4 - Into the Darkness

This is all about Shrumbo and the demon queen taking over in the underdark. Upon her last breath, she will beg for her life and tell them that Brytha has his phylactery, and they should go destroy it to keep him from coming back which will begin the "Fungus is thicker than blood" arc.
dungeons:
Underdark tunnels the grove cave the growing fields
Warden is Belwrick Brambleyes. His wife Eliyra and daughter Trynla.  Theoden, Grizelda and young son Thaisen

Plot points/Scenes

The terrors of the under dark will be the originating theme for when the group first goes down.
Windbury is in a state of flux as they are attempting to move away from the power crystals that granger ford had provided for them. Portions of the city will go dark for hours as they perform rolling tests to attempt to convert sections over to steam power. They dislike not being self-sufficient and are working on moving away from his power source to more steam based as much as possible. The group will be free to travel around the city and even check out the factory where the cars are being made and where the war forged originated. All war forged will have a serial number, except for Warden as he was one of Grangerford's first experiments with soil.
Random encounters in Windbury:

• A tough female halfling beggar known as Sticks. She is very drunk and talking to a cat.
• A doppelganger entertains a crowd by mocking passers-by.
• A female elven druid lectures passers-by on the evil of towns.
• A female dwarf guard named Fari. She has caught a young beggar and is beating them with a club.
• A goblin ratcatcher snacks on a rat as he makes his rounds.
• There is a fierce gust of wind as an air elemental rush past.
• Ott Steeltoes worshipping Shrumbo and telling him that he should hurry, the great queen of fungus awaits him

Random Encounters in the Underdark:

• A distraught ettin has had one head drained by an intellect devourer and asks for help. Collapses in tears if refused or attacked.
• A slick path with pools of ravenous fungi (dex save 15) that begin devouring their feet
• An area of dead magic caused by weird fungi
• Partial remains of a ship
• A lone, human survivor (ranger) in tattered green rags and brown leather armor named Wilson playing cards with himself while hallucinating from fungus

The group will run across the rogue Mind Flayer who has been chained up and experimented on using the soil and has been left for dead below. They will also be various war forged pieces and parts down there. Warden's bones will be down there as well, and he will begin to experience flash backs. They will find a locket with a picture of a halfing woman and a young child in it along with the Coattails of Confidence magic item. After choosing to set him free or kill him, they will meet Bertrom again who has been placed on clean up duty because of his failures where they can have a conversation. If they choose to kill him, he will only ask that his sister be spared as she is in this mess because of him and his original curse.

The group will begin to run across demons as they progress further down. As they continue to get closer and closer to the grove, they will start randomly feeling the effects of madness. The effects will get stronger and stronger the closer they get to Zuggtmoy.
Upon traveling, they will come across a pile of treasure that is actually a treasure golem. Once they've defeated it, some drow that will exclaim that the treaty has been broken by the Myconids due to murders and them being in the general vicinity. They will be attacked.
Entering Shrumbo's grove, the myconids will welcome the new softers and will be split apart between the demon queen and the rest of the colony. First, they will be asked to enter a cave where the mushroom hydra sleeps and will battle their way through where they can rescue some of Shrumbo's non-conformed people. Once they've finished this, they can enter the fields by the main mushroom where they will meet a drow that is being dissolved by spores and requesting death and notice that they are growing hydra heads there.
They will figure out the truth of what's going on that Grangerford summoned the fungus queen to the grove to take it over and provide any dead clerics and paladins to remain untained while everything else was free reign. They will need to stop the fungus queen and shrumbo will receive the fungal demon heart as his legendary weapon. Upon her defeat, she will relay to the group that Brytha protects Grangerford's phylactery. 
Mr. Tinkles will lead them out of the underdark and take them through the feywild saying he was going to just go check in on his previous child of destiny in Hallifell, bypassing the crystals powering windbury and noticing the corruption in the feywild that the lich lord had put in place to power the town. They will walk across water to the center of the lake with waterfalls feeding it and surface up out of the bottom of the well in Camor for a reunion with Warden's wife and daughter to begin the Fungus is Thicker than blood arc.

Plot type

Chapter

Related Characters

• Shrumbo
• Warden