HoD Summaries - Campaign Summary

The 5th Editon playtest campaign.
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EvilGenius
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HoD Summaries - Campaign Summary

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Prelude
1. The PCs are all given a secret addition to their character background. Everyone has hazy memories of suddenly waking up in a bare stone room on a bare stone table several years back. They didn’t know how they had gotten there but fell intuitively that they needed to run away, that they were in great danger. They fled the bare stone room into the wilderness, some in hills, some in plains, some in a forest, and nearly perished before being found and taken back to people who helped them. They still occasionally have bad dreams about the event, but have never been able to remember more about what happened to them.

Out of the Frying Pan …
1. The PCs have been drafted from their small hometowns into either the Warband of Stonehold or the irregular militia attached to Potens Ecclesia, the occupying army from the Theocracy of the Pale.
2. Battle is joined and the PCs come face to face with each other, recognizing each other as clearly as they recognize themselves but without knowing each other.
3. An invading force of trolls and giants joins the battle, indiscriminately killing Stoneholders and Pale forces.
4. The PCs (and everybody else) flee the disastrous Battle of Oxton
5. Reaching a border town under martial law, the PCs find a smuggler, Lonz, who will get them out of occupied territory and back to his hometown, Farweald, which is several weeks away and beyond the influence of the armies that the PCs had deserted.
6. The PCs reach Farweald
7. Farweald is a large town, remote and largely self-sufficient. It is a day’s ride inside of one of the last ancient woodlands, the Fellrev Forest.
....a. In it’s past, Farweald willingly worked with one of the big bad guys in this campaign setting, a demon lord named Iuz, who launched the Greyhawk Wars. Iuz’s brutal forces, with quite a few demonic shock troops, used Farweald as a combination resort town and staging point for military strikes into surrounding territories.
....b. Two generations ago, Iuz lost his war and most of the demons were banished from the campaign setting.
....c. Farweald then repudiated Iuz
....d. Farweald has a large population of half-demons, called tieflings (tee-flings), as a result of their former demonic occupation.
....e. The tieflings are a largely oppressed underclass in Farweald, reminding people of their shameful past association with a demon lord.
8. A girl from town, Leigha, goes missing on the same night that the PCs arrive.
....a. The PCs are questioned to see if they had anything to do with her disappearance.
....b. The PCs are recruited to see if they can find the missing girl, perhaps in the big scary woods?
9. PCs find witnesses who saw Leigha and two other people leaving town.
....a. The PCs track them into the woods and find that the trail simply stops.

And Into the Woods …
10. PCs return to town, find out low level monsters (kobolds) have been seen outside of town. PCs are directed to the general area where the monsters were seen.
11. PCs search for and are ambushed by monsters. After defeating them, the PCs find a letter to the kobolds alerting them to the PCs arrival. Also an older note from the same person in town to someone named Balrakas, who is obviously in charge of the kobolds. The note talks about the missing girl, Leigha, being a bargaining chip between “The Master” and “The Firelord”. It seems clear that the letter writer in town, this Balrakas, and the kobolds all work for The Master.
12. The PCs follow the tracks of the defeated kobolds back to their lair, an abandoned keep.
13. One of the PCs, Mordai, recognizes the keep as his former home, Lucky Break, and has visions of himself and his ‘new’ companions at the keep, along with an older man with long silver hair, possibly name Quirin?
....a. The PCs explore the keep, Mordai knows the location of secret doors and compartments.
....b. The PCs find Mordai’s old journal and his former sword, Longshot.
........i. Mordai’s Journal begins innocently but the tone of later passages is angry and mocking.
........ii. Ends with a gleeful declaration that he and his companions are going to hunt someone or something named Quirinseyru.

Shifting Faces
14. The PCs return to Farweald and report that they have not found the missing girl, Leigha.
15. The PCs see the person who directed them into the ambush in the woods and confront him. The man, Hackett, turns into a small jackal and sprints away. The PCs chase him and fight with him but the jackal escapes into the woods.
16. The PC Mordai finds kinship with the tieflings in Farweald and gets to know several of them. Main contact is Akriah, a woman of some influence in the tiefling community.
....a. Mordai finds out a tiefling boy had gone missing a few months ago but most people in town didn’t care.
....b. Mordai promises to look for the boy, too.
17. The PCs discover that the name Balrakas is known in Farweald
....a. Balrakas is a dragonborn (red) who used to live in town. Hasn’t been seen in years.
....b. Had a house in town with another dragonborn (black) named Khrytos.
18. The PCs break into the dragonborns’ house in the middle of the night.
....a. They find a strange journal written in code in an upstairs bedroom. Also, the room has a hole in the roof and has obviously been exposed to the elements for some time.
....b. The PCs also find a secret chamber in the basement that leads to an underground chamber with several dead animals which look like they’ve been partially eaten. Also find a foul smelling bed chamber and another journal, this one belonging to Hackett.
....c. Also find a treasure chest identical to the one they found in Lucky Break
....d. The two journals are written in one language using the alphabet of a different language. PCs would need to know both languages in order to decipher the books.
19. The PCs discover another former companion, Naziah, who comes to Farweald looking for work as a lumberjack.
....a. As happened in the doomed Battle of Oxton, the PCs immediately recognized this person’s face although they don’t know him. He knows and doesn’t know them in the same manner.
....b. Naziah is very gruff and untrusting toward everyone.
20. That night, Brigga, Quarion and Naziah are attacked by a creature that appears to take on their faces. The PCs drive it off but do not defeat it.


Yipping at the Moon
21. The PCs investigate Hackett and find out that he’s been seen in specific locations in the woods east of town.
....a. The PCs track Hackett into a section of the woods that is suffering a deep winter, even though it’s only early fall.
....b. The PCs find the heart of the Winter Woods, a small hillock with old druidic standing stones ringing the top.
....c. There is a tear in the fabric of reality above the standing stones, showing a different dimension of endless ice and snow. Frigid winds and temperatures emanate from the rift.
....d. The missing tiefling boy and Hackett stand atop the hillock. The tiefling boy can control the rift and the frigid winds, to some extent.
....e. There is also a floating skull, wreathed in green flame.
....f. The PCs defeat Hackett, the skull and the tiefling. When the tiefling is defeated, he is drawn back through the tear in reality, and the rift closes behind him.
22. The PCs explore the hillock and find a passageway into the interior. Inside they find that the hillock is hollow and is a very old elven burial chamber.
23. PCs find a treasure chest that is identical looking to a treasure chest they found in Lucky Break and in the jackalwere’s lair beneath the dragonborn house in Farweald.
24. The defeated FlameSkull floats back into the burial chamber, apparently reconstituted somehow. However, the FlameSkull seems to recognize the PCs, addresses them as Masters, and inquires after Erk. The PCs learn that:
....a. The skull used to be Erk’s henchman
....b. He had made some sort of sacrifice during a ritual to find another of the PCs companions, a woman named Gwendolyn.
....c. The Skull also reveals that Gwendolyn was prisoner of someone called “The Firelord”, that this “Firelord” now seeks another, and that the PCs failed to rescue Gwendolyn.
25. The PCs rest but a huge storm starts above them outside (caused by the sudden removal of the cause of the unnatural Winter).
....a. The PCs attempt to leave the area against heavy winds.
....b. They notice that the standing stones on top of the hill are flashing with blue runes
....c. Lightning arcs out from the Standing Stones and hits all of the PCs.
........i. Two PCs, Brigga and Quarion, fade out of existance, mid scream.
........ii. The other PCs hastily retreat from the Winter Woods, now rapidly warming and becoming the Flash-Flooded Woods.
26. The PCs continue to feel a strange, tingling power in them after having been struck by lightning.

Rarefied Air
27. Brigga and Quarion find themselves transported to the Elemental Plane of Earth, to a large cavern. Taking up nearly the whole cavern is a slightly wrecked stronghold.
....a. Brigga is overcome with memories of her building this place and calling it home.
....b. Brigga remembers welcoming her companions to her new home, along with a man she remembers a little but doesn’t feel like an old companion. He’s an older human man with long silver hair and she knows his name is Quirin.
28. Brigga and Quarion explore Brigga’s former home and find Brigga’s uncle, Vargas, who has been searching for her.
....a. However, Vargas has a vacant look in his eyes and speaks in a strange, echoey monotone.
....b. Vargas asks Brigga and Quarion to accompany him to the rest of his party, insisting that they have to take Brigga home.
29. Vargas leads Brigga and Quarion outside of the cavern that Brigga’s home is occupying and they realize that they are VERY high up on the impossibly tall mountains that make up the Plane of Elemental Earth.
....a. There is a small rock bridge that leads to an adjacent spire. ‘Uncle Vargas’ and several other dwarves attack Brigga and Quarion, along with small disembodied brains that attempt to devour and replace the PCs own brains (Intellect Devourers).
....b. The PCs defeat the Intellect Devourers and the possessed dwarves. Brigga recovers her Uncle’s Mace of Smiting.
30. Brigga and Quarion cross the bridge to the adjacent spire and find a staircase that leads into the spire. The follow it up and up and up until it opens into a suspended platform that is an altar to a forgotten god.
....a. The PCs are so high up the mountains now that there is not enough atmosphere to breathe.
....b. On the altar is a pulsing black sphere.
....c. A small ring secretly flies itself into Quarion’s pocket.
....d. There is also a pulsing magical portal suspended in a hole carved into the floor.
31. Holding her breath, Brigga quickly grabs the pulsing black sphere from the altar. Brigga and Quarion activate the portal and jump into the emptiness. They are transported back to the Fellrev Forest, not far from Farweald.

Blood in the Dark
32. The PCs all reconnect in the evening during the trip back to Farweald.
33. They observe a man sized figure with dragon wings flying above the trees. The PCs can see that it is a dragonborn man wearing elaborate armor. The PCs suspect that this is Balrakas and stealthily follow him.
34. Darkness falls
35. The PCs can see light ahead and the sillhouette of the dragonborn and other figures.
36. The PCs use magic to spy on the gathering and see the dragonborn addressing a large group of hobgoblins and talking about an attack on Farweald.
37. The PCs also detect another person spying on the dragonborn.
....a. A large human man accompanied by a wolf.
....b. The PCs and this man immediately recognize each other’s faces, just the same way that all of the PCs had recognized each other.
....c. New PC is Bannock, a ranger.
38. All of the PCs attack the dragonborn and hobgoblins. The hobgoblins are defeated and the dragonborn gets away.
....a. The PCs find a letter addressed to Balrakas that he obviously dropped. It warns Balrakas that the nearby gnolls are getting too difficult for The Master to control. The gnolls have some new religious leader and they are going to attack Farweald, which will interfere with The Master’s plans.
....b. Balrakas and the hobgoblins are to pre-emptively attack the gnolls and disperse or kill them.
....c. The gnolls are gathering in a nearby abandoned quarry.
39. Whoops!
40. The PCs decide they now have to go and defeat the gnolls. Bannock knows where this quarry is.
41. The PCs sneak in and successfully ambush the gnolls, defeating them.
42. The PCs find a secret door left slightly ajar at the bottom of the quarry.
....a. The PCs explore the secret lair beyond the door, killing several monsters but also discovering another former companion!
....b. Onarra, and elven rogue, is in the hidden caves. She recognizes the PCs without knowing them, just as they recognize her.
....c. Onarra is searching for her missing twin sister.
....d. Onarra is slightly …. Off. For some reason she believes that every time she rests, she takes on a different form, and that her missing sister does, too.
43. The party heads back to Farweald

Riddles of the Soul ….
44. The PCs arrive back in Farweald.
45. Discover that Erk and Naziah have left town.
46. The PCs are at somewhat of a loss as to what to do next.
....a. The tieflings suggest that the PCs could go and seek out The Oracle.
....b. The Oracle is a creature or person deep in the woods that people can sometimes find maybe they can bargain for information. Not everyone comes back from such meetings, though ….
47. Mordai informs Akriah that they found the missing tiefling boy but he was working with the bad guys and was presumed dead after being drawn back through a planar rift.
48. Using the vague directions from the tieflings, the PCs find the Oracle’s Altar, some three days journey from Farweald.
....a. The PCs are contacted telepathically by the Oracle who demands magical treasure in return for secret information.
....b. Brigga allows The Oracle to do a ‘deep read’ on her soul.
....c. The Oracle offers to tell them who The Master is if one of them will surrender themselves to the Oracle.
....d. The PCs try to find and attack The Oracle but instead are engaged with summoned minions while the Oracle escapes.
....e. The PCs rest after the fight and several hours into their rest, they are assaulted by some sort of fear-inducing magical effect and run off into the forest.

Echoes of Loss ….
49. The PCs regroup in the woods.
50. The PCs who were struck by lightning from the Standing Stones in the Winter Wood realize that they have been feeling a strange buzzing inside of them ever since. The buzzing seems to be stronger now.
51. The PCs realize that if they travel in a specific direction (south by south south west), the buzzing increases and if they travel in the opposite direction the buzzing definitely decreases.
52. The PCs follow the buzzing feeling to an area of the woods that seems diseased and blighted.
53. Onarra starts to get the feeling that she’s been here before.
54. The PCs fight various ghouls and undead travelling into the heart of this area.
55. Onarra immediately recognizes the blighted and dead druid’s grove as her former home, the Weeping Boughs.
....a. There is a small, ruined stone cottage.
....b. There is a pulsating tear in reality that seems to sap all life and vitality from anything in its vicinity.
56. Onarra is momentarily overcome with memories of her druidic grove in better times. She remembers her companions visiting her here and constructing the cottage where she lived with her sister, Miette.
....a. Onarra remembers now that she used to be a druid, shifting into different animal forms as easily as she blinked her eyes.
....b. Onarra also remembers that her sister, Miette, was a rogue who adventured with the PCs from time to time.
57. A ghostly form that looks exactly like Onarra emerges from the ruined cottage and wails in despair at the sight of the PCs (banshee).
....a. This snaps Onarra out of her memories.
....b. A powerful wraith and another ghost emerge from the portal to attack the PCs.
....c. The PCs are victorious. When they reunite the ghost with a ring found in the woods along the way, the ghost’s spirit is repaired and laid to rest.
....d. When the ghost’s spirit is laid to rest, the planar rift to the Shadowfell closes.
58. The PCs investigate the cottage and find a back room which is a bare stone room with a bare stone table.
....a. Onarra recognizes this room as the one from her dreams where she woke up in fear and felt like she had to run away.
....b. All of the PCs feel like the room is similar to the stone rooms that they themselves woke up in in their strange memory.
....c. All of the PCs realize they had very similar memories of a bare stone room and a bare stone table and waking up on it, not knowing where they were or how they got there.
59. The PCs also find Miette’s Journal
....a. The PCs learn that Miette lived here after semi-retiring from adventuring.
....b. Onarra was a druid and her personality begain to change, become darker and more savage.
....c. Onarra and a few companions, including Quirin, a man with long silver hair, came here and created this stone room and then started a complex magical process that created a clone of Onarra.
....d. One night, there was a crash and Onarra’s clone activated. She didn’t know who or where she was and she ran away into the night.
....e. Miette was knocked out briefly while trying to calm Onarra down. Miette pursued Onarra into the woods but couldn’t find her.
....f. Miette determined to set off to Lucky Break to find Mordai, the nearest of Onarra’s companions, to try and find out more information.
60. Onarra and the PCs lay Miette’s remains to rest.
61. narra realizes that what she assumed was her mental instability, believing that she woke up in a new form every day, was her unconscious mind remembering her previous life as a druid. And that she felt drawn to becoming a rogue in this life in imitation of her twin sister.
....a. These revelations are shocking, but help to heal Onarra’s mind.
62. The PCs all realize now that they are clones of their former selves.
63. any questions remain
....a. Who is The Master?
....b. How did they all die?
....c. Who is this mysterious man with silver hair, Quirin? And what did he mean to the PCs?
....d. Why can’t they remember?
....e. Just where is that darn missing girl from Farweald, anyway?
....f. Where are Erk, Naziah and Balisar? They’re missing from Farweald and they haven’t been found in the woods, either.
Last edited by EvilGenius on Sun Nov 01, 2020 2:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Another daring escape for the intrepid Spaceman Spiff!
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EvilGenius
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Re: HoD Summaries - Campaign Summary

Post by EvilGenius »

Current Storyline, Continued

Not A Drop to Drink ….

1. After being exposed to the strange energy burst when they closed the portal in the Weeping Boughs, the PCs started back to Farweald, still grappling with the revelation that they were clones.
2. During their first rest, the PCs woke up in searing pain, the buzzing inside of them had turned into searing agony! The first thing the PCs were aware of was the image of their companions, fading from view.
3. The PCs were transported into sea water on top of a spire of rock jutting out of the Endless Sea on the Plane of Elemental Water!
4. A few miles away was another spire of rock. On the side was a slightly ruined looking elven tower that Jareth recognized as his former home. Jareth was momentarily overcome with the memory of enslaving many powerful genies and elementals in order to quickly build his home.
5. The PCs made their way to Jareth’s old tower. The upstairs were largely empty and stripped bare but they could hear the rhythmic smash of rock on rock below.
6. The PCs descended into what had been Jareth’s basements. The first room they encountered was a bare stone chamber with a bare stone table in it. Jareth recognized this as the room in which he woke up in his foggy memory. There was a small tunnel that led out to the sea that Jareth vaguely remembered fleeing out of but in Jareth’s memory the tunnel led to a forest.
7. Whatever brought Jareth’s Tower here obviously happened after he woke up in his clone body.
8. There was another passageway leading deeper into the caverns below Jareth’s Tower. The PCs could hear the rock smashing coming from that direction. The PCs found a huge cavern with a pool of water in the middle of the floor and several side caves surrounding the main cavern.
9. One of the side caves was the Crystal Cage, a large-ish chamber constructed entirely out of pale blue crystal. In the far corner there was an alcove where the blue crystal was polished into clear mirrors. Three sides of the alcove reflected a long, elegant chest resting in the alcove.
10. Also in the Crystal Cage was Alizar, an obsequious djinn who had served Jareth.
11. The chest turned out to be an illusion, reflected out of the mirrors. However, Alizar revealed that the chest could be made real if the PCs entered each of the three mirrors; The Fell Mirror, The Fey Mirror and The Beastly Mirror.
12. The PCs were able to enter the Fey Mirror, which transported them to a matching blue crystal cavern in the Feywild, where they found a chest similar to the illusory chest back in the Crystal Cage. When they opened the chest liquid silver spilled out, raced across the floor and coated the crystal wall that the PCs had walked through, which created a mirror. The mirror allowed them to return back to the Crystal Cage. Also in the chest was a set of ornate silver and gold bagpipes. All of the PCs felt a momentary pang of guilt upon seeing the pipes, and knew that they had belonged to their former companion, Naziah.
13. The PCs also avoided the sleeping gas trap on the chest, which could have resulted in them being stuck in the Fey realm for years (due to the time dilation between the two planes).
14. The PCs returned to find the center section of the illusory chest was now solid!
15. The PCs next entered the Beastly Mirror and found themselves in the Beastlands; an Outer Plane perfectly optimized around the law of the hunt. The plane is teaming with wildlife in lush habitats that support them, but everything in the plane is either hunter or prey. Alizar the djinn warned the PCs not to kill any denizens of the Beastlands, lest they fall under the sway of the plane and become the creature they had slain, doomed to roam the Beastlands forever.
16. On the other side of the Beastly Mirror, the PCs found themselves on a small ledge halfway up the side of another huge cavern, miles across and a mile high. The far end of the cavern was open to a dense forest as far as the eye could see. The floor of the cavern was covered in a slightly less dense forest. In the middle of the cavern rose a loose pile of rock with a familiar looking chest atop it.
17. The PCs fended off multiple attacks from predators as they hiked to the chest, careful not to kill any beast.
18. The PCs were able to open the chest, but only the right hand compartment. When they did so, they set off a magical compulsion set by Jareth, demanding that they go and kill a black bear and bring its heart back to the chest. The PCs were able to resist the compulsion though, and instead recovered a few useful magical items.
19. Also, another pool of liquid silver arced out of the chest to the distant wall and coated the pale blue crystal that the PCs had walked through to arrive in the Beastlands. The PCs made their way back to the newly created Mirror and were able to pass back through to the Crystal Cage.
20. The PCs had one mirror left, the Fell Mirror. Passing through took the PCs to a forlorn crypt in the Shadowfell. In the crypt was a large sarcophagus. The PCs opened the sarcophagus and found the chest they were looking for, but they were also set upon by several vampire spawn, who were no match for the power of Quarion’s faith. The PCs recovered a few items and saw the familiar liquid silver bleed through the bottom of the chest, across the floor and up the wall, forming the Mirror again.
21. The PCs travelled back to the Crystal Cage and found the illusory chest was now fully real. In it they found a single treasure, Jareth and Quarion’s family heirloom, an elven Moonblade.
22. The PCs explored the final cave and found a stone golem, trapped down a steep incline in the next cave. The golem was smashing the rock in order to make a ramp out of the lower cave. Beyond the golem was a large brass barrel, 8’ long and about 8’ in diameter. Upon examination, this turned out to be a larger than ordinary Apparatus of Kwalish, a type of magical submarine that resembled a mechanical crab.
23. The PCs defeated the Stone Golem and walked the Apparatus up the rubble slope that the golem had created.
24. The PCs noticed that a huge storm had started outside of their location.
25. The PCs explored the pool in the caves to find that it had no floor and instead opened to the Endless Sea below them. But a mile down they could see some kind of light.
26. The PCs descended toward the light, some in the Apparatus of Kwalish, some using magic to breathe underwater. About halfway toward the light they could see a large courtyard with many statues and a glowing planar portal.
27. The sea lit up as bright as the noonday sun with a series of lightning strikes overhead. Then a massive shockwave momentarily stunned the PCs as Jareth’s ruined tower fell from its precarious perch, almost directly above them!
28. The PCs scrambled to get out of the way but saw that the tower was falling directly toward the planar portal, which seemed to be their only way home.
29. Some of the PCs with supernatural strength, along with the Apparatus’ claws and massive strength, were able to nudge the falling tower pieces just far enough off course that they missed crushing the planar portal.
30. The PCs, with Alizar, Jareth’s treasured Moonblade, and the Apparatus of Kwalish, entered the portal and were transported back to the location in the Fellreve where Jareth’s tower used to be. They were at the bottom of a huge excavation, which they realized roughly matched the dimensions of the caves they had just been exploring underneath Jareth’s tower.
31. The PCs left the portal and the damaged Apparatus of Kwalish and headed back to Farweald.
Another daring escape for the intrepid Spaceman Spiff!
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