S30. The Circle of Thunder Report

General Summary

Falcon has been warned of the pending attacks of Orcs and Anchorites. He awarded the party with a set of Elven Boots in thanks for taking out the enemies at the Manse.
The party then headed back into Neverwinter Wood to find the landmark noted on Grannoc's map...a hill with a circle of standing stones atop it. On their way, they encountered a clearing in the woods with a black spire at the center. The spire was apparently the tall remains of a huge tree trunk burnt black and left coming to a sharp point 40 or so feet up. Tied around the base of this tree, in the middle of this lifeless, round clearing, the party got close enough to see a series of twig dolls. The twigs forming the dolls were tied together in what appeared to be black hair, and then bound to the base of the tree trunk spire by the same material.
The party closed in, and Kanenas destroyed one of the dolls. At that point the roots of the tree all around animated and wrapped themselves around the monk and paladin, and started to constrict the life out of them.
The team rallied, some hacked away at the roots while other continued to destroy the rest of the dolls. But even after the dolls were all in pieces, their internal, still beating and human-looking (pig?) hearts finally stopping their fell beating motions, the roots continued to dance about while the others hacked away at them.
Once free of that danger, the party continued on finding the target of their trek brewing under a growing storm, with purple and green clouds, dark and foreboding, except when lit by violent lightning. Atop the hill, twig blights dance in a moshing trance while a couple of Anchorites perform some kind of ritual to raise a storm.
They spread out and started exploring the most advantageous way to climb the hill to engage them, they also found a cave entrance. But up they hill they charged and engaged the enemy. They battled the twig blights and anchorites and killed them all, but not before they completed their ritual and summoned a giant, lightning-charged huge boar that also attacked them.
However they took it on and killed it, surprisingly quickly. It vanished again as it died, in a final bolt of lightning.
The Tower of Storms was darkened. The Woodland Manse was cleared. The Circle of Thunder silenced.
And with that, the Cult of Talos was defeated. 
Or maybe not. There was one more name on Torgan's list...

Rewards Granted

Found a magic shield and a potion in the caves under the hill.

Campaign

Saviors of the Sword Coast

Protagonists

Kanenas

Neutral Good Variant Human (Urban Bounty Hunter)
Fighter 4
Warlock 3

74 / 74 HP

STR
19

DEX
12

CON
16

INT
14

WIS
10

CHA
13

Ozus

Neutral Fierna Tiefling (Acolyte)
Cleric 12

88 / 88 HP

STR
15

DEX
17

CON
15

INT
8

WIS
19

CHA
12

Report Date

30 Jul 2022

Related Characters

• Gorthok the Thunder Boar
• Jareth Anshar
• Kanenas
• Narux
• Ozus
• Ulana
• Yargath