Session 1 - Tracking the Gnolls - Cornelius' Log

Cornelius’s expedition log: Entry I

Met at Voroc’s workshop: it was an absolute mess. Not much of a meeting, we arrived and then immediately Verusa left for the tracks. We quickly prepared and followed after her.

Tested Mark I of my flotation device crossing the river with the caustic golden pollution. I’m sure Forge as the town metallurgist will get to the bottom of the issue in my absence.

Found a gnoll camp, had been left for 3.5 days with a standard deviation of 1 day. Contained approximately 6 gnolls, however a standard deviation was not provided from Vorok. Difficult to report the level of confidence in his estimate.

Discovered a tower hidden in a rock face - within this we found a line of text written into the rock. On inspection it was written in an old giant dialect. Shivaren translated the first word as “Thank you” and Diiroehn translated one of the later words as “give”/”take”. I have written the text into my notebook for a translation from more competent giant scholars back in town; potentially Dr. Chiselchip could examine the documents. Additionally a tablet of giant text and giant glass “artwork” was recovered for further examination.

Shivaren translated the tablet to be some sort of ledger. Seemed to be focussed on tracking glassworks, emphasising the expensive cost of transport to a place west of this location.

I found a lockbox with an ancient lock that was impressively functional after years of decay. Inside there were very large coins of bronze with the text: “Issued -- council --- free city --- Scora Bael”

We camped in the ruins for the night. Shivaren spotted 4-6 figures approaching just before we awoke. We moved to ambush the figures. As we discover they are gnolls we quickly dispatched them without any trouble. My perchloric acid (batch PC13) performed much better than expected - perhaps it is particularly suited to gnoll anatomy. I’m sure that there will be more test subjects, despite how distasteful the process is to witness.

Diiroehn interrogated the remaining gnoll with some questionable tactics. However his methods get results. I have no idea what was said between them (communication conducted in giant) but after the “conversation” the gnoll agreed to take us to the Lisgore clan which apparently regularly raid towards our town.

The gnoll escort mentioned that our town has an old giant curse. According to Shivaren he said that “no one lives there” and that we are “stupid to live near the statue”. Also mentioned a gnoll called Zaniir (spelling unconfirmed) who has united the gnoll families as said that our town will be theirs. - - Given the combat skills we witnessed today, I doubt they will have much luck - except perhaps in great numbers.

The gnolls believe that the Vulkoori (Jungle Drow) killed the previous inhabitants of our town.

Out of nowhere Diiroehn suddenly stabbed our gnoll “guide”. Given that I have no idea what was being discussed between them, this caught me off guard. Diiroehn stated that our guide would have betrayed us to Zaniir. While that may have been true, it does set a dangerous moral precedent - if our word is worth nothing, then are we more civilised than these beasts?

At the crossroads we found a gnoll bound to a rock. After releasing this gnoll from his bondage, we discovered that the gnolls we killed had betrayed this gnoll who was once their leader. He gave us directions to the Lisgore clan and agreed to join us as we returned to town.