Campaign update

What happened since last update on March 2025? A lot!

When we last left our heroes they were deep in the Suss Forest and about to begin exploring the Ruins of Nol-Daer (Dungeon Magazine #13). After tracking missing dwarven miners to the ruins, the group faced a gauntlet of spriggans, manes, and a couple of deadly Black Dragons. They also found an old ally, Naahzruhn the cambion, who had the miners digging under the ruins while he bides his time to go after Markessa. He bargains with the group the freedom of the miners for information about Markessa's hideout in the Suss.

With that, they set for the villainous Markessa and a brutal siege of her underground semi-flooded stronghold ensued (A6 Die, Marquessa Die! from casl Entertainment). The party and its allies prevailed against her human and norker minions, but at a heavy price. Rivers, the party's elven thief, fell in battle, only to be brought back by the ultimate magic: a Wish spell. While Markessa and her lieutenant fled, the party secured a massive dragon hoard—though transporting "two crates and five chests" through a forest full of Kobold hordes and six-legged displacer beasts proved to be a logistical nightmare.

After that, the party took to the waves aboard the "River’s Bargain" from the port city of Fax back to the Pomarj's northern shore. Meriven, the cleric of St. Cuthbert, and Stengar the cavalier had a promise to fulfill, free the town of Lost Fenrill from its ghostly curse. They explored the shadow-haunted town and they didn't just survive; they conducted a masterclass in looting, emptying the Merchant’s Guild vaults of gems, paintings and ancient tomes. When 150+ Orcs of the Crooked Claw clan cornered them, the party broke the line with steel and spell, eventually using Hallucinatory Terrain to craft a ghostly "Earth Dragon" mist to cover their departure towards Safeton.

The party returns to their winter quarters, sailing up the Wild Coast, upriver the Selintan river past the Free City of Greyhawk and into the Nyr Dyv, around the Greyhawk Peninsula and into the Velverdyva river estuary to finally dock in the city of Dyvers. A final leg by land to Sobanwych and Twilight Falls just before the end of the year.

Sobanwych: Stengar will spend this downtime time patrolling his lands and training his followers, as well as strengthening the ties with the Gnarley Rangers and the several elven clans of the forest. Meanwhile Meriven will supervise the progress on the construction of the "Cuberthine Abbey of the Steadfast Way" and also scribe some scrolls.

Twilight Falls: Kothar’s ambitious library project, a shrine to Delleb, is nearing completion under the close inspection of librarian Adso of Mol and magic-user apprentice Aladram. With the addition of the tomes from the Sanctum of the Absent Mage, Markessa's stronghold and the vaults of the Merchant's guild of Lost Fenrill, it starting to slowly grow into a beacon of knowledge. Kothar works with Guy of Korbin, his alchemist, to craft some potions. Seraktikor, the gnomish sage at his service, successfully completes the study of the exotic objects from the Merchant’s Guild of Fenrill and answers a specific question about contacting a creature from another plane (noctral). Kothar also spends some time researching a new spell.

Winter turns into Spring, and the party decide it is time to explore the map Rivers found some time ago hidden in his ship's figurehead. Kothar travels to Sobanwych to join Meriven and Teodric, and together they travel to the port of Caltaran to rendezvous with Rivers. From there they sail to the west coast of the Greyhawk Peninsula (WGR2 Treasures of Greyhawk - The Tomb of Karyne).

While the party is busy with all these tasks, a silent threat looms. Kothar's Leomund’s Secret Chest, a long reliable storage solution, has been compromised. An Intellect Devourer discovered the chest in the Ethereal Plane and it is currently waiting inside... lurking for the moment the chest is next summoned.

Lands of Cantona - Session 3

Happy New Year! This is the recap of Session 3 of my new campaign "Lands of Cantona" that I am running for my two nephews, my son and my wife. The party is composed by Ragnar the elven fighter, Larry the human fighter, Tak the human cleric of St. Cuthbert and Cesar the human druid.

~ o ~

In the end they decided to go up and out and follow the treasure map that showed 3000 coins buried about 10 miles East from the castle. On their way out of the castle they find a patrol of 8 dwarves from the Bloodaxe clan led by Gatnur Bonechin.

After that they follow the path South and, before reaching the bridge, they turn East following the stream under a thin fog. Under Cesar’s guidance they manage to keep from getting lost. After a couple of hours they reach a fault scarp that runs North-South and drops about 30 feet to a hilly terrain. Everyone manages to navigate the way down except Larry that tumbles down the last 10 feet suffering minor injuries. By Cesar’s estimations they must be near the place shown on the map but they see nothing that marks it.

They were atop a hill looking around when a 9 feet tall brutish humanoid wielding a crude wooden club charges at them! A fierce combat ensued with hits and misses by both sides, with the fighters scarifying their shields to avoid deadly blows, and spells cast by the cleric and druid. The creature was defeated and the party was binding their wound when another, similar but smaller creature, attacked them. Some lucky blows brought the creature down before it could be a threat.

They searched the ogres, as they called them, and found that the bigger one had a bag with gold pieces (500). When they find they are all of the same mint (a tower over waves on one side and a man's profile with the letters ARN SON BARONIS on the other), one they didn't recognize. They decided to search for the lair of the creatures and their findings led them to a nearby cave filled with bones, hide and half eaten carcasses. Among this filth they found a metal chest filled with 5 large sacks all containing silver pieces (2500) with the same mint as the gold ones.

They prepared camp away from the cave and the next day under a great storm they started their way back to the village of Baz dragging the treasure chest. The travel was uneventful until they reached a stream by nightfall where they came across a herd of wild cattle. After a miserable but uneventful night, the next day still under a heavy rain they enter the woods. By late afternoon they found a group of Sylvan elves with whom they share camp. They manage to get from the elves a longbow, arrows and a dagger. 

By midday of the next day they arrived to the village of Baz and went to see Arin the moneychanger. They didn't agree on the exchange rate for the coins and said they were going to the city of Cantona. With that idea in mind they went to the trading post, run by the nefarious "Snarl" Davos and his partner Gregam, but they found their prices of goods and horses too high.

~ o ~  

The session ended with the party in town, with some treasure and divided about what to do.