountains at any point since Hesse took power. Q: That dudes a lich, right? Using the Compendium as his philactory? A: That's two questions, but absolutely yes for sure my guy. Then the Flamebringers went up to go kill Archduke Hesse, but not before another aarakocra gave Pharos a holy avenger and word of recalled away. They woke up Callisto with a greater restoration, then he hoovered up all the Darkness that was around him, but not before throwing a hissy fit as something claiming to be the Dark or whatever, then he reintroduced himself as "Callisto Darkwind, firstborn to House Nightbringer, Harbinger of the Endless Night and High Nephilim of the Omniscient Dawn." But we didn't have time to unpack all that right then. The gang led the Ironborn up, they held the ground against the warforged so that the Flamebringers could take on Hesse. Then they destroyed the Soul Compendium with a souped up blast from Stormdancer, augmented by the Mercurial Mind (which hasn't been replicated since), and watched Hesse lose control of the warforged, who very aggressively turned on him. Shards of Soulinium embedded themselves in the Lord Master, Olette, and Tyra. Hesse begged for his life, trying to tell the party that they needed him to control the warforged that were still out there, telling them that the Aurelian Empire needs warforged, that they need him to deactivate the localized compendiums that are still out there, and asking questions like "Why do you think the forges are still running after 40 years of peace?" and "Why do you think you crashed into a warforged carrier headed towards the Fulminarian Empire?" to which the party responded with a crisp "idgaf." Then they let the Lord Master beat the shit out of him until there was an un-revivifiable mess of pulp left. It was cathartic. Then the Lord Master, single, vibrant green eye shining out from beneath its cracked mask, extended a hand to the Flamebringers and made peace. Then, the Flamebringers went forth to track down the dwarven king and found him cowering in Hesse's estate with the shards of Dawnfire, that fancy blade we set out to restore in the first place. Taking it from him, the party was still deciding what to do with him as they looted the house, taking a book of "Fairy Tales" and a gem of power word kill from his safe. Then they resurrected the Grand Forgemaster, who we recently learned was the estranged son of the king, who promptly asked why the hell he was naked.
Rewards Granted
Keys to Archduke Hesse's house and car
Some magic items
Level 11
Cube of force
Ring of Blur
Book of "Fairy Tales" by Grimm
Gem of power word kill
30 trade bars of gold
Some magic items
Level 11
Cube of force
Ring of Blur
Book of "Fairy Tales" by Grimm
Gem of power word kill
30 trade bars of gold
Missions/Quests Completed
So many
Character(s) interacted with
A lot
Report Date
10 Nov 2023
Comments