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• Arhian Vos – Human Monk
• Hartmut Helmsworth – Elf Monk
• Sindri Waggletop – (Forest) Gnome Wizard
• Rettniss Kulvith – Water Genasi Druid
• Avacyn “Jolyne” Uloth the Merciless – Half-Orc Paladin
• Twilight Skybane – Tiefling Bard

• Sindri asks Avacyn about this Rak’grum Bloodseed mentioned in the note they recovered from Avacyn’s mother
  • The party learns (some of which Sindri knew through a successful History check) that Rak’grum was an Orc Chief – who held council and brought the warring orc chiefs together under his rule to focus their wars against the elves who stole their land (according to lore)
  • Rak’grum’s tribe known as The Broken Hand continued to grow in size; as more Orcs joined his warband, which eventually brought in Kobolds, Goblins, and Ogres; eventually trolls, and even Hobgoblins – which was a great turning point for the Broken Hand, due to the Hobgoblins versatility and military experience. The Broken Hand seemed unstoppable during their war campaign.
  • Rak’Grum the Orc King (as he was called, since he united so many warchiefs), some say (according to legend and lore) was touched by Grumthak and bestowed a knowledge and sense of tranquility not commonly found among orcs. Some even believe he is somehow a direct descendant of Grumthak himself; that the god’s blood coursed through his veins. Hundreds of years ago, when the Orcs viciously battled the Elves for land, it was Rak’grum who created a large alliance of goblins, kobolds, orcs, ogres, bugbears and even trolls (he had tried to have the Hobgoblins come under his command, but they refused to follow him originally).
  • The Broken Hand successfully killed thousands of Elves, Dwarves, and Humans in their raids. He used the Kobolds as scouts (for their small size), goblins for the grunt work, Orcs were his honored warriors, Ogres were the front line tanks, and bugbears were the vicious grunts that tried to maintain control of the animalistic trolls.
  • In the year 1,110 (it’s currently 1,188), one of the First Elves (said to be Nifika’s Children) named Ashen’Var – though he became known simply as “The Ahsen Elf” due to his grey complexion was desperate to defeat the growing Orcs – and turned to darker magic to accomplish his goals.
    • One of his tasks long before this war started – was trapping the Dragons of the world in another realm. He turned to siphoning their magic to empower himself – driven mad by power he could scarcely control – he raised undead armies to march against the orcs
  • A group of heroes found themselves caught in the middle of it all, and found the way to break the Dragons free of their prison; which they did – allowing the dragons to re-enter the world and eviscerate Ashen’Var and his undead army. This released both good (metallic) and evil (chromatic) dragons into the world. The Broken Hand had been decimated by the Ashen’Var and his undead army.
  • Rak’grum had been buried in the Bloodseed Mountains – a mountain range claimed by the orcs of his bloodline – but rumors have circulated that his crypt has been dug up and his coffin is now missing.
  • TL;DR – Rak’grum is a great war chief from hundreds of years ago; united orcs; an ancient Elf named Ashen’Var murdered him to stop him; Ashen’Var got killed by dragons; now Rak’grum’s coffin is missing from his burial mound
• Avacyn explains that they should keep an eye out for any of his brothers and sisters; if his mother is here, then her father could be here; and there were some very loyal to their father
• The party decides that they will need to track down Avacyn’s mother and see what this is about the necromancy and this ancient war chief
• The party gets a night’s rest; where Rettniss has a vision of a giant, floating brain entering her dream, says “Find her! Find her!” and begins laughing; as tentacles lash out from the brain wrapping Rettniss within its embrace; and maggots pour out of the tentacles and begin eating Rettniss’ flesh
• The party meets down at the tavern, where Rettniss shares the dream she had
• The party recalls that previously the brain thing has resurfaced, and that they had previously seen a brain like creature near the Hobgoblins.
• Sindri says that they need to stop Avacyn’s mother; and Rettniss ponders how he feels about listening to brain creature from his dreams
• Sindri asks more about Avacyn’s mother (Jacqueline ) and father (Olith); and Avacyn confirms that his mother is into Necromancy; and she explains how her father despises any form of weakness; and if someone strikes a weak blow, her father will attempt to kill them first since he considers their survival an affront to still being alive
• Sindri pulls out the Hand of Varek Greystone, which shows signs of it’s undead life lingering as a finger twitches; he considers throwing it into the fireplace but realizes doing that may release whatever evil spirit lingers; Sindri decides to jump off the chair and heads back to the bar and asks the barkeep, “Hey,” he asks as he shakes the hand, as he uses it to point, “which way is the Church of Dedinsyn?”
• The bar keep points towards the Church, staring oddly at Sindri
• The bar keep explains, “You will be able to spot the Church easily. The priests all have purple skin.”
  • This is due to consuming the lethal Dedinberry. Priests looking to become loyal to Dedinsyn must consume Dedinberry; and those who are worthy, survive; and their flesh turns purple. Those who are not worthy, die a very quick death.
• Sindri, Avacyn and Twilight all head for the Church of Dedinsyn
  • As the party approaches the temple, they see a large statue on the top representing Dedinsyn, with his arms extended; meaning he welcomes all who die; because in Kne’Urth death is merely a passage to the afterlife, where the battle of good versus evil continues; and those who commit atrocities, such as Necromancy, it’s known the person’s eyes are gouged out so that they can never find their way to the afterlife
  • Sindri nudges Avacyn to talk to the Priests since he’s a Paladin
  • Avacyn clears her throat and asks, “Is your skin that color because of some drink?” (Sindri heaves a deep sigh)
  • The Priest explains how their skin becomes purple and asks, “How may I help you my children?”
  • Avacyn asks, “So you eat a lethal berry? Are you a suicide cult?”
  • The Priest continues to smile, “Those loyal to Dedinsyn and keep him in their hearts, fear not the consumption of the Dedinberry.”
  • Realizing this isn’t going where he thought it would, Sindri clears his throat and pulls out the undead hand and says, “Actually we’re here about this. We found this hand animated in the graveyard, and based on my research it belongs – belonged? – to a young boy named Varek Greystone who was involved in some necromancy? Well, it was back in the graveyard, crawling around and it appears to have been raising some undead while it was there. We put a stop to it but we’re not sure what to do with the hand now?”
  • The Priest says, “Give me the hand and I will take care of it.”
  • Sindri adds, “And well, you see, there’s this other Necromancer – she’s still alive but we’re going after her.”
  • The Priest says, “Bring her before me, if you can, to face judgement.”
  • Sindri coughs, “Well, you see,” he looks nervously at Avacyn, who is looking at the stained color windows on the church, “we plan to kill her.”
  • The Priest says, “If you can not bring her to me, and must kill her – be sure to remove her eyes so that she can never find her way to the afterlife.”
  • Avacyn smiles, then pauses and says, “Wait, that’s my mother. I might let her go to the afterlife.”
  • The Priest warns, “If she finds her way to the Afterlife, she will use her dark powers against the light – and when you time comes, great holy warrior, she will use your weakness in this life, to turn you.”
  • Sindri hands the undead hand over to the Priest; he looks around spots a Church of Florasena; the All Mother
  • Sindri asks about killing a Necromancer; and the Priestess of Florasena goes and fetches a special rose named after a great cleric – the Rose of Valen Tyne.
    • DM Note: I put this into the game, because this session was on February 13, 2021 and the following day was Valentine’s Day
  • The Priestess explains if the party kills the Necromancer – and if they believe she can be redeemed – stab the corpse in the chest – place the rose so that the trimming goes into the heart – and it may be able to redeem the Necromancer
• Meanwhile, Hartmut, Arhian and Rettniss decide they will head for the potion shop
  • They enter Doro’s Potion shop and are greeted by her; she recalls them visiting previously

• She offers them to the heroes for 25 gold each; and she says she currently has four potions available to her, so they purchase all four of them
• Rettniss recalls how Twilight had purchased them horses because she has quite a bit of gold and turns to Arhian and asks, “Wait, why did we let her go to the Church if we knew we were about to spend money on potions?”
• Arhian shrugs her shoulders, “Hindsight is 20/20 – maybe that’s why she has so much gold. She knows to avoid us when we need to go purchase things.”
• The party meets back at the tavern where they split up the potions and explain what they’ve learned
• Avacyn explains that, yes, his mother is a Necromancer, but when Avacyn was an infant, her mother would raise dead to take care of her
• The party makes their way towards the Great Hills north of the Ivory Coast, which was the direction that seems to be where Avacyn’s mother fled to
  • The Great Hills are known for weird, cult like activity as many retreat there to find sanctuary and escape prosecution from local authorities as they expand their cult
    • The Great Hills was modeled after an area in San Diego I live near called Proctor Valley. There are tons of stories and urban legends that surround Proctor Valley Road in San Diego, including Cult activities. There was even a comic released by Grant Morrison and Boom! Comics called Proctor Valley Road.

• The party finds a number of extinguished campfire once they get into The Great Hills and after a moment, find fresh tracks that seem to have been made by a female human; the party follows those tracks and it leads them to a cave entrance on the side of a very large hill
• The party moves forward and enters the cave cautiously, and up ahead can see a flickering campfire and hear voices

• The party sees three orcs sitting around the campfire, and a gnoll pacing back and forth, just out of the campfire’s light
• Sindri steps to get within 90′ and casts Sleep which renders two of the Orcs into a slumbering state
• The one orc who is awake, growls, “Grooug, Bachuur, you no sleep on our shift! We still got six more time watching!” The gnoll meanwhile begins barking nervously, hissing, “Magic! Magic!”
• The rest of the party launches a distance attack to get a surprise round in
  • Hartmut fires his long bow, and misses; as does Arhian
  • Twilight however, manages to hit the awakened gnoll with her crossbow
  • Avacyn moves forward as arrows and bolts go flying over her head (very trusting that her party isn’t going to critical fail and hit her as she is running towards the orcs)
• When combat officially begins; Hartmut is first – and the awakened orc who saw two arrows miss him stands up and laughs at the approaching party; but standing up gives Hartmut a center body mass to target and hits the orc in the chest (who stops laughing)
• The gnoll fires a shot and hits as does the orc

• Rettniss moves up to get closer to launch some spells, and triggers a trap where the floor is revealed to be a plate that triggers daggers flying by, but she’s able to leap to safety
• Avacyn gets hit twice for some damage, so she uses Lay On Hands to give herself some health back
• Avacyn then moves forward and triggers a second trap – and she fails – taking damage as the daggers fly from the wall and strike her for 7 points of damage
• Rettniss uses Thornwhip on the gnoll; that spell will be quite the highlight in these caverns… I have foreseen it (mostly because I am writing these notes 5 months after the actual game session)
• The party is able to finally kill off the awakened orcs and gnoll and approach the sleeping orcs to decide what to do; Avacyn looks down at one of the sleeping orcs, she kneels down and picks up a rock and proceeds to bash the orc’s head, until she’s covered in blood and looks up at the group and smiles
• Sindri looks horrified and says, “We could have just slit their throats quick and clean.”
• Avacyn looks at no one knows what to do with the second one, so she stands up and shrugs and proceeds to crush his throat with repeated stomps
• The party stares at Avacyn with wide eyed wonder, as she wipes the blood from her forehead and says, “We can move on now.”
• Sindri mentions concern that he’s worried that there’s only one entrance in; and he proposes he hides in the rocks and casts minor illusion on himself – and hands them a stone that has light on it – and he will dismiss it if someone enters
  • DM Note: The player had to step away for the rest of today’s session so it was an easy way to excuse him
• The party agrees and turns to the bloody bodies and searches them; and on one of the orcs, a note is found, confirming they’re in the right place, as they find a note written by Avacyn’s mother about keeping an eye out for her daughter (as well as some gold)
• Arhian examines the right – and sees a patch of large mushrooms, and among the mushrooms a gnoll, whom – upon closer examination – seems to be in a altered state of mind due to chewing on some of the large mushrooms

• Rettniss warns that it’s Shriekers that are all around the gnome, and given Avacyn’s past of bumping into Shriekers, it may be best to simply leave the gnoll alone
• The party veers left where it sees another campfire with some tents across the stream and a narrow path that continues northward

• Twilight moves up a little and uses her Bardic ability to create a minor illusion of another gnoll standing across the stream; which catches the gnoll’s attention as it slowly begins to make its way there, cautiously
• Hartmut sneaks across the stream; however, it’s got Quipper – which draw blood and wildly frenzy causing significant damage!

• This causes Hartmut to curse in pain (Failed Stealth)
• This draws the attention of the gnoll who alerts the orcs
• Avacyn crosses the stream next and the already frenzied quipper deal some major damage to Avacyn by the time she crosses over; which she then follows up with quaffing a potion
• Twilight moves up where the distance of the stream is smaller and manages to get across without being bit
• Avacyn throws a javelin at the gnoll and manages to bloody it
• One of the orcs fires at longbow at Hartmut since he’s across and lands Natural 20 but does minor damage; but it’s enough to bloody Hartmut
• The other Orc seeing Hartmut bleeding, rushes up and hits with the great axe; hitting him and knocking him out
• The gnoll fires an arrow at Avacyn, hitting her, but doing trivial damage
• Arhian invokes Step of the Wind which allows her to double her jump distance, allowing her to clear the stream easily when crossing; she fires her longbow at the bloodied gnoll, but misses
• As a Water Genasi – the Quipper allow Rettniss to pass through the stream; and she moves to Hartmut to use her Medicine skill to stabilize Hartmut

• An Orc swings at Avacyn; but misses – Avacyn returns the favor, hitting for maximum damage and bloodies the orc – then throws a potion to Rettniss to shove down Hartmut’s throat, which allows Hartmut to stand with 6 hitpoints
• On Hartmut’s turn he quaffs another potion; then swings with his sword (Critical Fail) nicking Rettniss for some trivial damage
• On Avacyn’s turn, she first curb stomps the dead orc and then attacks the living orc in front of her and takes him down
• There’s a bloodied gnoll that seems to be doing the most damage to the party, and the party can’t seem to hit him until Hartmut moves to him, flurry of blows – lands a Natural 20 – and does enough damage to render it to 0 hit points
• The gnolls prove to be problematic to the party; so Twilight unleashes Gem the parrot who flies around the gnoll tell it that it’s a useless flea bag; which the gnoll fails against Gem’s special attack, so she’s able to do 1 damage to it
• The battle continues, and the party eventually wins, with most of the party pretty wounded; Avacyn kills off all the enemies that had been reduced to exactly 0 HP, by crushing their throats with her boot
• When the party searches the bodies, Arihian finds ones of the orc’s great axe has runes (Grumthak’s Rage) on it; she slides it over her should and continues search; Rettniss finds a scimitar that has runes on it (Grumthak’s Fang); the rest find gold and standard weapons among the dead.
• The party takes a breather here.

TO BE CONTINUED!