S1 E36: Into the Arborvast
General Summary
In which a map is recovered and a Hill Giant is persuaded to change his ways...
- Soon after making the turn on the Varnoch Trail north from the High Trade Road, the party discovers a dead body on the road and moves to investigate.
- As they approach, an ambush is spring from both sides of the road and the party is attacked by a large warband of Goblins led by a hill giant.
- Evidently expecting mere commoners, the brigands are cut down with a few stragglers running away into the woods; the giant is forced to surrender.
- The deceased person left as bait where the ambush was set was evidently a messenger; he carried mostly mundane items but also a map with a guide of sorts written on the back, as well as a message.
- The giant, who says his name is Board Ashored, offers to take the party safely to the major town in the region, a place called Ettinston. He suggests avoiding Varnoch and its Temple to the War God Matajen, as the people of the town are small minded and will cause trouble seeing a giant. In stead they strike out across an open plain where a battle took place, referred to as the Battle of Black Snow. This had some connection to a war between the Realm and the Empires of Silk and Spice thaat took place a hundred and fifty or so years ago.
- Mae uses her connection to the wilds and Nylea to determine interesting things - that there is evidently a world anchor in the 'City of Blood' called the Pearl, and that Kannet is drilling for a material called Plasmic Essence, which is not magical but is still somehow unnatural, and that it appears to have been an accidental by-product of some other work; the suggestion, though it is not fully proven, is that perhaps Quindarin himself created it, and that by extension perhaps Quindarin accidentally created the 'misalignment' in the alignment of the spheres. How it happened or how that helps stop it remain unknown.
- Along the way, making their way through the woods not far from Ettinston, the party encounters a 'Granite Troll' who is soon turned from hostile to merely curious in conversation with the party. He explains he had been pulled to the place by Borem Cultists, and awakened to a higher level of conscious intelligence by the use of a substance that Kannet is drilling for at the site near Mae's family clan of Glenhaven - Plasmic Essence.
- The troll identifies that 'Murk' is not a person, but a place - the place he came from, the elemental earth-aligned place called Murk. He has no interest in making trouble on their world, which he doesn't like very much because of all the meat and plants on it - organic materials unsettle him and likely perturb his kind in general, seeing as they hail from a place of stone and earth. He goes off on his own.
- Returning to Board Ashored and Josuu, who were waiting away from where they expected a fight to break out, they discover that the Giant is struggling to maintain his patience with the boy, who only wants to shoot his slingshot at the giant (or anything else he can).
Missions/Quests Completed
- Into the Arborvast
Character(s) interacted with
- Board Ashored
- Josuu
Created Content
Reverse side of NE Arborvast map:
Exchange Rate
1/5 giant Knucklebones = 1 human/orc knucklebone = 5 goblin knucklebone
1 bushel millet = 1 human knucklebone = about 2 silver pieces
1 giant knucklebones = 5 human/orc knucklebone = 25 gobbo
Important Local Deities:
- Matajan: God of War
- Alitel: God of Protection
- Coilioc (COY-lee-ok): God of Justice
- Aot: Sun God, Power + life
- Tenma: Moon Goddess, Trickery, Sickness, Infections
- Ginshea (Hard g GIN-shay) = Goddess of Mercy, Child of Aot + Tenma
- Danildee: Goddess of Joy, Luck & Good Fortune
- Nylea: Goddess of Untamed Nature and the Natural Order
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