The Story So Far

If this goes any longer, I'll write a book

Table of Contents

Shadows Over Arda, pt. 1 ("Drake the Magic Dragon")

Torch Year: 1464 AW

In the "prequel" campaign, most of the events of the campaign take place in the nation of Rian. Rotund, an orcish monk who recently left the Golden Khanate to find worthy successors of his fighting style, the Wandering Fist. He found himself in Kategut, a port town in Rian. He defeated a local witch, liberating the village. Meanwhile, the bronze aasimar Drake, a leader of a band of local dragons, had left High Peak on a journey to better understand his neighbors in Rian. he traveled with his draconic wife, Shyalla, leaving behind their young son Fayell in the care of Drake's half-brother Ra'Kor.

Acting quickly to secure power for himself, Ra'Kor imprisoned Fayell, and shipped him off as an offering to cement his newest alliance - one with the extraplanar fetchlings. He sent one of his lieutenants to act as intermediary with a local Shadow cult to oversee the formation of this new alliance. As Rotund traveled, he joined up with the party of khan Rian, who was following up on rumors of the dragons of High Peak acting strangely. At the same time, Drake and Shyalla heard rumors of a new cult that was practicing on a nearby mountain that was led by a renegade dragon. Following the rumors of the cult, they joined forces with Ea Graveltongue, a dwarven exile from the Golden Mountain.At the cult's hideout, they found their son rotting in the cult's prison, the next offering to their extraplanar allies. They rescued him, but were soon found out.

As Drake, Ea, and Shyalla fled the mountain prison with their emaciated son, with the renegade dragon's forces on their heels, they ran into the khan's party (along with Rotund), and faced the dragon and his cultists together, defeating them. The khan, impressed with their performance, proffered they join the Grand Moot that was going to take place in a few days in the capital, Thule.

At a small tavern there, the party discussed their future plans and to consider the Khan's offer. Ea was looking to compete in the Grand Moot in the hopes of gaining entrance to Khazad-Mor , a feat that would normally be impossible with her being branded as an exile. Ultimately, both Rotund and Ea competed in the Grand Moot, with Ea winning and being welcomed to join the dwarves of Khazad-Mor.

Interlude

Torch Year: 1464-1469 AW

In the five years that would follow after this campaign, the party would have returned to High Peak, finding that Ra'Kor has overtaken Drake's home with the help of the fetchlings and the Shadow. After a valiant struggle, they realized they would need to rely on outside help - the Torches, who specialize in threats from beyond Arda. As time went on, Rotund would eventually head south to Romanorum to found a monastery in Romanorum to teach the Wandering Fist before eventually rejoining the fight as a Torch himself. Ea, now granted access to Khazad-Mor, became a soldier, but quickly distinguished herself, becoming a powerful general in her own right. Drake continues the fight against Ra'Kor, helping to direct the efforts of the Torches and the remaining dragons free of Ra'Kor's tyranny. The result has long been a stalemate, with the Torches waiting for the right something, or someone to join the cause.

Shadows Over Arda, pt. 2 ("Return to Drake the Magic Dragon")

Torch Year: 1469 AW

Act 1: Romanorum

The curtains rise in Romanorum, in the border town of Iulus. There, Gregor and Zelt meet, taking on a contract to protect Quietus, a shady half-orc scholar, who was on the run from Al-Andalus's famed Shadow Assassins. As they travel together, Quietus' history is pieced together by Gregor and Zelt. They realize he is actually a Shadow worshiper, and directly caused the disappearance and enslavement of the people of the town of Solus. Defeating the Color-out-of-Space, a Shadow creature, they continue their journey. Knowing Quietus would be too dangerous to roam free, Zelt stealthily dispatched Quietus in his sleep, unbeknownst to Gregor.

Zelt decides the best thing to do would be to take Quietus' tomes to his guild, Secret League of Yew - "S.L.Y.", for safekeeping. As they traveled, the pair were attacked by a number of fetchling knights from the Order of the Gilded Dragon who attempted to reclaim the tomes. Not long after this fierce battle, Gregor and Zelt encounter Silvarin and Rotund, two Torch agents who were looking to bring Quietus to justice. The four travel together to nearby Aatrox to discuss their next steps. Along the way, the Shadow Assassins, led by Twai, catch up to the party. After an intense showdown, Silvarin convinces them to back off.


After arriving in Aatrox, a misunderstanding about the tomes gets them sent to S.L.Y.'s archives in Harad. Despite the setback, Silvarin and Rotund invite them to join them in Augustus to invite them to join the Torches, an order dedicated to monitoring and defeating the Shadow. Gregor joins, and Zelt becomes a contracted mercenary in their service. At the behest of Torchmaster Torval, Gregor and Zelt leave for Harad, to bring back the tomes to be translated by a scholar in Magnos.

Act 2: Harad

After "silencing" the Shadow worshiper Quietus, Zelt took the tomes of the fallen zealot which he gave to another S.L.Y. operative to deposit at the League's archives in Harad. The Torch agents, Silvarin and Rotund, were in hot pursuit of the tomes for the Torches, and hired them on behalf of the Torches to retrieve them. Torval then ordered Silvarin and Rotund north to assist Drake against a growing threat in High Peak. Zelt, one of the League's agents, knew the archives were deep in one of the League's facilities in Tenebrous, the capital of Harad. Heading to the port of the Romanoran capital of Augustus, they boarded a ship owned by one of Silvarin's friends, the orc captain Old Salt. From Augustus, they sailed south to the capital of Harad, Tenebrous.


Once they arrived in Tenebrous, they sought out one of Zelt's contacts in Harad, "The Rat", a kobold who secretly dealt as a black magical items dealer. As they searched, the heroes soon learned why Harad had gotten it's cruel and lawless reputation. The people of Harad were deeply superstitious of magic-users, and were about to burn three such otherwise innocent victims on the pyre in a major city square as a public execution. Unfortunately for our heroes, the Rat was among one of those victims.


Thinking fast, Gregor used his magic to create a large panic and distraction for Zelt to go save the potential victims by cutting them loose. Then, using the panicked crowd as a cover, they fled. The Rat returned to his magic item store to lay low, but the other two victims were the elf Selena and her young adopted human son, More. Selena reveals that she is a Torch agent in Harad, and was trying to advocate for the rights of spellcasters in the city, but was captured and was soon to be executed along with her son. She asked Gregor and Zelt to help return her to the Torch base in Tenebrous.


Upon hearing Gregor and Zelt's mission, and grateful for the rescue, Selena volunteers her aid in securing the tomes. Now with the Rat secured, Zelt returned to him to learn the exact location of the archives. There, he finds the Rat and the rest of the Tenebrous branch of S.L.Y. had been brutally attacked by the fetchlings, leaving the Rat as the only known survivor. The Rat tells him how to get down to the archives, but warms him of a dangerous gas trap that prevents most interlopers from getting through. Quickly needing a brainstorming session, Zelt returns to Gregor, Selena and More. Trying to brainstorm conventional ideas, they see More's natural talent as a sorcerer despite his tender age, where he was able to create large and flexible air bubbles with his magic. Zelt decided to use this power to his advantage, using it to bypass the gas trap that led to the archives deep beneath the city.


Traveling past the gas trap, they see there is far more than the S.L.Y. archives deep under the city. In fact, there are the remains of a vast and ancient orcish city, centered around an ancient temple dedicated to the Primordial Fire. It was here that the S.L.Y. archives were hidden in. Fighting their way past the traps, the heroes noticed several sprung traps and dried black blood. Quickly catching up to the fetchlings, they found them about to loot the S.L.Y. archives. After a pitched battle in the narrow halls, Zelt and Gregor were able to defeat them and preserve the archives. There, Zelt retrieved the tomes and Gregor prayed to the Primordial Fire. There, an old and ancient fire spirit, long weakened by the lack of worshipers, offered to join Gregor on his journeys. Gregor accepted, and the fire spirit came to inhabit one of Gregor's rings.


Now with their mission complete, the heroes prepare to return to Augustus, but not before a brief run in with the Baron, the most powerful of the Merchant Lords of Harad, who emanated a strange and dark aura not unlike the fetchlings. Knowing the Baron was too powerful in his position, the party left Harad in a hurry to avoid Selena and More from being re-captured.

Act 3: Magnos

Following the recovery of the tomes of the Shadow-worshiper Quietus from the S.L.Y. archives in Harad, Torchmaster Torval sent Gregor and Zelt (joined by Selena and More) to find a translator for the tomes. The tomes were written in Shadowscript, which is known by very few outside the fetchlings and the Shadow-worshipers. Torval sent Gregor and Zelt to find a friend and ally of the Torches, the dean of language studies, Sendor. Sendor was not only the dean of language, but he was also the Archmagister and leader of Magnos. Selena revealed she was the ex-wife of Sendor, and for reasons unknown to the party, she was originally hesitant to go see him again. Gregor helped convince her make the trip, and the party sailed from Augustus to the seaside city of Creci with the help of the orcish captain, Old Salt.

After an attack by naval fetchlings, they arrived in Creci safely. There, they took part in the time-honored tradition of the Midnight Duelists. Little known to the party, the city has been rocked by a series of serial kidnappings. In response, the local lord, Margrave Alma, locked down the city, including the party after the Margrave's own son was kidnapped. In order to lift the lockdown, the party joined the investigation. While out investigating, Selena was ambushed and her son, More, was kidnapped. Following his abductors, they followed them to an abandoned warehouse.

Getting a closer look at the warehouse, it was revealed that the warehouse was the base of operations for a gang of fetchling artificers who were kidnapping vulnerable people with magical power to drain of their magical energy. Their aim was to create the Mage-Ring, a long-distance magical teleportation device which they could use as the Shadow's foothold in Magnos. To use it over such a great distance requires great magical energy, which is why the fetchlings stole their victims.

Rather than engaging the enemy directly, the party instead called upon the large Spellguard detachment in Creci, and surrounded the warehouse, and quickly raiding it. They took numerous fetchlings prisoner, and liberated the remaining kidnapping victims, including More and the Margrave's son. The Margrave rewarded the party for uncovering the plot and saving her son, and sent the party off on the VIP quarters of the great magical steamship The Pride of Magnos to Westport.

Arriving in Westport, they were greeted by a strange envoy of the Archmagister, Ferandis, who offered to take them to see the Archmagister. Soon after entering the city proper, More became seriously ill, and much to Ferandis' disdain, took him to Cleric's Hall, Westport's primary hospital. There, they were met by Selena's brother, Carus, who was also the personal physician of the Archmagister. He determined More had ley sickness from the change in magical pressure upon entering the city. Soon after, the Archmagister came himself to check in on the party. He was surprised to see his ex-wife, Selena again, but gave her space considering the situation.

Following More's recovery, the Archmagister offered to help translate the Shadowscript tomes, and even teach Zelt how to read Shadowscript himself. By translating the tomes, they uncovered hidden magics and eldritch knowledge about the world they lived in, but also that the Shadow was weak to sunmetal, and much of it was sequestered by the enigmatic svir. In the meantime, Gregor learned history and spells at the great library in Westport, and Zelt took on a position as an assistant professor of Natural Sciences. During the process, the Archmagister invited them to attend a lecture by a cleric and scholar of the Primordial Water, Miziens. The scholar claimed to have narrowed down the city of the svir, and by extension, the ancient temple of the Primordial Water.

Archmagister Sendor then sent the party to acquire the sunmetal from the svir city. Joined by Miziens, the party ventured to the svir "City", and were shocked to find the svir in league with the Shadow. There they saw a regal but golden-chained fetchling, who was called the Tyrant. He claimed to speak for the Gilded Dragon (the fetchling's name for the Shadow) and commanded the svir and fetchlings there. The svir and fetchlings were ordered to move the last remaining sunmetal for safekeeping in the Blood Fortress of Thuban to keep it away from the Shadow's enemies. Fortunately, the party foiled their schemes, and recovered the remaining sunmetal.

Traveling back, the party found that Sendor and Selena had mended their relationship. To celebrate their victory, Sendor invited the party to a small personal dinner at his home. Arriving at the appointed time, they found Sendor struggling with Ferandis, revealed to be a fetchling spy, over the sunmetal. Ferandis fled after seeing the party, and Sendor told them that his marriage failed over after their first son died of disease. Sendor believed he could ultimately mend their relationship by reviving their dead son, he tried to use the sunmetal as a powerful magical reagent to overcome the normal limitations of the resurrection spell. Seeing how his selfish actions endangered the greater world, he gave the sunmetal back to the party for safekeeping. He returned to Selena, determined to be a better husband and a father to More.

Act 4: Al-Andalus

Following the acquisition of the sunmetal from the svir at "City", Gregor and Zelt reported their success to Torchmaster Torval. While Gregor and Zelt had been busy in their efforts, so too did the Magnosi and the Torches work on developing a portal prototype - called the Mage-Ring prototype, based on the portal device they found in Creci, in Magnos. As they had helped bring the plans to the Torches, Gregor and Zelt were invited to witness it's testing. They soon found out they were here for more than seeing it.

Torval then began to explain that a dangerous situation was brewing in the western land of Al-Andalus. The Caliph Scheherazade, the religious leader of Al-Andalus, had been missing for several days and the grand cathedral, the Hagia Mendos, was shrouded in magical darkness that no spell or sword could pierce. While the Caliph is beloved by her people, this was particularly alarming for the Torches. They rely on Scheherazade for material support and maintain supply-lines to the Torches' efforts in the north, where they battle the corrupted dragons in Rian. Without her, the Torches will be without critical aid, and would likely fail.

Knowing the mission would be dangerous, Torval decided to send one more hero to aid them. Sir Ulrich, a folk hero from Romanorum, had been championing the cause of the Torches in Al-Andalus, and volunteered for this dangerous mission. Gregor and Zelt passed through the Mage-Ring safely to Al-Andalus, but felt a strange presence in the form of a distant but giant eye observing them while they crossed through. Once there, they joined up with Sir Ulrich, and scoped out the Hagia Mendos to find a way into the cathedral.

While they searched, they met a figure from their distant past - Twai. Now the leader of the Hashashin, the Al-Andalusian Shadow Assassins, she had a keen interest in saving the Caliph. To that end, she filled them in with the previous failed attempts to enter, and of a potential secret path that had been passed down from the former Hashashin grandmaster. The heroes found its entrance, but needed to find two gems to activate it. One, the red gem representing the passion of men, was found with the local Torchlord, Yusuf, who had the gem in his proof of office. The other, the white gem that represented the soul of men, was found at the Kulliyah Al-Andalus. There it was kept as a holy relic at this center of theological studies.

Finding the gems, they opened the hidden passage into the crypts below the Hagia Mendos. There, they witnessed a fetchling necromancer raising the dead and sending them upstairs. Zelt assassinated the necromancer, and the party continued. Upstairs, they found the few remaining survivors of the church - the Caliph, along with a few acolytes and townsfolk. The Caliph desperately maintained a magical barrier to protect her people for the days she was "missing", as fetchling forces and raised dead chipped away at her magical defenses. At the head of the fetchlings was a crowned but chained fetchling who directed the acts of the necromancers. Dispatching the enemies, they were able to rescue the Caliph while minimizing casualties.

Now free of enemies, the survivors sought a way out of the cathedral. Trying the front door, they found it coated in magical traps and darkness left by the fetchlings. Looking for a safer path, the heroes discovered their situation was far more dire than they had expected. The Hagia Mendos was in the middle of a planar transport for unknown reasons, and was now stuck in the Transitive Plane. The party scoured the cathedral for clues, at last coming upon a strange purple moss that was growing on the belfry tower, and notes left by a fetchling scholar.

The notes briefly described the Moss of Becoming, a plant that expanded magical senses and understanding at the cost of the user's physical sense. Throwing caution to the wind, Gregor ate the Moss, and gained a supernatural understanding of the magical devices that trapped them in the Transsitive Plane. He was then able to disarm the traps and return them to the Prime Material Plane, back on Arda. With the survivors rescued, a weakened Caliph welcomed the party to stay at her humble palace while they recover.

During their recovery, the party meets Twai once more, who tells them of a magical communication device found on the crowned fetchling. The communication device spoke much like the gold-chained fetchling, the Tyrant, had. It said that once the fetchlings had finished disposing of the Caliph, to return to him in the northern land of dragons, at High Peak. After a brief discussion with the Caliph, she rewarded the heroes' brave act with a gift from her treasury.

Now having rescued the Caliph, they spoke with Torchmaster Torval. He was concerned with brewing events, he asked the party to bring a Mage-Ring to Morgrad to set up a new Torch base in the region, close to High Peak. Torval, recognizing Gregor's service to the Torches, asked him to become the first Torchlord of Rian, which he accepted. Torval also told him he might learn more about the lost temple of the Primordial Air at the town of Tyre, which was a short detour from their road to Morgrad. To his end of being a new Torchlord, Gregor gathered new recruits to make his journey north.

In this venture, Gregor, Ulrich and Zelt gathered ten brave souls to join them, each of which having their own reason to join the conflict against the Shadow and the threat it poses. Gathering the necessary horses and supplies for the trip, they braved the desert sands of central Al-Andalus where they encountered many wonders, such as the nomadic Wren clan, lost elven ruins or the terrible bulettes. It was during this trek which a messenger from Zelt's organization, "S.L.Y.", disguised as a traveling merchant, made contact with Zelt and informed him of a special mission in the nearby trade town of Kaffa, which lies near the border with neighboring Nestoria.

Zelt convinced his party to travel to the once prosperous town of Kaffa, which was long suffering from a series of torrential storms which threatened their crops and a series of bandit raids which disrupted the east-west trade with Nestoria. Secretly meeting with Zelt's contact, "The Camel", who ran the inn as a front for S.L.Y.'s operations. He requested that Zelt locate a magical weather manipulation device for the guild which was supposed to be delivered by a S.L.Y. agent who never returned. Zelt's mission would be to acquire the device from unknown hands and recover the lost agent's badge, lest either fall into the wrong hands. The gut feeling that the frequent storms and bandits were related gave Zelt the lead he needed.

Zelt returned to his companions, and playing on their sense of justice, ushered them to seek out the bandits. Together they traveled the mountain pass between Al-Andalus and Nestoria, and located their camp. After a fierce battle, Zelt located the mastermind behind the storm bandits - it was none other than the lost agent himself, gone rogue to seek power and profit as a bandit chief. Deftly assassinating him, Zelt returned with badge and device in hand, and earning himself a tidy sum in the process.

Wrapping up their loose ends in Kaffa, the party continued on their journey to Morgrad. Their goal, for the immediate term, would be to venture to the northern edge of the Al-Andalus Mountain Range, where the town of Tyre rests. The town is famed for its long-standing relationship with the local dragons, and according to Torchmaster Torval, may have some clues to the location of the ancient temple to the Primordial Air. In addition, the chef, Haran-Aron, had long been seeking the rare and delectable cooking ingredient, the renowned "radish of horses", which can only been found growing along the mountains of this region.

Leaving the mountain valley in which Kaffa lay, the party traveled northwards onto the slowly ascending alpine plains onto the base of the northern Al-Andalusian Mountain Range. While the roads of the Merchant's Belt are well-maintained and well-traveled by merchants and wayfarers alike, it brought its own dangers. At the bridge of the mountain river, a bridge was taken over by a local gang of kobolds. The kobold's leader, referring to himself as King Rograkh, son of Rograkh, extorted any travelers who attempted to cross in the aims of funding his "kingdom". Not willing to fall prey to these depredations, Gregor decided it was a great chance for his new fellowship to act.

The companions first attempted to convince the kobolds to let them pass, but it soon turned into a melee between the Torch recruits and the kobolds. With the intervention of Gregor, the kobolds were quickly routed. Stadia, the bounty hunter, captured one of the kobolds, and took to tormenting it in his persistent belief the kobolds are secretly in league with the Shadow. Astar intervened, reprimanding Stadia for his cruelty on a surrendered foe, and asked Gregor what they should do next. Gregor convinced the kobold if he told him where he came from, and he would allow the kobold to return home, much to Stadia's disgust.

After this, an argument soon broke out among the companions, whether to end the kobold threat to the road, or to continue along their original quest. Gregor called for a trial to be held on the fate of the kobolds. One faction would argue in favor in the kobold's destruction, stating their danger to unarmed travelers or caravans. The other, appealed to Gregor's sense of mercy and the urgency of their mission. At the end of the trial, Gregor decides they will leave the kobolds be and continue to Tyre.

Not long after, the party found themselves at the slow and winding road leading up to the town of Tyre. Coming into town, they saw the town was alive with festivity, as they had come on the eve of the start of the Scale Festival, a celebration and renewal of the pact between the dragons and the people of Tyre. After being greeted by the guards, the party went their separate ways to enjoy the festival. Haran and Raven went to seek out the "radish of horses", while Sir Ulrich came to drink (and help out) at the bustling Tyre's Rest Inn. Zelt would take the time to enjoy one of his favorite pastimes, to fleece arrogant and unwary merchants.

Gregor, on the other hand, continued with his goal to seek out information on the temple of Primordial Air. After hurriedly looking around the city for clues, he met an old wizened woman named Sage, who comforted him, and even said she had heard a rumor that the temple was once a site of pilgrimage for the dragons, existing in draconic homeland of High Peak. Not wholly-satisfied with the story, Sage told Gregor that he should try to pose his question to the draconic guardian of Tyre, the Mother Dragon. In their tradition, the young and old of Tyre put all kinds of questions onto a great wooden post during the Scale Festival, and three of them are answered truthfully by the Mother Dragon. In thanks, Gregor gave Sage some time to rest by taking over the usual reading of the local fairytale The Boy and the Dragon to the children of Tyre while she needed to attend to other matters.

The next day came, and it would soon be time for the yearly answering. The Mother Dragon emerged from her cavern den, a great and wizened green dragon with green-white wings that are evocative of winter giving way to spring. Three questions were selected, but unfortunately, Gregor's question was not. Gregor sought out Sage once more, and lamented his missed chance. Sage again reassured him that so long as he continues to strive, she knows that they'll meet again. Confident once more, Gregor and his company heads out to enjoy the remainder of the festival. Gregor participated in the Mage's Exhibition, and Sir Ulrich entered Brandy in a rock-climbing contest. By some strange twist of fate, Brandy indeed won third place in the contest with his considerable skill (for a horse), and became the talk of the town.

The next day saw many of the merchants and travelers who came for the Scale Festival returning to the road or home, and party also decided to head out. Gathering their companions, Sir Ulrich noticed that Haran and Raven still hadn't returned. Gregor insisted to find them alone as he urged the rest of the party to continue onward. Sir Ulrich, Zelt, and their remaining companions made a leisurely pace as they continued on the way to Morgrad, where they encountered a pair of traveling jewelry merchants and their dog (Baldric, Olga, and Odin). They beheld the beauty of the lands below the mountain range, the Gray Marches as sea of orange and yellow against the crisp blue Ice Floes as autumn has well set in across Arda.

Gregor, on the other hand, quickly began to struggle to find his lost companions. Having sent his remaining allies out without him, he went from store to store to find out where the "radish of horses" might grow. After listening to a long story from an old store owner, he bolted into the sky to the mountain where they're said to grow. With the power of his nimbus fading, Gregor falls into the montaine woods. After searching for several hours, he hears a call from help from deep within the woods. Coming closer, he sees an injured Raven calling for help. She explains that she and Haran were attacked by a roc, a great bird, while seeking the radishes. Haran had bought time for Raven to try to escape back to town to find help.

Raven and Gregor quick redoubled back to where they were attacked, finding Haran. Bleeding out and near-death, Haran had channeled his years of pent-up rage as a line chef to survive his ordeal. Haran is originally distraught to see Raven return, but is reassured as Gregor challenged the roc. After a brutal struggle using up many of Gregor's spells, the battle ends in a draw, as the roc flew away to seek easier prey, and Gregor to heal his wounds. The trio then make their way down the mountain to try to catch up with their other party mates. Sir Ulrich and Zelt had waited for them about a day out, with Sir Ulrich and Stadia trying to mend fences over hunting.

With the party reunited, they continued north along the dwarven-built road that connected the towns of Tyre and Morgrad to the the Gray Marches. As they traveled, they came across the wreckage of a fortified camp, which had recently been ransacked by a cohort of fetchling seekers, who then came to ambush the party. Seeking to avenge the merchant camp, the party slayed the remaining fetchlings to a man. The party remained at the camp's wreckage for the evening, finding that the camp was actually carrying supplies intended for their new operation for a Morgrad Torch base, paid for personally by Caliph Scheherazade in thanks for their help. Salvaging what supplies they could, they continued northwards to Morgrad.

They traveled to a small and nameless border settlement which was built around an Al-Andalusian guard tower. Having endured several trials in those past few days, they rested at the local Three-Bears Inn, which was run by a trio of burly and aged adventurers. Strangely suspecting the trio may be were-bears in disguise, Gregor stood watch for the better part of the evening while Sir Ulrich, Veselov, and Shahla the Apothecary drank themselves under the table on the local mead. The next day, they crossed into Rian, and a new chapter in their adventure would begin...

Act 5: Rian

Having crossed into the northern border from Al-Andalus and Rian, they traveled into the largely remote woodlands that made up the southeastern corner of Rian. The roads here, of great dwarven make, were long host to the northern "belt-loop" of the Merchant's Belt, and a hub of traffic and mercantile activity from Morgrad to the other major cities of the Eastern Continent. However, in the past decade, you've heard stories of Morgrad having slowly declined under the leadership of the new dwarven-appointed magistrate, the boyar.

A greedy man by nature, the Boyar's tended to favor businesses who line his pockets. He used these funds to enforce his powers by hiring a large group of mercenaries under his control, known simply as the "boyar's men". Using these lackeys, he crushed unfavorable businesses and enforced monopolies to his favorite and supportive merchants. With the loss of these businesses meant the long-term loss of trade, and much of Morgrad has fallen into deprivation and poverty. Over the years, it drove many businesses out with many former tradesmen leaving or resorting to common banditry.

Traveling north into the environs of Morgrad, the party encountered a clearly poor merchant who was being threatened by a tax collector of the boyar, a towering mul (half-dwarf), who threatened to destroy his wares if he didn't pay up. The merchant called for help, and the party intervened. As the party chased the tax collector into the woods, they quickly realized something was wrong. The "tax collector" revealed himself to be a bandit, with the "merchant" being a con men to lure in potential prey. Surrounded by these ill-equipped bandits, Gregor let loose his magic before they cried for mercy. The bandits explained they had long been suffering at the hands of the boyar's taxes and oppressive practices. The party showed mercy on them, but took the con-man and his daughter hostage as they continued to the Morgrad Torch base.

Now close enough to taste the end of their journey, the next day, they found themselves about about an hour out from the city, on an isolated farmstead outside Morgrad. There, they are greeted by Alexi and Alexa, twin mul who are in service of the Torches. The party quickly learns that this farm is to be site of the new Morgrad Torch base, as the twins were pushed out of Morgrad by the boyar's men. Having at last achieved their goal, the group breathed a sigh of collective relief.

The rest was short-lived, however, as Gregor quickly ordered the Mage-Ring be brought out and assembled. Gregor then channeled his energy into the Ring, sparking the connection between them and the main Torch Headquarters in Augustus. Torval sent a communique commending Gregor and his company on their successes so far, and the specifics of their true goal to make a Morgrad Torch Base. After receiving their new orders, Alexi and Alexa scoffed, as the boyar's iron grip over the people and guilds of Morgrad made new construction an impossibility. If they wanted to build their new Torch base, something would have to be done about the boyar.

Gregor called his allies together to discuss their next steps. Knowledge would be the best tool for the new Torchlord, and so they agreed to send Gregor's familiar Archimedes into Morgrad to scout the town from the skies. The sight Archimedes beheld was a town in disrepair and despair as the past decade of slow and creeping corruption and mismanagement drained the once vibrant mithril mining town into a cesspool of desperation and despotism. As Archimedes dodges acrid smoke and polluted rain, a familiar sound rang in his ears - the slow and rhythmic beating of the drums of an orcish war hymn. Investigating the sound, Gregor bid Archimedes closer and saw none other than a dwarf playing the hymn upon their shield from the ramparts of the adjoining dwarven hold of Khazad-Mor.

Archimedes approached, introduced themself, and questioned the dwarf. The dwarf, in turn, revealed herself to be Ea Graveltongue, a dwarven exile from the Golden Lands who made a name for herself in Rian as the champion of the Grand Moot and dragonslayer five years prior. With her fame, she's been trying to push the dwarves of Khazad-Mor towards the Torches and more overt action against the Shadow and their minions. In that vein, she warned Gregor that the dwarves take their role as the guardians of Morgrad seriously, and that the dwarves would likely intervene if they stirred up too much trouble in Morgrad. She suggested trying to investigate the Boyar to find enough evidence to prove his corrupt actions before dwarven court.

Armed with new knowledge, Gregor and his allies prepared to head into town to do a more through search. Unbeknownst to his other two companions, Zelt snuck out of camp, leaving in the dead of night to avoid detection. Awakening to this surprise development, Gregor and Sir Ulrich set out in a desperate search to find their companion, but to no avail. The once assassin-for-hire has gone into hiding once more, leaving Sir Ulrich and Gregor to find out how to deal with the Boyar. With little other choice, the pair set out for Morgrad.

On the outskirts of town, they were greeted by the ex-bandit they had spared and later released, a man by the name of Nevesky. To thank them for their mercy, he offered his services in guiding them throughout the town. Morgrad, being built into a cliff face on the mount of Khazad-Mor, was only accessible by lift, and so together they rode upwards into Morgrad. At the height of the lift, they saw Morgrad proper. In person, the town was as destitute as Archimedes saw, complete with aged streets and dilapidated buildings. Despite such, they were greeted by a mul gatesman in fine armor and a silvery-metal badge with Morgrad's dwarven beard insignia, marking him as one of the boyar's favored mercenaries, a member of the "Boyar's Men". This gatekeeper, named Symon, insisted the newcomers pay a toll for the use of the lift, and a tax for upkeep on the roads.

Incensed at the overt poverty and malnutrition of the liftkeepers, Gregor paid a hearty sum of gold to each of them, especially ignoring Symon. When Symon insisted on the tax for the road, he again spurned Symon by saying he would pay only to the road workers themselves. Now thoroughly annoyed, Symon rushed them to the Morgrad Town Hall to pay their dues - one way or another. Along the way, they encountered a beggar who once worked the mines before he lost his arm. Symon, in a hurry to get the outsiders to pay their dues, tried to beat the beggar away, but was stopped by Sir Ulrich. Rather than give alms, Gregor instead decided to display his magical might by regenerating the beggar's lost arm, and Sir Ulrich gave him his hat full of gold to help the man. Shocked but grateful, the beggar left, while Symon was left utterly flabbergasted.

They continued to the town hall, which like much of the rest of the city, was in disrepair and disorder. After years of neglect of the city's operations, there remained only one civil servant left in Morgrad - a sorely-overworked gnome by the name of Ms. Mistletoe. She found the long-neglected civil works fund lockbox, and Symon encouraged Gregor's payment. Gregor, now paying the tax long overdue at Symon's hands, remained at the town hall as Symon left to return to the gate, with a thinly-veiled threat to return for the gold. There, the archivist told them there were a couple things in the records that don't seem to match up in he town's finances, but she is too scared to go against the Boyar's Men alone.

Wishing to get the goodwill of the people of Morgrad, Gregor turned the fountain of the market to wine, gathering a large crowd of spectators. Long unused to kindness, the townsfolk looked upon Gregor with skepticism and distrust, until the beggar from earlier came to the crowd and showed his healed arm, and calling him a savior to the people of Morgrad. Unsurprisingly, this generated a lot of interest from both the townsfolk, but also the nearby Boyar's Men, who soon left. Gregor and Sir Ulrich would next be approached by two more members of the crowd, and recent arrivals themselves: Kaya, a halfling Torch agent and Fajr, her Al-Andalusian bodyguard, who'd been sent by Torchmaster Torval to help Gregor in his new posting.

Taken aback by Gregor's showiness, Kaya insisted they all go back to somewhere more private to discuss their next steps to free the town from the Boyar's hegemony. They returned to the near-empty town hall, where they each introduced themselves. As the conversations turned, the party saw they were being observed. Unfortunately, the interloper disappeared before being caught, and the party resumed their discussion. Getting late into the evening, Ms. Mistletoe was looking to leave when Symon burst through the door with a cadre of his flunkies. He insisted they were here to "protect" Ms. Mistletoe from the probing outsiders, and attacked them in a brutal melee. Now, the fate of Morgrad may rest in this one battle...

Updated 1/24/24

See Also

• Arda
• Dragon's Domain
• Torches
• Character Codex