The End

In the ruins, the party found a ring that summoned a powerful djinn known as the Maad of the Air. With the wishes it granted them, they remotely destroyed the beholder Xalco (neatly wrapping up an entire subplot) and spirited themselves to Boto Kaingee's village.

Boto isn't very forthcoming but he suggests that the Adventurer's Guild is involved in something evil. They ignore his advice to retire there in Hafer and forget about the Guild, and return home to Guffin. There, they find a city that they barely recognize. Strange guards patrol the streets, few citizens dare show their faces in public, and the taverns are full of anxiety and whispers. But someone passes them a secret note advising them to investigate the house of Adrumel, where they all pledged their service to the Guild so long ago...

There in the basement, they find the mysterious shrouded statue their spoke their oaths before, fallen to the ground and revealed to be an idol of Demogorgon. As the party takes in this discovery, Adrumel comes down the stairs. He reveals that the Guild was a front for a cult of Demogorgon all along, that Demogorgon brought about the doom that felled the Parzian empire and the artifacts the Guild had sent them out to recover were, in fact, seals that had been crafted to lock Demogorgon out of the Werld. He also informs them that the Lady Blyneth and Aidan Mome are on their way to Tar-Eng to corrupt the young High King, and asks the party to join with them. They refuse, and Adrumel reveals one more horrifying secret: that he and the other Guild leaders have been gifted with new demonic forms by Demogorgon. He transforms into a Type IV demon and attacks the party, attempting to gate in a Type III demon to assist him, but with the enchanted sword Daemonrazor they manage to slay him first.

And with that climactic battle, the curtain falls on the 1st Edition Twitter campaign. I made a Storify of the battle with Adrumel, the epilogue, and my thank-yous to everybody who participated. Let me also give a shout out to MetaFilter, which let me promote this campaign on their Projects subsite and supplied me with most of my initial batch of PCs. Truly, this has been one of the most entertaining Dungeons & Dragons games I've ever had the pleasure of participating in. The story of Guffin and the Guild may continue someday on GamersPlane, where you can find me running and playing in 5e campaigns.

Thanks for playing and reading, everybody!

Accounting:

Taniya and Seagretor are awarded 2,204 XP each.

At long last, an update!

So, we tried running The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan. It didn't work well. Trying to make a published module work within the constraints of Twitter ground everything to a halt. Being able to improvise lots of stuff on the fly to keep things moving was a key part of making this work, and by trying to stick to the module, we lost that.


It's reboot time. I remain committed to keeping a first edition AD&D campaign running on Twitter. We're going to resolve the characters present situation with a little bit of deus ex machina, and then we'll go from there. Stay tuned.

Day 37-45: Haferan Cruise

Various things occur in the lead-up to the next adventure. Taniya meets with Gloomwing, who confirms that Aidan Mome is the Guild's Cup & Mirror and that he never seems to leave the Count's Keep. She also meets up with the half-orc girl Chumsalt tried to recruit as a spy, takes an interest in her life, and sets up a 600 GP trust fund for her by auctioning off grave goods they looted from the Mastaba of Aptor. The party attends a public speech given by the Count of Guffin to address fears about the situation in the south with Xalco the beholder warlord. The speech is interrupted by the couatls Chac and Yopat, who confront the count about the theft of the Yellow Disc and its subsequent destruction. Blyneth apologizes on behalf of the Guild. The couatls leave, warning of dire consequences for the breaking of the Disc, but Blyneth and the Count seem dismissive of their fears.

The party is called to a secret meeting with the master psionicist Collin Filchard, who shares their concerns about the Guild leadership. He knows of a ship en route to the southern coast of Hafer and suggests the party take it, as it will keep them away from the Guild while tensions and suspicions are running high, and afford them an opportunity to meet one of Blyneth and Aidan Mome's old companions, who retired to a fishing village down there and is the only survivor of their original adventuring company. The party agrees.

The next day, Gloomwing is found dead on the grounds of the Count's Keep, apparently of a broken neck from a fall.

While Gnaurm and Kylwin depart, two new members join the party, elf magic-user/thief Leif Lasstiwhyle and halfling fighter/thief Otto Fairweather. Otto makes arrangements for Baella and Rooth to stay with his cousin at a convent of Yondalla in halfling country while the party is away.

The party boards their transport, a Haferan diplomatic vessel returning from Tar-Eng. The journey is not terribly eventful, except for the very last day, when the rowers turn mutinous against the Haferan nobles and fighting breaks out on the ship. The party steals a canoe and makes for shore...

Accounting:
The party divides the shared loot, taking 1,080 GP each.

Again, the party receives mysterious gifts in the night: a bridle with fine detailing for Taniya, a deluxe sewing kit for Baella, a quiver with a rabbit design for Hinonk, a set of prayer beads for Gnaurm, sticks of high quality incense for Cymerick, a detailed scabbard for Kylwin, a bag of dog treats for Otto, and an engraved scroll case for Leif.

Cymerick sells his scale armor +1 for 1,600 GP, buys chainmail +1, a hooden lantern, flint & steel, a flask of oil, a backpack, and resoled boots for 3,310 GP, 3 SP.

Hinonk spends 4 GP to have a banquet delivered to Taniya's house to apologize for his behavior while he was charmed by the lamia, and buys a ward vs charms (+2 to save vs charm spells) and 1 pound of sausage for 800 GP, 4 SP.

Taniya tips Ben 1 GP for the delivery, buys 1 week of rations and 2 flasks of oil for 7 GP, covers the auction fees for Aptor's grave goods for 60 GP, buys a 10 GP gift for the Oldfords to look after her cat, and pays Ben 10 GP to escort Baella and Rooth to halfling country.

Day 36: The Murmuring Cave

Again, each party member receives mysterious gifts in the night. Grabathor retires from the party.

They head down to Mez, launching at the port village of Mochly and leaving Ben there with the wagon and horses. They sail down without incident, meeting a boat full of halfling heroes on their way to wipe out the gnome cult that has taken hold in the Barrowlands.

Upon arrival near the hills surrounding the mastaba, they hear sounds of combat and find an elf fighting a manticore. They help him and learn that he is Kylwin the Bold, a Guild scout down here investigating the Xalco situation. He joins the party.

Afterwards, the party meets a shedu named Sulpa-Uddu who warns them to stay out of the Valley of the Wise and not disturb the Yellow Disc. They disregard his advice and proceed down to the valley, where they find a copper dragon napping on top of the Mastaba of Aptor. The dragon wakes, and while the party tries to talk him into letting them pass, he explains that he has been given license to eat any who intrude in the valley. The party tries to subdue him at first, his strength is such that they quickly change to an all-out battle and slay the dragon.

Inside the mastaba, the party encounters a few traps, including a mimic chest and a stone head that shoots magic missiles, and they loot some gold and jewels, some of Aptor's childhood toys, and three cursed pieces of jewelry. But the sarcophagus has been smashed in, and a strange tunnel has been bored into it, miles long with faint octagonal patterns in the dirt. The party hikes to the end of the tunnel, coming out on a hillside on the other end of the valley. There they are confronted by two couatl, Yopat and Chac, and Sulpa-Uddu. The party explains that the Disc is missing, and they suspect a trio of lamias who were seen on this hillside a few days ago. As the guardians of the valley cannot act outside their jurisidiction, they ask the party to venture to the Murmuring Cave where the lamias make their lair and retrieve the Disc. The party agrees to turn the Disc over to them instead of the Guild, and Yopat removes their cursed items. They are flown near the cave.

Inside, the party encounters the three lamias, Abit, Illan, and Tamar, resting near an underground pool. Abit holds the Yellow Disc. They see Hinonk first when he accidentally makes some noise laying caltrops for an ambush, and ask if he is the messenger they've been waiting for. He tries to bluff them, but fails, and Illan casts a Charm Person spell on him. Tamar looses an earth elemental (who they've nicknamed Dirt) from an iron flask, controlled by a magic stone, and the rest of the party reveals themselves. Illan entices Hinonk to stand next to her, effectively taking him hostage. Stuck in a standoff, the party and the lamias talk for a bit, and when Hinonk reveals that the party is from the Adventurer's Guild in Guffin, the lamias are taken by surprise, as the messenger they are waiting for was sent by one Aidan Mome from the Guild.

Eventually, the lamias' quasit familiar, Pheltch, returns with news that the messenger will be arriving soon. While waiting for him, Hinonk and Tamar play a board game with a set they looted from Aptor's grave goods.

The messenger arrives via flying carpet, and it turns out to be none other than Adrumel, the Sword & Rod, third highest ranking member of the Guild. He takes the Disc, explains to the party that a contingency plan to recover it has been made, and that he's impressed they managed to track it all the way here. He escorts them out of the cave and leaves.

The party returns to Sulpa-Uddu to explain what happened. He is horrified by the loss of the Disc, believing that if the wards on it are broken, something terrible will happen, having previously alluded to some doom that befell Parz, was avoided by Mez, but might now be repeated in Engol, which seems to be related to the Disc in some way. He leaves to confer with the couatl brothers.

The party hikes back to their ship and finds it gone. They pay a passing trader to take them back to Mochly.

Accounting:
Mysterious gifts are given: a bundle of wolfsbane for Gnaurm, a spyglass for Eryn, a book (A History of the Land and Peoples of the Suprora Forest, by Aelgeth Thrifelwine) for Taniya, a silk dress for Baella (Taniya's NPC partner), a felt pouch for Cymerick's oracular knucklebones, a leather pipeweed pouch with an embroidered rabbit for Hinonk, a fighting net for Grabathor.

Taniya pays ben 5 GP to wait at Mochly, drinks her potion of healing,
Hinonk claims Drimmo's short sword +1.

The party loots amethyst-and-jade grapes and golden stalks of wheat worth 5,500 GP.
The party pays 100 GP worth of the golden wheat for passage back home and loses its ship, the Mermaid.

Each party member receives 1,767 XP.
Hinonk is awarded 1,000 XP for excellent roleplaying while under the effects of Illan's Charm spell.

Day 34-35: No Longer Drimmo's Company

Lady Blyneth and several other notable Guild members and officials host a banquet for the returning adventurers at the Huntsman's Den, an old and reputable establishment in between the Old City and the garden district of Guffin. After discussing Drimmo's fate and their experiences in the island temple, the conversation at the table turns to the subject of Xalco, the beholder warlord conquering the fractured city-states of Mez. The Guild is concerned that he is destroying ruins that hold valuable relics, and Blyneth reveals that the mysterious (and absent) Guild officer known as the Cup and Mirror has furnished a list of the most important sites to explore before Xalco destroys them. Lissanth, a high-ranking Guild member and priestess of Isis present at the banquet, is concerned that a place known as the Tabernacle of Utu is not on the list.

Sir Bartheon and Lissanth both offer to sponsor the party now that Drimmo is gone. Bartheon asks them to tackle the first item on the Cup and Mirror's list, the Mastaba of Aptor. Lissanth asks them to seek out the Tabernacle of Utu for her. The party decides to go with Bartheon.

The next day, two priests from the Temple of Balder visit Taniya's house. They explain that they have heard the sword Daemonrazor, known in their records, was recovered by her and used to slay a bone devil. They ask her to bring it to the temple, where the Archbishop of Tar-Eng is visiting, so he can bless the sword. Accompanied by her partner Baella, she does so, and learns some of Daemonrazor's history in the process.

Eryn buys a mysterious puzzle box found by a gnome adventurer in the Barrowlands, opens it, and finds an enchanted axe inside. She sells it, deciding to remain in Guffin and continue her resesarch for now, instead of continuing to adventure with the rest of the party.

That evening, Bartheon visits the party in the Guild House to show them the location of the mastaba on a map and explain that their purpose is to recover a relic known as the Yellow Disc. The party does some library research afterwards, learning that Aptor was once the Archon of Kyros and that the Yellow Disc was a magical item he crafted with assistance from powers from the plane of Concordant Opposition to banish false gods from Kyros.

Accounting:
Daemonrazor is blessed by the Archbishop of Tar-Eng, becoming a longsword +2/+3 vs creatures from the lower planes.
The party sells all non-magical loot, distributing 1,625 GP to Taniya (who claimed the coral jewelry already) and 2,705 GP to all other party members.
Eryn buys a puzzle box for 2,000 GP, finds an axe +2 inside, and sells it for 2,600 GP. She buys a sling and 12 bullets for 1 GP, 5 SP, and returns the Bag of Holding to the party's custody before withdrawing.
Hinonk buys a box of caltrops, 6 silver arrows, and a quiver for 7 GP, 3 SP.
Taniya buys a hand crossbow, 20 quarrels, 2 vials of holy water, 1 small sack, and 2 days' rations for 451 GP, 5 SP.

The Guild Banquet

A lot of new characters, world events, and Guild politics got brought up at the debriefing banquet, so I made a Storify out of it.

Day 32-33: The Temple of Geryon

The party docks at North Porttown. The harbor guard allows them to sleep in their boat until morning. Upon awakening, the party meets a group of five adventurers preparing to sail their ship, the Dauntless, to Bload on behalf of the High King of Tar-Eng, to slay a vampire lord. They do not hold the Adventurer's Guild of Guffin in high esteem, but one of them mentions seeing a halfling matching Drimmo's description coming out of the Mermaid's Tail inn earlier.

But as it turns out, the part has no need to go searching for Drimmo, he comes to the marina and finds them. He explains their purpose: a tiny island thirty miles from North Porttown used to be home to a temple of Poseidon, but it has been long abandoned, and a band of devil-worshippers have claimed it for their own dark purposes, funding their cult activities through piracy. The Guild has a policy of stamping out devil-worship as a community service, so the party is to sail to the island, wipe out the cult, and destroy the idol of Geryon, the archdevil believed to be venerated there. Drimmo wants to leave immediately, but Taniya insists on renting a room at the nearby Squid & Quadrant inn for a few hours to freshen up.

They leave around midday, and Drimmo and Gnaurm are soon seasick. However, they endure no random encounters at sea, and reach the island, scouting it in advance with Eryn's owl familiar, Talon.

Upon landing, the party is attacked by four giant crabs. They are easily slain, but tear apart Grabathor's net in the melee. After that, the party explores a shipwreck nearby. On the partially-flooded lower deck, a giant sea spider emerges from the cargo hold and attacks the party, but it too quickly falls. Donning the Necklace of Adaptation, Hinonk salvages various treasures from the sea spider's lair

Talon does further reconaissance of the temple, and with Drimmo's help, the party hatches a plan to burn the wooden shacks built alongside the temple platform as a distraction, and get inside while the cultists are dealing with the fire. Hidden in magical darkness, Drimmo enthusiastically starts three fires, and the party makes for the main temple entrance.

 

Despite the fire, the entrance remains well guarded. The party fights numerous koalinths and other cultists, and two polearm-wielding ogres tasked with guarding the temple doors. Once inside, they are confronted by the High Priest of Geryon, Snarkhos the Elder, and his kuo-toa assistant. Taniya beheads the priest with Daemonrazor, and his followers soon fall as well.

 

Searching the main hall of the temple, the party finds an altar on a metal grate. Laid upon the altar, cut open, is a dead mermaid. Taniya removes her from the altar, intending to bury her at sea later. They barricade the main temple doors, and although some tentative knocking his heard, the cultists outside do not make any heroic effort to enter the temple. The party searches the inner sanctum, finds it empty, then rests for a while.

 

Hinonk picks the storeroom lock, and the party enters. Drimmo is asked to check a treasure chest for traps, and when his searching acumen is challenged, he opens the chest, which was, of course, still trapped. A cloud of magical gas polymorphs him into a large ocean fish. Filling a barrel with their Decanter of Endless Water, the party places him inside for the time being, so he can breathe. Taniya is struck by a second gas trap, weakening her for a time.

 

Searching the other rooms, the party finds keys in the high priest's quarters and a copper tub in the kuo-toa's room, into which they move Drimmo. In another room they find potions and stairs going down. They descend, and behind one of the doors downstairs they hear rattling and tapping sounds. Inside they find a captive, Cymerick Blavask, a cleric and fellow Guild member, who has been imprisoned there for a long time, waiting to be sacrificed. He carries with him the bones he believes to be those of his friend Tomran.
 

 

The party proceeds through a tunnel, fighting a huge black snake, then enters the room under the drainage grate under the idol, the floor caked and soaked with blood, some of which runs through parallel channels under the wall of an adjoining room. The party opens the door to this room to find the channels draining into a small pool, in the middle of which stands the idol of Geryon. They cautiously put a rope around the idol and pull it over. While doing so, the room grows noticeably colder. Unbeknownst to them, a bone devil was summoned when the idol's guardian, the snake, was killed. Invisibly, the devil casts Wall of Ice on the tunnel, sealing off the party's only exit. He then casts an illusion of a red abishai devil, which the party attempts to fight. When they dispel the illusion, the bone devil reveals himself and casts Fear, causing fully half the party to flee in terror: Eryn, Grabathor, and Cymerick. After a long fight, in which Taniya is nearly killed and the bone devil tries and fails to Gate in another of his kind, Cymerick lands a killing blow and the devil's corporeal body is destroyed.

 

An earthquake follows, which the party speculates may be a response from Poseidon himself, revealing a hidden door to a treasure chamber. The party finds the original idol of Poseidon among the riches inside, and after resting and melting the wall of ice, restores it to its proper place.

 

Though columns have collapsed upstairs, crushing the bloody altar, the mermaid's body is unharmed. The party goes outside and finds four kobolds huddled in the courtyard, abandoned by the rest of their cult, who fled in the longboats tied up under the north cliffs. The party explores the outbuildings, finding electrum coins and buried horse and dolphin skulls, but nothing of real value.

 

The party sets sail, burying the mermaid and Tomran at sea. Grabathor makes an executive decision to release Drimmo into the water as well, and he swims away, most likely never to be seen again.
After sailing for a few hours the party encounters the Dauntless, floating empty in the sea. There is blood in the water sloshing around the bottom of the boat, but no other clues as to what may have happened to its owners. The party sails it back to Fyneport, sells their own, smaller boat, and returns home to Guffin.

 

Accounting:

All party members (excluding Cymerick) gain 3,774 XP.

All party members (including Cymerick) also gain 3,853 XP.

Taniya spends 2 GP on a room and gains a 25 XP bonus.

Grabathor pickpockets Drimmo's money pouch while he's seasick, gaining 36 GP, 8 SP, and 50 XP.

 

Eryn and Grabathor each receive 50 GP for the sale of Not Drimmo's Slavers.

Hinonk gains 100 XP for exercising his thieving skills.

 
The party loots 1,331 GP, 589 SP, a beryl ring worth 150 GP, 5 large pearls worth 100 GP each, a gold chalice worth 400 GP, a golden fish-shaped platter worth 200 GP, 3 gold chains worth 300 GP each,  a spearhead +1, a scroll of Lightning Bolt, a scroll of Fly, some quills, ink, and vellum, a potion of water breathing, a potion of gaseous form, a Trident +1 of Fish Command, 8 Haferan electrum coins, and the sailboat Dauntless.

Taniya loots a turtleshell buckler shield +1, Gauntlets of Swimming and Climbing, a coral necklace worth 200 GP (which she places on the mermaid before burying her at sea), a potion of healing, 2 coral bracelets worth 150 GP each, and a coral diadem worth 400 GP.

Cymerick loots a bronze footman's mace +2 with a trilobite-shaped head, and a suit of scale mail armor +1.

Hinonk loots a cypress-wood Wand of Illusion with 45 charges, a sawtoothed coral dagger +2, and sealskin leather armor +2.

 

Eryn loots a Bag of Holding, a potion of healing, and a Cloak of the Manta Ray (also of Protection +1).

Grabathor loses his net and loots a potion of healing and a bronze harpoon +2.

Day 31: Downriver

Hitching their boat to a trailer pulled by Spike and Moldy, the party heads to the town of Fyneport to set sail. Leaving the horses with Ben, they head down the river towards Whalefish Bay.

While sailing, Grabathor attempts to pan for gold (not really understanding how panning works) but only manages to catch a giant leech. It lands in the boat and attaches itself to Eryn's leg before Taniya manages to squish it.

Further ahead, they are hailed by a boy fishing from a tied-up skiff, who is promptly attacked and dragged under by a giant pike. Taniya swims after the pike and manages to kill it, with help from Eryn. They pull the boy up, heal and resuscitate him, and take him back to shore, along with the pike, which will feed his tiny fishing village for quite some time. The boy's father invites them to stay and feast, but they press on.

The party crosses Whalefish Bay without incident, arriving at the North Porttown marina very late at night.

Accounting:
Taniya gives Ben 5 GP advance pay.
Hinonk loses 2 arrows in the river.
Each party member gains 31 XP.
Taniya, Hinonk, and Eryn each gain 94 XP for participating in the rescue.

 

Day 30: Side Questing

Chumsalt sets up shop as Chumsalt Wilderness Investigations in his office in the Inn of the Reclining Gynosphinx, and soon receives word that one of the patrons of the inn's other business has a problem with an owlbear eating the sheep from his parents' farm. He goes into the city to look for bulette urine (a known owlbear repellent) at various alchemical establishments, but finds none. He goes on ahead to the farm, with Hinonk accompanying him, talks to one of the farmers, and goes north to the owlbear's cave. They set up an ambush outside the cave mouth, and Hinonk hypnotizes the owlbear and tells it to leave. It obeys, but comes back, angry, when the spell wears off five minutes later.

Chumsalt and Hinonk attempt to subdue the owlbear with fist, staff, and lasso attacks, and Chumsalt succeeds in roping the owlbear and mounting its back. Hinonk, on Chumsalt's orders, runs away. He fails at convincing the owlbear to leave of its own volition, and realizes that this is a female owlbear, likely with eggs in its cave. Unable to bring himself to kill the creature, he dismounts, and they back away slowly from each other.

Back at the farm, Chumsalt tries to convince the farmers to grow vegetables instead of sheep and tries to buy the flock from them at double the price. They refuse, Chumsalt throws money on the ground in front of them, and the situation escalates to the point where one of the farmers starts taking shots at him with a crossbow. Chumsalt leaves, and in a state of considerable frustration with the difficulties of succeeding at a small business venture, opens up the sheep and chicken pens and knocks over scarecrows and wind chimes as he departs.

Meanwhile, Grabathor makes inquiries at the Guild House for an internal spy. He is put in contact with a halfling woman who calls herself Gloomwing, who meets him at the Tipsy Behir tavern in the demihuman quarter. She offers up some of the information Grabathor was looking for: the statue under the sheet in the initiation room is an old Mezian god known as "The Architect," and Lady Blyneth's second-in-command is not, in fact, Adrumel, but a mysterious individual who holds the rank of Cup and Mirror in the Guild. She also shares a bit of the Guild's history, explaining that the Guild was little more than a drinking club for old men until the Count of Guffin granted control of it to his daughter. Grabathor gives her an advance payment to find out more information about the Cup and Mirror.


Accounting:
Chumsalt gives away 301 GP in tips to Gunch and reparations to the sheep farmers.
Taniya buys a whistle for 5 SP
Grabathor pays Gloomwing 70 GP for her information and continued spying.
Hinonk pays 50 GP, 1 SP for studded leather armor, 12 arrows, a short sword and scabbard, 4 oil flasks, 1 small silver mirror, 1 tinderbox, 1 bag of caltrops, and 10 bandages.

Chumsalt and Hinonk each gain 100 XP for their owlbear experience.

Accounting policy update

Going forward, CP and rations will no longer be tracked. Loot/expenses will be rounded to the nearest SP and players will be assumed to be packing sufficient waybread/jerky/trail mix/etc to survive their adventures.

Day 21+: Departures

After they arrive back in Guffin, Sir Bartheon informs the party that Lady Blyneth would like to have the artifact found in the Hold personally delivered to her, and he escorts them to a brunch she is holding in the courtyard of an expensive garden district house. Drimmo, having waylaid the party in the Guild House to ask how the expedition went, goes along with them and tries to take credit for the party's success during the brunch, much to Taniya's irritation.

Blyneth inspects the artifact, praises the party's competence, and laments that after studying it, they will have to have it destroyed, as she believes it to be dangerous. She makes remarks suggesting that she hears the same voices Hinonk heard when he handled it, but they don't seem to faze her.

Afterward, the party liquidates the non-magical valuables they found in the Hold, including eight suits of elven chainmail, and does some shopping.

Eryn and Grabathor take their boat on the river to try it out. They take it to the town of Eel Fork, leaving the horses with Ben, and drift west with the current for a while, dragging a fishing net behind them. They encounter a nixie, who tries to entice Grabathor into the water, but Eryn recognizes the creature and kills it with a Magic Missile. They pull up their net and grill up the eel and three prawns they caught on their way back. They pass a raft with two children on board: Wes and Zoey, who are running away to start their own village where children make the rules. Intending to bring them back home, Eryn shoots their raft with a Magic Missile, destroying it. She swims over to rescue them, but they cling to her arms and they start going under. Grabathor turns around to save them. Meanwhile, a nearby fisherman rows over and jumps in to pull them up. It's the same fisherman who ferried them to the Barrowlands weeks ago. He pulls Eryn and the children into his boat and accuses Grabathor of being a river pirate and a slaver. He jumps onto the party's boat and fights Grabathor, who manages to disable him with his net and knocks him out cold. They put him back in his boat and sail back to Eel Fork with the children, who they deliver to the city watch in Guffin.

Meanwhile, Chumsalt buys some adornments for his hat, including an old Guffin Rangers Association patch. Intrigued, he asks around and finds out that the GRA, which disbanded many years ago, used to operate out of a lodge just outside the King's Gate that is currently occupied by the Inn of the Reclining Gynosphinx, a worker-owned co-op brothel. He investigates, and meets the bouncer, a half-orc named Gunch, and the general manager, Shawna. He asks if he can rent out a vacant room to restart the GRA, and after bringing the matter up in a staff meeting, Shawna agrees. Chumsalt sets up shop in a first-floor room and brands himself as Chumsalt Wilderness Investigations.

A few days later, a letter is delivered to Grabathor's room, addressed to "Foreman, Drimmo's Company." It's a letter from Lady Blyneth, informing them that she would like them to take their new boat to North Porttown to investigate a situation there. She has sent Drimmo on ahead to meet them there, believing that he is feeling underutilized and that for him to accompany the party on their next adventure would be beneficial for everybody. She tells them to get there in two days and that Drimmo will fill them in on the details of their assignment.

However, three members of the party will not be going. Winnpernickel, freed of her obligations to babysit the party, turns her attention back to her own Guild affairs. Utter returns to Treebrane, determined to find a resistance movement there to cast off the influence of the drow. Gwindle heads down to Favor to help the plains villages rebuild.

Accounting:
The party trades 8 suits of elven chainmail to the Guild for 10,000 GP and a waiver of their assignment fee and sells all other non-magical loot (GP values already itemized in previous updates).

The party divides 11,700 GP from the communal fund, each taking a share of 1,300 GP.

The party identifies the myconid king's staff as a Staff of Curing with 10 charges. Hinonk takes custody of it.

Eryn casts Find Familiar and receives a screech owl familiar, Talon (3 HP).

Taniya buys a light warhorse named Starburst, and riding gear, for 167 GP.

Grabathor buys chainmail, a spiked buckler, a harpoon, and a spyglass for 190 GP; and pays Ben 6 SP for wages and a meal of baked eel.

Grabathor and Eryn purchase a longboat with a sail together, contributing 75 GP each. They name the boat "Not Drimmo's Slavers."

Chumsalt buys a Guffin Rangers Association patch, a Ward Against Hat Loss, an axebeak feather, a leather strap for his hat, 3 chairs, 1 table, 1 bowl, 1 engraved plaque, stationery, 1 year of office rent, and 1 year of prepaid labor from Gunch for 14 GP, 5 SP.

One night, a mysterious gift-giver (later revealed to be Gwindle) leaves the following items for the party: 1 banded drinking/blowing horn for Grabathor, a fine longsword scabbard for Taniya and Daemonrazor, an elven belt, wineskin, and backpack for Utter, a silver symbol of Bastion for Gnaurm, an ivory pipe carved to resemble a rabbit for Hinonk, a new fiddle for Gwindle, a jar of 3 dead mice pickled in healing potion for Eryn and Talon, 2 sets of quality gaming dice for Winnpernickel, 11 silver arrows and a set of phosphorescent chalk for Chumsalt.

Gwindle spends 174 GP on presents.

Gwindle gets 100 XP for gift-giving.
Eryn and Grabathor gain 93 XP each for their side adventure on the river.

Utter, Winnpernickel, and Gwindle leave the party.

Larger map of Engol and Mez

I sketched out this map which includes most of Engol and a little bit of Mez. The border of Jerma is basically the top of the sheet. It's still a little rough, does not include every city or village and should be considered open to future revisions. Each square represents about ten miles.

 

Dungeon Maps

We have some very talented mappers in this group. Two of them rendered my chicken-scratch-on-graph-paper maps into slick professional-looking versions.

First we have the Hold of the Gray Elves, mapped by player @KimaOkoye:

And next we have the Tumulus of Chalmaber, mapped by player @HinonkO:

 

(I don't have the heart to tell them about the secret rooms they missed...)

Day 20: The Artifact

After resting, the party returns to the sealed stone door and finds it standing open. After some hesitation, they venture inside to find a large natural cavern sloping down to a shallow pit filled with a black pudding the begins to crawl out and threaten them. Weapons are useless in this fight; they defeat it with torches and burning oil and the remaining fireball beads from Eryn's Necklace of Missiles. After the pudding is destroyed, they find a Y-shaped nickel plate embedded in the ground where it was resting. They pry up the plate and find a hole with a box underneath. Wrapped in hide inside the box is a small gray wooden figurine of an antlered man with tentacles. Touching the figurine causes Hinonk to suffer a terrible headache and hear voices. The party puts the figurine back in the box, realizing this must surely be the artifact the Guild sent them to retrieve.

On the way out of the Hold, Taniya attempts to free the rust monster in the kitchen by luring him out with some of the spare daggers the party found in the armory.

The party exists the Hold to find themselves ambushed by eleven drow, members of the Ebon Fang syndicate that effectively rules Treebrane: warriors, archers, and mages, and a captain who wields a magic cutlass and a dirk. He orders the party to hand over the artifact, but seems uncertain as to what exactly they found. Grabathor tosses them the Amulet of the Planes they found Vytor wearing. The drow captain orders one of the mages to examine it. She picks it up, activates it with a word of power, and is sucked up into the Para-Elemental Plane of Mist. The drow captain orders his followers to kill the party.

After rendering several drow unconscious and killing the captain and all but two others, one drow archer recognizes the hopelessness of her situation, stabs her remaining ally in the back, and surrenders to the party. Under interrogation, she reveals that one of the rangers sold information about the Hold to the Ebon Fang. The other drow are hostile and belligerent, and the party executes them. The archer pleads for her life, promising to leave Treebrane and reunite with her kin in the land of Bload, and swears she will help the party if they ever find themselves there. They agree to set her free and she gives them her name, Drusha Da'Aszhne.

Fearing that the rangers' lodge is compromised, the party hikes to within a safe distance from Treebrane and sends Eryn and Hinonk, disguised by illusion, to retrieve Ben and the animals. They return to Guffin without incident, paying Ben 2 GP for his four days of work. Hinonk tips him an additional 5 SP.

Accounting:
Gwindle loses 4 arrows in the black pudding. uses up 2 bandages, and loots a Cutlass +2 from the drow captain.
Utter loses 1 sling bullet in the black pudding
The party pours out 2 flasks of oil from the shared reserves
Eryn uses up 1 torch and the remaining 2 beads on her Necklace of Missiles
Hinonk loots 1 drow shortbow.

The party loots 36 arrows and 39 GP from the drow, and loses their Amulet of the Planes.
The party divides the arrows they've collected, giving 20 each to Gwindle, Grabathor, Chumsalt, and Hinonk.

Grabathor is awarded 100 XP for his ruse with the Amulet of the Planes.

Each party member gains 950 XP.

Day 19: The Pit and the Door

After resting, the party searches the huts and the side rooms and find four more mummified elves. One of them wears a necklace with three beads that emanate warmth (Necklace of Missiles); Eryn takes this. They find two secret rooms as well. One contains a chest sent as a gift by Klif, an ancient dwarven king of the Strifelands, containing various valuables and a warhammer +1, +2 vs undead, which Gnaurm takes. The other room contains a trapped chest that flash-blinds Hinonk when he opens it.

They go back to the stairs and take the west corridor. Eryn walks confidently through a patch of green slime and it begins to consume her. She burns it off with a torch.

The corridor leads to a large two-part workroom. There's an old forge with a chimney over it; as the party searches the room, a giant bloodworm descends through the chimney. It latches on to Taniya and drains a goodly amount of blood before the party manages to kill it. Searching the room reveals a large vat of oil, that the party uses to refill their flasks, and a hidden message etched into the wall: "FORGIVE OUR GREAT ERROR / I WORSHIP CORELLON / LET THE ONE WHO READS THIS KNOW THAT NATHELLAR REPENTED."

Next exploring east of the stairs, the party finds a room with a cave-in caused by a massive tree root. They try for a while to dig it out, but make no significant progress. They give up and explore the south passage.

The south passage has six branching corridors that lead to oubliette pits. Only one of them contains anything: orc bones. Gwindle descends to examine them, but finds nothing of note.

The party goes back to the first floor to try the stairs behind the stuffed stag. They find a cavern with a deep pit in the middle. Winnpernickel casts Light on a stick and they lower it with a rope, revealing the pit to be one hundred feet deep. Gwindle climbs down and finds a cavern full of spongy black dirt and three ochre jellies clinging to the walls. He climbs back up. The party tosses rations down as bait, then shoves one of the stone blocks in the upper cavern down the pit. Then they descend, each party member joining the fight with the jellies as they make it down. Around this time, Hinonk's blindness wears off. The party rests for a while.

The party follows a tunnel out of the lower cavern and reenters the hold, finding boring beetle remains in the room the tunnel leads to. Most of the doors on this level are open. They go north, passing an unmarked slab with hundreds of nickel spikes with Y-shaped heads driven into the wall around it. They find another Gray Elf resting place containing two more bodies. The slab sealing this large diamond-shaped chamber had fallen over and one of the elves is not mummified, but in a state of natural decay. Hinonk loots a glass bead anklet (conferring DEX +1) from the preserved one.

They explore the star-shaped south chamber next, finding two more elves, both perfectly mummified. Taniya loots a silver hairpin from one of them (functions as a Brooch of Shielding) and Hinonk loots a moonstone pendant (Necklace of Adaptation) from the other.

Next they go through the unmarked slab, finding a passage to a cavern that faces a natural stone wall with a door set high up in it, and a carved block in front of it. The block has twelve small depressions on the top and a relief of twelve robed figures standing with their left arms outstretched on the front. Unable to open the door, the party goes back and takes the east passage to a set of ascending spiral stairs.

Upstairs, they are on the other side of the cave-in on the second floor. Here they encounter seven myconids, one of whom holds a staff and sits on a throne made of white fungus and beetle parts. Preparing for a potential fight, Grabathor starts pouring oil on the ground. This alarms the myconid king, who emits a cloud of spores that cause all of the party to hallucinate except for Grabathor, Gnaurm, Hinonk, and Eryn. The rest of the party has a vivid, colorful, synesthesiatic vision in which a happy, thriving myconid colony lives in peace for many years before a red-eyed devil arrives, searching for something, and kills many of them in anger when he cannot retrieve it. Meanwhile, Grabathor throws one of the beads from Eryn's necklace at the myconids, causing an explosion that kills all but the king. After a brief fight, the king is killed, and the party waits for the effect of the spores to wear off. They find nothing of value in this place except for the myconid king's staff, which has an as-yet undiscovered magical function.

Returning to the stone door, Utter and Eryn examine the carvings on the block and theorize that placing the dead elves' left hands in the depressions might unlock the door. Eryn casts Levitate and returns to the upper levels to sever and bring back their hands. It's the dead of night now, and the party decides to rest until morning before continuing.

 

Accounting:
The party refills all oil flasks and loots 1 silver carpenter's square (100 GPV), 1 silver mallet (120 GPV), 16 golden spikes (65 GPV each), and a magical myconid king's staff of uncertain function.

The party tosses 1 day of rations from the undistributed loot down a hole as ochre jelly bait.
All party members consume 1 day of rations.
Gnaurm loots a Warhammer +1, +2 vs undead.
Eryn uses up 2 torches and loots a Necklace of Missiles (2 3d6, 1 5d6) from one of the mummified elves, but uses up the largest bead in the myconid fight.
Hinonk loots a Anklet of Dexterity +1 from one of the mummified elves.
Taniya drinks the potion of healing from the undistributed loot, uses up 1 oil flask, and loots a Hairpin of Shielding from one of the mummified elves.
Chumsalt uses up 1 bandage.
Gwindle uses up 1 bandage.
Grabathor uses up 2 oil flasks and loses 2 arrows.

Grabathor is awarded 100 XP for a nice callback to the pickpocketing of his tinderbox.

Gwindle is awarded 100 XP for making good ability checks on a harrowing rope climb.

Utter and Eryn are awarded 250 XP each for their insights into the sealed door puzzle.

 

All party members receive 1,527 XP each.

Day 18: Monsters in the Hold

After waking, the party explores the south corridor from the cistern room and encounters a gelatinous cube. They slay it, and find it was blocking the way to an armory full of weapons in sets of twelve: halberds, longswords, short swords, shields, daggers. One of the short swords is +1 enchanted; Utter takes it. Searching the room, the party finds a trapdoor containing a large cabinet resting on a pressure plate. They hold down the plate with the halberd poles, lift out the cabinet, and pile weapons on top of the plate to keep it down. Inside the cabinet they find a priceless treasure: twelve sets of elven chainmail. Only Utter and Taniya can fit into them, however.

The party explores the north corridor from the cistern room and finds an animated stuffed stag with silver antlers and glowing blue eyes. It attacks them, and they defeat it. Past the stag they find stairs going down, and decide to backtrack and explore those later.

Winnpernickel goes up to check in on Sora, who offers to bury supplies and a map for the party if they aren't ready to leave with her by nightfall.

North of the entry room, the party finds spiral stairs that descend 50' to a lower level. They go down and head north to a room that has been burrowed into by two giant boring beetles. After a harrowing fight with the beetles, the party continues north to a huge chamber containing a pair of sword-wielding statues, a long pool of water, and two dome-shaped stone huts. Three gray oozes emerge from the pool and attack the party. Inspecting the pool afterwards, the party finds a magical vase that pours water and never runs dry.

Opening the left hut, the statues come to life and attack. After destroying them, the party finds another mummified elf in the hut, with a silver sword on his chest. The party decides to rest, and debates going back to town and returning to the hold later. They go back outside and talk to Sora, who is worried that if the party takes too long to finish their business here, others may find out about the hold. The party decides to camp out near the hold entrance. Sora goes back to town with Thrim.


Accounting:
Taniya uses up 1 oil flask and acquires 1 rusty dagger and a suit of elven chainmail.
Utter acquires a short sword +1 and a suit of elven chainmail and gives Taniya's longsword +1, which he was using, to Chumsalt.
Chumsalt takes Taniya's longsword +1 from Utter and gives his Ring of Protection +1 to Grabathor.
Grabathor takes Chumsalt's Ring of Protection +1.
Eryn uses up 1 torch and takes the Ring of Protection +1 found on one of the mummified elves.
Hinonk loses 5 darts to gray ooze corrosion.
Grabathor loses 3 arrows to gray ooze corrosion.
Gwindle loses his scimitar to gray ooze corrosion.
Grabathor uses up 2 bandages.

Gwindle, Gnaurm, and Hinonk each get 67 XP for fighting a reanimated stag.

All party members consume 1 day of rations.

All party members gain 1,762 XP.

The party loots 11 GP, 9 SP, 5 CP, an ivory bracelet worth 25 GP, a silver short sword worth 150 GP, a potion of healing, a Decanter of Endless Water, and 12 suits of elven chainmail (2 of which are claimed by Taniya and Utter as noted above).

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Day 17: In the Secret Hold of the Gray Elves

With Sora leading the way, the party walks into the Great Forest of Suprora to find the mysterious stump. Sora points out stirges nesting in the canopy. While walking, the group cannot shake the sense that somebody is following them. It turns out to be Taniya Dawnstorm, a fellow Adventurer's Guild member who was in Treebrane hunting down a rogue Guild member. She overheard the party talking to Old Licheneye, realized they were on to something big, and followed them here to ask to accompany the expedition. Winnpernickel points out that Taniya has some rank in the Guild and they can't really say no, so Taniya joins the party.

The party finds the stump and digs out the tunnel under it. Underground, they find a stone slab carved with archaic Elvish runes that read: "WE ARE THE LAST." They pull down the slab and enter the hold.

Exploring, the party finds a hallway with four more stone slabs and eight ghouls scratching and clawing to get through them. The ghouls attack, and after a lengthy battle that sees half the party paralyzed, the party slays them and enters the slab-sealed rooms. In each room, they find a mummified elf corpse laying shrouded on a bed. Hinonk takes a wooden ring from one of the decedents.

The party investigates another room, which appears to be a kitchen, and finds a rust monster that must have eaten its way down there through the stove chimney. They retreat, leaving the rust monster unmolested.

Down another passage, the party finds a room with a mass of tree roots protruding through the ceiling and a stone cistern embedded in the floor. Stirges fly out of the tree roots and attack. After defeating them, the party examines the cistern, finding it full of clean, clear water. The water reacts strangely to their touch, and they soon realize the cistern contains a water weird. After defeating it, Taniya dives into the water to retrieve several objects, including a magical sword. When Utter takes the sword in his hand it speaks: its name is Daemonrazor, and it belonged to a paladin who entered the hold through the stirge tree a century ago and was drowned by the water weird. The sword is disdainful of the party and only agrees to be wielded by Taniya, as she is the closest thing (in terms of race, class, and alignment) the party has to a paladin.

Wanting to rest, the party checks in with Sora outside, who agrees to return for them the following day. They sleep in the cistern room and are attacked by more stirges during the night. After killing them, the party rests peacefully.

Accounting:
Hinonk loots a wooden ring with magical properties from a mummified elf.

Utter uses up his potion of healing.

Eryn burns up 1 torch.
Taniya burns up 1 oil flask.
All party members consume 1 day of rations.

The party loots 19 GP, 3 SP, 2 CP, a pearl necklace worth 300 GP, and a Longsword +1, +2 vs creatures from the lower planes (Daemonrazor, INT 15) from the cistern.

All party members gain 191 XP each.
Grabathor, Gnaurm, Chumsalt, Hinonk, and Taniya each gain 89 XP from the water weird.
Grabathor, Chumsalt, Gwindle, and Hinonk each gain 66 XP from the nighttime stirge attack.

Taniya Dawnstorm

The party has added another member, as you'll learn more about in the next recap.