019 - 250410 - Pending Resolutions, Unfinished Business - Forgotten Temple I
Date:
446 PC, Dawnrise 51
Players:
Keres (Sarah)
Ragnum (Jake)
Dev the Wizard (Paul)
Glacier
Loot:
NA
After Actions:
Dawnrise 51
Laris made quite the spectacle at camp, raving about an old, not-quite-forgotten bird god. He said that "Silence is judgement deferred, not forgotten" ... whatever that means.
Turns out Laris went exploring in the city three days ago. According to an acquaintance, Laris was neither crazy nor especially devout prior to this trip, which is difficult to believe given his current state.
Ragnum and Keres discovered that Laris seemed to have been touched by some kind of extra-planar being, like a celestial, but not quite. So, Laris might be crazy now, but he found something. Laris’ new god is looking for something, and Laris was not quite up to the task of finding it.
Following Laris’ directions, we ventured out into the city into the Skywatch Ridge District. We found an old temple that must have really been something in the old days. The old god wasn’t the only thing that woke up – we encountered three bird-priest guardians who tested us to see if we were worthy.
One clearly wanted a trial by combat, but none of us wanted to try our luck if we could avoid it.
My other companions prevailed on emotional or rational appeals to convince them to let them pass. I just managed to piss them off. Fortunately, my companions convinced them that we were a package deal.
Once inside the temple, we discovered that Laris’s bird deity was an embodiment of law and order likely created by the merchants of the city. During the collapse, the temple was sundered, and the deity was diminished.
We made an offering to the deity and we were briefly granted an audience. We learned that it missed its cleric, who was cut off from a cycle of rebirth by the collapse. The deity is seeking the remains of its cleric.
Which makes the mystery of the lack of remains or any real evidence of what happened to the people in the city after the collapse a little more pressing, I think.
When we got back to camp, we found out that Raven and Die-Anna had been killed somehow, and the important folks were busy arguing over whether to try to revive them using the revivication room we discovered in the tower.
We were having none of that – if something happened to one of us, we’d want someone to try to revive us. So we went to the tower and activated the equipment, and it worked just like we’d hoped with Raven. We tried again with Die-Anna, and she came back… different.
024 - 250519 - Burning Low - Forgotten Temple II
Date:
446 PC, Brightwane 6
Players:
Die-Anna
Keres (Sarah)
Raven (Danielle)
Dev the Wizard (Paul)
Ragnum (Jake)
Loot:
*Qual’s Feather token [Ragnum holding for group]
Tea collection (to Steve)
*Pot of Awakening [scholars' tent ]
Notes about civic law (scholars' tent)
After Actions:
Dear Alm,
Do you know how I told you about how I was looking into the whole religion thing? Since you know I died and all…. Well anyway me and some others went to the temple district to see what this new (old?) god was all about.
In short they’re pretty lame. They’re all about lawyers and like civics and birds. So I’m putting it pretty low on my list of gods to follow.
But anyway we looked into that missing high priest who the god was looking for. We found out that the priest was an aarakocra named Atrice! Or Atti.
(She also was totally into her assistant named Letha). She went to some place called windsbreath?? We think it was maybe a religious cite or something for this boring god.So it seems like we should look for this place so the god could reward us or give us a boon… or something… I’m not sure.
Also that laris guy died. He jumped off the wall of the city. Guess he wanted to meet his maker… or more like law maker. Haha… ugh again this is why you’re the comedian and I’m the monk.
You’re loving sister,
Currently Die-Anna
Brightwine 6
To Steve, Report on return to the Temple district
We chose to check out the temple district to see if we could find out any information about the remains of the civic deity’s high priest. We returned to the temple to see if we could find out any information about the priest, before finding the high priest’s personal office, we searched the temple initiate’s quarters and an area the temple used to conduct neutral trade negotiations. We found several items of interest, include a collection of notes that best I can tell are from 1-2 months before the collapse. Among the papers is an itinerary for Lwarnl-Kelp who appeared to be visiting the city for the purposes of trade and community development of an area called the South Brox St Community Chapter. And some personal effects of the high priest whose name was Atries (Atti) and her personal assistant Lethia. These have been turned over to the scholars tent. We also found that Atries’ personal tea collection, which she looks to have preserved with magic (we thought you would enjoy it!).
Additionally, we appear to have found an item that allows us to summon a Roc to our service once a day. I’d like to use it to conduct some aerial reconnaissance and improve our maps of the surrounding area.
Unrelated but important, I think something is going on with Edda. She seems distracted by the mirror we brought back from Barrowood—I’m worried we might have missed something. Perhaps we can use another set of eye watching her work in the scholars tent to make sure nothing weird is happening.
High Priest Atries (Atti)
028 - 250611 - Divine Error Handling
- Forgotten Temple III
Date:
446 PC, Brightwane 15
Players:
Dev the Wizard (Paul)
Raven (Danielle)
Die-Anna (Kate)
Keres (Sarah)
Glacier (Julia)
Loot:
?
After Actions:
Hi number two,
Bax, first of all, sorry for not writing a lot. You know me, always on the go-go. Well I’m not sure if Alm told you but I’m in a pocket dimension type thing. Wild! Right? I also died, don’t tell mom…But speaking of dying and the undoing it, we brought a man back from the dead!
The guy is a man named Laris. He got very into a lame bird god, who I’m pretty sure is just about filing taxes and other boring things, and killed himself after my new friend Raven told him to give dying a try. Haha! She’s a hoot, anyways so he did it to meet his bird god.
We felt bad plus his new cult of the Jerman (another story I’ll tell later), wanted him back. So like the heroes we are, Raven, Keres, Dev, and Glacier went to the tower to resurrect him. Unfortunately, there was some wiring issue or some other technical thing wrong so we had to go into the depths of the tower.
Before that we talked to one of the Jerman, a dragonborn named Jerell. He died like me and some strange armored man has been “talking” to him and asking questions. When I asked what this Rector nine was asking, Jerell was unable to tell me despite my iconic charisma…. Dev suggested that he might have a spell placed on him preventing him from talking about it… Rector nine should know that I won’t allow him to put any spell on me, I’ll die before the hunk of metal can ask me anything. I don’t talk to feds.
After walking (some crawling because not everyone can shapeshift like us haha!) in some very tight tunnels we got attacked by eels! Not just regular eels, but memory eating eels!!! They were scary and almost killed us! Luckily we killed them with some well placed hits and magic missiles. One tried to run from us but I caught the sucker, that one will be coming home with me. Hopefully if I eat it I’ll get some knowledge or something about the people of the tower.
Anyways we played some music and fixed up some things down in the tunnels which made the tower system better, and also have more of a personality? It also said something about needing more repairs so that's something to do when I’m bored.
Laris came back and honestly I miss him from before. The man seems not to remember anything. I tried the old you owe me 20 gold you taught me but it seems his resurrection left him keener than before. He was put off by the bird stuff and recalled that he went to a big building in the north of the city before he went crazy.
That’s everything that’s happened so far to me. I’ll try to write more but again, you know how I am.
Love you lots
Die-Anna
Added details from Keres Di Y'syll :
Rector 9's been asking the recently deceased/now alive to meet him in the wizards tower to ask some questions?? Dev noticed one of the jareds is likely being forced to hush with some arcane nonsense :pretty_sus: , hes also on the 2nd floor of the tower and I theorize Rector 9 is just nine squirrels piloting around the armor. When we went to revive Laris, double checked that the High Cleric Atty wasn't in there (subject to change as dm is not sure tho), Also the WEIRDEST part to moi, the voice for the reviving module thang spoke a little more emotionally and it was described as "A growing individuality to the voice", it also said "Welcome back Laris."
Also screw those memory chewing overgrown underwater snakes
045 - 250908 - Crosswinds - Forgotten Temple IV
Date:
446 PC, Brightwane 49-51
Players:
Odette
Raven (Danielle)
Ragnum
Keres (Sarah)
Donk
Larius [NPC]
Loot:
None
After Actions:
Keres Di Y'syll
Continuing on our hunt to reunite the High Cleric with her Birdy God, Odette, Raven, Ragnum, Donk, and I found Laris kind of, pacing back and forth?? With an open journal next to him. Apparently, Merris recommended some journaling to help take his mind off the crazy bird man he was a little while ago. A nice recommendation, also, she’s apparently been hitting the bottles.
We bought up the cleric, and after some very skillful convincing (Laris claimed to be racist; he is a crap liar), we found out he’s seen the bird lady in his dreams, standing in an open, cold plain. He was a little less tense after Ragnum spoke with him, he looks at the guy like a leader. Later, we grabbed some cold gear, a donkey (we totally didn’t forget him), and something called a “Crampon” for traction. Stopped by to let Steve know, he seriously needs an assistant scribe or something. The paperwork might end up being taller than him. He said in passing, we might be moving, as in the camp I assume? He looked a breath away from snapping, didn’t ask questions.
Later, we left through Prominence Gate (2 o’clock on the map), and started heading northeast. Saw a few corpse ripper birds circling something in some tall grassy fields, and as scouts do, we scouted. So Donk chucked Raven into the air to see more. Laris looked tired of us and was probably on the verge of heading back, but I mean, unconventional or conventional, we’re going to find some info regardless. Ending up just seeing a large animal carcass. Now that I think about it, Laris probably wanted nothing to do with the Corpser birds since…you know. After all that, we found a toppled granite wing statue that we plan to give Linus at some point.
There was also a whole debate about eating beetles at one point.
Trekking 20 miles and somehow alive, we started scaling a cliff-face while a storm rolled in. Found a little cave with an altar for offerings, then we finally reached the Frostfield Plateau. Bunch of bad soil, constant wind, and plants bent at the wind's whim.
Took a return scroll back home, but plan to find answers at a later time.
ALSO realized the context in which I was saying I was watching after throwing the moss into Taliyah's tent, DID NOT MEAN AS IN LIKE PEEKING LIKE SOME CREEP, legit just wanted to see the effect because I'm always praying on that ladys downfall051 - 251015 - Litany of Wings - Forgotten Temple V
Date:
446 PC, highflare 9-13
Players:
Draylor the Drunk (Raph)
Ragnum (Jake)
Die-Anna (Kate)
Donk (Dan)
Dev (Paul)
Loot:
Gems left behind by fey-sprits
After Actions:
Steve, we finally managed to locate Windsbreath, and we have rescued a person who has been stranded in the rift for the past 20 years.
Unfortunately, as we have come to expect from our time here, these two events have left us with more questions than answers.
We used the FLTR device to return to the Frost Field Plateau, immediately set up camp to recover from the travel, and spent some time building a stone perimeter around the device. The next day and a half were filled with uneventful travel, following the stone wings that mark the Northern Way. Donk was outriding for our group and was probably the first to notice smoke in the otherwise dreary and perpetual frigid grassland. What we had discovered was a single human who had survived the past 20 years on the plateau by shepherding a herd of aurochs. Sorin was pulled into the rift around twenty years ago during a thunderstorm that, as he describes, appears to have had planar elements. He is from the small hamlet of Greenmeadow, where he was married to a woman named Linda. He was excited to see other people and at first thought we were a hallucination. We shared our rations with him and I offered him our assistance in exchange for any information he could share, which he was very interested in if only for the opportunity for “companionship” after so much time alone. It appears that he has spent his entire time in the rift on the Frost Field Plateau but he does now the boundaries of the rift to the east, the location of a glacier and what he could see in the distance off the edge of the cliffs. I suggest we take the time to do an extended debriefing so he can provide us with any details he might have omitted during the excitement of our initial conversations; as you know, the next morning he traveled to the FLTR device so that he could join camp.
As an aside, perhaps we should station someone on the plateau to continue looking after the aurochs, as the well-managed herd would be a sustainable way to ensure food for the camp (as full domestication of the Rhinuffalo herd is still years away from what Sorin has accomplished with the aurochs).
We continued towards the glacier that Sorin had indicated was at the end of the Northern Way. The next evening, we were attacked by icy fey spirits as we camped. The battle was over relatively quickly and could have easily been deadly for us had it gone slightly differently, but we were victorious. We should ask Sorin if he had similar encounters to determine if our group was targeted for some reason, or if he was doing something that unknowingly protected him.
The next day, we found Windsbreath. It was a temple to the Sifren’s merchant-god, carved into the side of a glacier. The entrance archway was protected by magics that demanded a whispered secret from those who would enter. Inside, we found a consecrated altar consisting of an internal flame above large iron scales, and a small study that had not yet been filled with any information. On a desk in the study was the attached note:
Letha,
If you are reading this, then I have departed as planned. Do not worry; my duty is clear. The imbalance grows, and the scales must be righted. My path takes me to the Sunken City of Olorrun to retrieve the Abyssal Lodestone before it falls into the hands of the cult. It is a necessary weight for the scales. Should pilgrims arrive in my absence, offer them the sanctuary of Windsbreath. Their journey proves their worth. Judge their hearts and, if you find them aligned with the principles of balance, show them the path to the archives. The knowledge they seek may be found there.
Duty above all.
High Cleric Atrice
Unresolved Threads:
Where is the Sunken City of Olorrun?
What is the Abyssal Lodestone? What cult wants it?
Where are High Cleric Atrice's remains?