Crank

Info

Monk, Way of the Drunken Master
Background: Criminal
pc - Crank.png

advancement_monk.png

§ Interactions
37 #DestructionsLight They had few hours, enough for a short rest. But more importantly, they needed to prepare. The skies had cleared, and so Tetro cast Skywrite notifying all towns of the imminent attack. Panicked townsfolk were rushing to shelters. A wounded man and his animals were aided by Oona's strength. Fern helped a child look for his mother as a crowd crush was broken up by guards in the market alleys. Gadget and Crank sought the militia armorers, demanding iron nets for the ballistae. Azgul found a harried Speaker Waylen, and after getting the lay of the town's defensive capabilities, he forced the Speaker to take cover with trusted men. Azgul then sought out Captain Imdra Arlaggath at the town's southern watchtowers.
37 #DestructionsLight #TheDevilYouKnow Azgul, Oona, and Crank started making their way towards Imdra Arlaggath, while the remaining party tended to preparations near the East Way. A cloaked figure was tending to her sled. Upon recognition, the party stopped abruptly. That was Vellynne Harpell. A shrewd Vellynne queried Azgul, wondering whether he was going to turn into a black ooze like the illusion who had been accompanying her for the last week. Crank took out the sample from the Lost Spire and Vellynne nodded in confirmation. Yes, that ooze. With the pressure of the dragon on everyone's minds, the wizened wizard acquiesced to lend them a hand, noting that despite the warlock's mysterious plans, they all had commanded several acts of heroics. She kept her one good eye on the half-orc warlock, nonetheless.
37 #battle #DestructionsLight With cries for arms, the tumult turned to terror, as cries of battle rang out. Oona, Crank, and Azgul rushed to the watch tower, only to see a knifed Imdra Arlaggath fall from the tower. Across the city, the duergar assault had begun. By the time our heroes felled the fire lance wielding duergar xarrorn, Captain Arlaggath had died. With the dust of the ground battle settling in their vicinity, shouts of fear arose. The Chardalyn Dragon was approaching and fast. Fern and Gadget prepared a ballista for a clean shot, entrusting the stalwart Tetro to its aim as the pair ran for cover. Soon, the skies flashed alight, dragon's breath rending the southeastern expanse of Easthaven in a radiant beam. Ballista shots pierced the dragon's armor but did not pin the behemoth to the ground. It took off for the eastern districts, toppling a structure in the distance.
36 #ADuergarPlot The forge level barracks had to be dealt with, decided Crank. Back by Oona and the others, they waltzed in and flashed the Muzgardt symbol. It took some persuasion but quickly duergar were taking arms against duergar in a battle royale. Gadget dispatched several with a thunderwave, whose blast brought the attention of the duergar on the guard towers. Mopping up the remnants, the party had added a cadre of bruised but determined Muzgardt soldiers to their ranks. While regrouping, Crank crept down a tower walkway, taking in the full view of the dragon heart forge from which pools of molten chardalyn flowed. Present below were two armed guard towers, a cabal of quaggoths, and Xardorok Sunblight, standing near his gargantuan obsession, the Chardalyn Dragon. Xardorok's eye met Crank's as the monk stepped back to inform the party to get ready.
36 #battle #ADuergarPlot #DestructionsLight Our heroes stormed the forge through every possible avenue. Crank jumped into the pit and rushed for Xardorok Sunblight, Azgul and Tetro fired spells from the cleared guard towers, Fern masked their casters with darkness, Gadget led the vanguard of Muzgardt duergar, and Oona flanked the quaggoth warriors through the Temple of Deep Duerra. An enemy forewoman rushed to the Chardalyn Dragon's iron service platform but was enwebbed and died in flames. Xardorok, briefly stunned by the bugbear monk, went invisible and began monologuing to the interloping heroes about his imminent victory. As the party lost sight of him, they cut through several more quaggoth until they heard the click of a lever. Through the hiss of steam, the dragon spoke NEW DATE. TONIGHT IS THE FEAST OF THE MOON. PREPARING SYSTEMS FOR ANNIHILATION. Xardorok had reset his dragon to attack this evening, though the true Feast of the Moon lie two nights ahead. HOSTILITIES DETECTED. MALEVOLENCE PROTOCOL ENGAGED. A radiant beam disintegrated two duergar and felled Olpha before the dragon clawed up the exit shaft, pushing off towards Ten Towns.
36 #battle #ADuergarPlot Picking themselves up, our heroes pushed back as three duergar hammerer units made their way from the far side of the forge. Olpha polymorphed a duergar into a chicken atop one guard tower, inspiring her comrades up top to fight back. The front lines of the quaggoths began to fall under the pressure on the main floor. Alit by Tetro's shooting star, a bloodied Xardorok's eye stumbled as Crank shoved a sussur branch into his eye. It shattered, as eye puss trickled down, and he began to cackle. Enlarging himself in an agonizing shout, chardalyn growths rapidly spurted from his flesh. Xardorok, subject to the sussur branch's influence, had little control over what happened next. Pillars of earth randomly erupted. Gadget and Ulkin were pinned to the ceiling, some 30 feet high, and Azgul dodged away from a tower of the black earth as he was shut out from the guard tower. The numbers soon turned on Sunblight, however, and he died in rapture, as Azgul's spectral servant severed the last chords binding his soul to his flesh.
32 #UnderdarkExpedition The party neared the duergar mining colony, whose lamp lights were seen a mile down in the cavernous valley's floor. Sensei worried that their own presence would be met with possible hostility, since some duergar were known for prizing myconid flesh. Therefore the party took efforts to conceal themselves. They told Sensei to play dead, as they carted them in through the town's outer guardpost, claiming they had myconid for sale. Tetro took the form of a mule, and Fern decided to conceal her tiefling self, though tucking the tail proved troublesome. She applied some grey tint to Gadget so that she may appear to be a deep gnome. The half-orcs, Oona and Azgul, along with the bugbear Crank felt their presence was fine, given that the town below was reputedly frequented by other Underdark dwellers for trade.
32 #UnderdarkExpedition The duergar mining town had Sunblight soldiers positioned as guards. Past them, the party saw a series of dingy shacks and grimed shanty houses leading to a busy market square. The guards were deceived by the party's tale of being adventuring merchants with fungus for sale. Used to exerting their power, the older guard pressed them for a bribe. With a deft slight of handle, Crank took a fake cut of Sensei, and handed the duergar a tongue of madness. The guard began rambling, one thought after the next. He not only granted the party passage, but revealed that Sunblight merely controlled the town, that other duergar had to be kept in line, and that a duergar princess from the Muzgardt clan was staying at the other end of the markets, awaiting an invitation to dine and be courted by Xardorok himself. She was known to come from a line of merchant brewers in the distant cavern city of Gracklstugh.
32 #UnderdarkExpedition Oona couldn't help but feel sorry for T-Rex, despite Crank and Azgul pleading with her to leave the issue. Fern had to chime in that an indentured servant at their newly deeded inn in Bryn Shander might not be a bad thing. And so it went that the party took T-Rex into their fold, for the meager cost of 50 gp.
31 #battle #UnderdarkExpedition If crossing the ancient dwarven bridge wasn't foreboding enough, the large creature's shell in the middle of the pathways certainly proved ominous. Jarnathan the familiar nearly singed its whiskers off when scouting. The party decided to push through, calling out the magma whelk within the shell. As the foe delayed their transit, the sounds of battle stirred the cave walls. An exponentially growing number of stirges poured into the air. Crank, the first to cross the chasm into the cool crevasse on the other side, noted that the stirges did not pursue. He called for his companions to run. Felling the whelk, the party dashed to safety, and as they collapsed into the crack in the wall, the swarm of stirges descending on Aruk Thundercaller at the rear. Enveloped in a hundred stirges, Aruk beseeched the party to save his captive brother, the goliath Kapanuk Talltree. Aruk then fell from the bridge, lifelessly.
30 #UnderdarkExpedition Standing before a Sussur Tree emerging from a petrified phaerimm, the party decided to harvest some of its leaves to take advantage of its antimagical aura. Azgul advised caution, as the elven scriptures surrounding the site both heralded the creature and served as a warning of its calamitous power. Oona, Crank, and Fern each managed to walk away with a piece of its foliage, but only after reckoning with the perturbations of the entombed monster. Neither decidedly alive nor dead, whatever seals which held this phaerimm showed the slightest of cracks, spurring Crank into madness, driving him to attack Tetro until Gadget deduced that even slumbering fossils could concentrate on their magicks.
29 #TheRimeoftheFrostmaiden On the third day, Crank was taking inventory and noted that of their two diamonds they created in the Lost Spire, only one remained. The other had moldered into a black ooze. Piecing together that their illusory items may be fraying, the party looked things over. Fern's studded leather seemed intact. Sparks was okay, tail wagging happily. Oona's great axe couldn't be found, though. Worried that their diamond may disintegrate, the party paid Copper a visit. The gnome, assessing the gem, believes he could repair the Summer Star, consecrating the chardalyn core and providing at least another charge. He would need a tenday. Thus, it should be ready when the party returned from Sunblight Fortress.
29 #UnderdarkExpedition Walking through the drow ruins, they took note that this city had long since been abandoned. Its structures were bereft of treasure, and were instead blossoming purple foliage and growth. A soft blue light in the city square grabbed their attention. Approaching, all but Oona and Crank felt amiss - half calm and half mute. They arrived to see a large sussur tree, blue petals glimmering and dispelling the surrounding weave, silencing all magic. It was growing out of a corpse, the body of an ancient phaerimm.
28 #TheCouncil The Ten Towns Council of Speakers were in debate when the party arrived to the open meeting. Naerth Maxildannar had brought forth the proposal to bring Bremen under Targos control, given the debts of the Five Tavern Center and the senescence of Bremen's doddering speaker Dorbulgruf, who was nodding off in his chair under the folds of his beard. The votes narrowly passed in his favor as he smugly grimaced at Crank and his compatriots.
27 #TheLostSpire Oona immediately wanted a greataxe. The machine whirred and weave energy coursed across the runes, slightly arcing, but nevertheless the greataxe formed. But, what about a diamond? Two were made. The first arcing, while the latter had minimal sparks. Crank began to mention the possibilities: why not a whole chest of treasure?
27 #TheLostSpire #DzaanIsDead As debate ensued over whether the rune chamber was truly safe, Fern decided to test a living creature. A rat was born and scurried away. She tried again, wanting to keep the rat for herself, and black ooze was the result. It began to unnervingly creep around the golden platform but was not an immediate threat. Dzaan's simulacrum wasn't dissuaded by this result, yearning to become real. However, first, Crank wanted a dog. After two attempts and several sparking, Sparks was happily wagging its tail. Finally Azgul put his foot down. This was enough of a risk. The party told the simulacrum to fuck off, and the group ascended to the surface, Azgul staying behind to have a last word with his mentor's illusion.
27 #TheLostSpire Crank was still mulling over the black ooze they saw earlier. Wanting to bottle some up, he returned to the rune chamber. Descending the first floor, he passed Azgul. Descending the second floor, he passed Azgul. Descending the third floor, he passed Azgul. Crank bottled up some ooze. Then he asked Azgul, "didya clone yerself?" Azgul had no idea what he was talking about.
26 #TheLostSpire Traveling within the inverted Lost Spire, the party took note that many items and books had been recently removed. Picking through the remnants, they read through accounts of the magic-hungry creatures called the Phaerimm, histories of Netheril before Karsus's Folly, and observations of extra-planar species in old wizarding laboratories. This tower once served as a place of learning. Standing piggyback atop Crank and then Oona's shoulders, Fern opened a chest on the inverted floor causing resistance potions to tumble down and later touched an altar of Mystryl, manifesting a divine elixir giving her the minor illusion cantrip.
26 #battle #TheLostSpire Crank swigged down a Potion of Cold Resistance and dropped below. There, the party fought a cornered ice salamander, an inhabitant of the Plane of Ice that had wormed its way into this realm due to the endless winter. As the battle came to a close, Tetro dispatched Krintaas who was barely hanging on. Very soon after a second battle started when remains of the forgotten tower's wizards manifested as sorrowsworn. Battered, the Gadget rescued a dying Fern while her homunculus Finn struck a killing blow to dispatch the shadow creature. Thus the party was able to step into the tower's rune chamber.
25 #battle #RevelsEnd Lights sputtered against black hallways as the siren blared in Revel's End. Gadget, Tetro, and Fern were caught in combat with a red slaad as prisoners and guards clashed against other threats. Vaelish Gant was seen looking for spellcasting reagents. Prisoner 13 was attacked by a red slaad and defended herself with her river tattoo. Azgul was lost in the fray. Oona and Crank awoke to chaos and soon found themselves fighting off another red slaad near the mess hall.
25 #RevelsEnd The warden's responses about the slaad threat were mostly nonsense. Lieutenant Stone was concerned that Marta would activate the facility self-destruct and was doubly concerned when the warden said nothing about the Wand of Binding, which was meant to control threats like these. Fern and Stone went to search the warden's chambers for the wand, while the remaining party headed to the roof. Crank scooped up the dazed warden and took her with.
25 #RevelsEnd On the roof, in the chill of heavy snowfall, a gray slaad was prowling. Gadget sent an attack right into the creature, whose image only twisted and sputtered. It was a powerful illusion, but for the moment only she could tell. Crank continued to attack, as the warden who he just sat down unhinged her jaw, a black cone of fear magic emanating from within. Enraged and frightened, Oona sprinted down the staircase, getting nicked by the warden's fingernails. The warden laughed at her own feeble human hands.
25 #battle #RevelsEnd Stolga Stone ran up the stairs and immediately attempted to shove the supposed warden off. She failed. The warden transformed, and the battle with the true grey slaad ensued on the rooftop of Revel's End. Tetro assumed constellation form to bolster the party, as Fern and Gadget laid into it with knife and fist.Oona, having come to her senses, hurled the slaad off the tower. It landed 140 ft below on the lower roof. Crank jumped down after, tossing a lightning javelin and slow-falling not a moment too soon. The rest of the party continued their assault from roof top and tower windows. The slaad, though, was able to take flight, and fireballed the roof. Dodging the blast, Oona opened her eyes to see Stolga Stone incinerated and falling to her death. But the slaad couldn't last. It died midair and fell once again, the resulting splash soaking Crank in slaadi guts and goo.
24 #RevelsEnd Azgul, Fern, Tetro, and Gadget waited in the mess hall while Oona and Crank took a nap in the guest rooms. Tetro befriended some of the kitchen staff, while Gadget took a look at the Dwarven artificing used to heat Revel's End to a balmy temperature. One guard was muttering about stomach pains when the half-orc Lieutenant Stone arrived to bring the party to Warden Marthannis.
23 #AngajuksBell A group of Reghed Nomads had returned to the village with a slaughtered reindeer. They returned just in time to watch Crank try to feed Angajuk a human foot. Tensions flared. After some explanation from Oona, the displeased Reghedsmen told the party to bury the dead with rites to the Maiden if they're worried they'll rise up... and perhaps reconsider dismembering corpses in the future. The Reghed hunters, whose main camp was apparently nearby, made it clear that the travelers should move on.
23 #battle A frigid battle was fought against three frost druids and an awakened tree. Fern was knocked out after repeated ice storms but was quickly healed by Tetro. As Crank chased a fleeing frost druid and a pack of conjured wolves held Oona, Azgul, and Gadget at bay, Fern returned to deal the killing blow. The party was victorious.
22 #battle #DarkDuchess The hold contained several longboats and a massive treasure hoard, frozen in laminated sheets of ice. While some picked away at this icy treasure, Crank busted down the door to the galley. A gang of kobolds had barricaded themselves inside, attempting to ward off the ice troll. Alarmed, they attacked Crank on instinct. This resulted in their deaths. The party managed to glean that the kobolds were present in service, or perhaps reverence, of the "big one." That big one was the ancient dragon Arveiturace.
22 #battle #AngajuksBell #WhaleHunters The day's blizzard kept most locals inside, but a cadre of Dalefolk were outside by a large barrel, pointing at the break in the ice near Anga's copper bell. They were the ruffian whalers that Tinjong warned the party about. The thugs told the locals they would hunt the whale. What the locals didn't know was that this band intended on poisoning the waters to do so, using the famed bell to lure their prize in. Hazel had no patience for these fools and their disrespect of the wilds. The party struck the barrel with a flame, intending to stop them. The barrel exploded and a skirmish ensued. The incensed thugs put up fight but met their end on the water's edge. The locals seemed to care more about the dead bodies than the scuffle, worried that the "tundra would take them." Concerned about undead rising, Oona, Crank, and Tetro not only buried the corpses, but dismembered them.
20 #ADuergarPlot The ruins at Caer Konig greeted them at entry, along with a drunk silver-scaled dragonborn. This was Trovus, the town speaker. A veteran of war, reduced to a veteran - and ridiculously chatty - teetotaler. At least he was in good spirits. He "guided" the party to The Northern Light inn, The Hook, Line, and Sinker tavern, and Frozenfar Expeditions. They got a room from the Shorard sisters, Allie and Cori; they grabbed a pint from Eglendar; and they purchased six dogs and three sleds from the stout Jarthra and wisened ranger Atenas, for which Crank traded an aquamarine gem.
20 #ADuergarPlot Disguising Crank and Azgul as handsome Underdark mercenaries, the party concocted a ruse. Tetro wild-shaped into a war horse hauling a sled full of "chardalyn." Under the wrapping, of course, were Hazel, Fern, and Oona poised to strike. The ruse gained them entry, but pressing the duergar flunky, who insisted Nildar Sunblight was busy in his lab, only arouse suspicious. Tetro charged hoof first into a duergar, sparking a brutal offensive as alarm bells went off. A dozen dead duergar and several splattered spore servants later, the party breathed a collective sigh of relief. Nildar Sunblight was dead. Now to see what he was plotting.
19 #BlackSwords #ADuergarPlot Thoob grimly greeted the party through a slit at the barricaded wooden gates of Caer Dineval. The speaker was ill he said. A bit of lackluster deception with Hazel posing as a doctor didn't move the black-hooded guard. What perked his interest was talk of the Duergar. "This would appease the master. I will come back to you." The party was left unattended for a while, during which Tetro boosted Crank up the eastern ramparts. Thoob did return and led the party though the barbican's gatehouse, past the raised courtyard, and into the great hall of the keep. Passing a tiefling servant girl, Mere, that Thoob hassled to clean up dishes, the party was led to a sumptuous sitting room to meet Kadroth.
19 #BlackSwords Crank, meanwhile, had snooped through a guard tower. Overhearing some dialogue, he heard that the Black Swords cultists had performed burial rites for a tiefling named Faith. One cultist wondered if she was related to that albino witch Avarice, to which another replied that Faith was much sweeter than the frightful wizard. As a guard came upstairs, Crank surprised him. A bit of smooth talking had the cultist lead Crank to the main hall, where others had since gathered as a meal was soon to be served by the caer's incumbent chef, Karou Chorizo.
19 #BlackSwords As Oona and Crank entertained the excitable dullard Thoob over one of Chef Karou Chorizo's 50 trout recipes, Fern and Azgul would make use of spare robes and disguises. Fern would pose as Mere and bring the speaker his dinner. Hazel preoccupied Mere in the kitchen, persuading her to leave the cult if she could find a place to go. Tetro was eyeing the chef's delectable knucklehead trout preparation. With a harsh yell from Thoob for Mere to bring the speaker his trout, the two Meres were about to collide. Some clever talk from Hazel stalled the inevitable. Fern, as Mere, took a plate of fish from the cook. Tetro took the real Mere's fish off her hands, offering to deliver it himself. He, of course, just ate it.
19 #BlackSwords Down a hallway, they came upon a shrine to Levistus, a frozen mannequin in a column of ice wrapped in chain. Behind it was brown mold, a volatile substance keeping it cold. Avarice was in a room to the side of the shrine. She rebuffed Crank and told him to get out, telling them that Kadroth wouldn't like them snooping around. She seemed almost amused and irreverent of Kadroth himself, though.
18 #ADuergarPlot Crank took out Durth Sunblight's missive to his brother Nildar and handed it to Captain Arlaggath. The party explained what they learned about the duergar during the encounter on the ferry. The speaker and the captain took the threat seriously, remarking that rumors of duergar have been brewing. Reghed Nomads and Goliath trading parties have brought stories to Easthaven of scorched swathes of tundra in the foothills of the Spine of the World. Speaker Waylen mulled over his need to discuss the Duergar threat at the next Council of Speakers, typically at the end of the month. The next slated date is the 30th of Uktar, but Waylen expressed a desire to push for an earlier meeting. He urged the party to deliver their report at this next meeting to notify the speakers if there are any new sightings - for the safety of Ten Towns. In order to remain in touch, Speaker Waylen secured a sending stone for the adventurers.
17 #CauldronCaper At the Easthaven Town Hall, a large three story building with several guards and attendants that serves as both political offices and a community center for the city, the party split into two groups. Tetro, Hazel, and Oona chewed the chud with the town guards in the reception hall while watching the cauldron. Azgul, Crank, and Fern headed into the administrative office where a young, nervous clerk named Prudence waited on them. They asked to see Captain Imdra Arlaggath regarding the missing fishermen bounty.
17 #CauldronCaper Prudence led the party members into the basement in the city jail. Crank noted a dour, red-haired Shandar Froth in one of the cells. In the jailer's room, the party met with Imdra Arlaggath. In return for the finding the fates of the Bunch of Knuckleheads fishermen, Imdra presented the party with a choice of a reward: a Grey Bag of Tricks or a Well-Triggered Scroll of Fireball. Azgul chose the latter.
17 #TheForgottenRealm #Prisoner237 That night the party took to some downtime at the White Lady Inn, Crank gambled, Oona armwreslted, and the crew chatted up the locals. Vellynne Harpell, who had been staying in Easthaven was present. She humored the party's questions regarding the Arcane Brotherhood, Chardalyn, and Netherese magics. In short, she was investigating the presence of a lost Netherese city and wanted to beat her colleagues to the find. She had one lead that she shared: A disgraced member of the Arcane Brotherhood and prisoner at Revel's End, the wizard named Vaelish Gant. Vellynne was willing to hire the party to extract information from Vaelish, given that she herself was not welcomed at the prison.
16 #battle #ToilAndTrouble A frost giant skeleton had lain dormant until the remaining party entered the chamber. As it chipped out of the ice to tower over even Crank, Hazel began to flee northward while Azgul went south. The lugubrious giant smashed out of the ice and landed heavy blows on Oona before its bones were pulverized.
16 #battle #ToilAndTrouble When talk devolved into a blood price - either Easthaven's children or one of the party's own - battle ensued. The hags dropped their glamour, unveiling their true, horrid forms. The blue, crafted walls too were replaced by the filth of a cave home to monsters. And the feast of four swine turned out to be the four fishermen. Too bad Crank had a bowl earlier... perhaps worse that it tasted half-decent. As spells flew and metal clanged, Alice fell, followed by Maud who burst into a hundred severed hands. While cleaving through the crawling horde, the third hag, Anise, fled while invisible. She whispered her grudges in Azgul's ear before running past. In the end, the party successfully recovered the Cauldron of Plenty.
15 #TheMeadMustFlow As the party was preparing to leave town, a scuffle broke out at the Good Mead hall. Several thugs were running away, licking their wounds as Shandar Froth and his loggers hollered at them to get lost. Oona grappled a thug.Crank clotheslined another, picking him up with an arm for questioning. Crank recognized the Zhentarim flunky, and it was soon revealed that these thugs lost on purpose by the orders of Naerth Maxildannar to make Shandar look good. With onlookers watching the scene, Shandar was exposed. He admitted to the deception but said he did have the town's interest in heart and that, in truth, the Zhentarim had been blackmailing him to keep his past from catching up. He was a man wanted for murder in Mirabar. With Shandar outed, it seems Olivessa Untapoor will become speaker.
15 #ToilAndTrouble The party entered Easthaven around dusk after hearing about missing sailors on Lac Dinneshire. Crank recalled that it'd be wise to watch your pockets: pick-pocketing is legal in the town, unless you're caught red-handed. The settlement honors the tradition of sacrifice since its frontier days, but only offers convicts to the goddess of cold.
15 #DzaanIsDead Hanging in the back of the crowd, Oona, Crank, and Tetro minded their wallets. Crank did notice several black cloaked figures in the crowd with silver necklaces. He didn't recognize them.
14 #battle #TheMeadMustFlow Fern had the charmed Duhg lead her to the interior of the cave, where he had kept Good Mead's casks. Unfortunately, an ogre, affectionately nicknamed Friend by Duhg because the lunk never remember his own name, was asleep back there and soon became roused. This led to battle and a beast war between wild-shaped great ape Tetro and the cave bear Yogobor that Duhg kept as a pet. Hazel developed a signature attack, boosting off of Crank's mitts to crack the ogre dead. He dubbed it the Hazel Nutcracker.
14 #TheMeadMustFlow The cave system hosted a burial chamber for an ancient indigenous tribal chieftain of Icewind Dale's past. Pictograms depicted the clan's journey across the Spine of the World, a clash with giants, and the powers of a lightning infused weapon. Opening the sarcophagus, the party found a Pearl of Power and Javelin of Lightning in the hands of the female chieftain's skeleton. Taking the items cursed Azgul, imposing a severe lethargy, though returning them to the skeleton recovered the condition. Eventually, Tetro and Crank picked up the two items respectively and sluggishly followed the party as they explored the final chamber of the cave.
12 #ColdHeartedKiller The party met Naerth Maxildannar in his lodging on the second floor of the Luskan Arms. Captain Skath stood guard and was about to turn the party away, but Naerth, who was feeding his pet flying snakes, heard Crank outside and let them in. Naerth was so pleased to see "his boy" Crank, though, perhaps, the feeling wasn't mutual. Naerth extolled the virtues of the current lottery, the strength and importance of Targos, and the dire straits that he believes Ten Towns is in with the current winter. He so warmly offered his services to the party. He and Skath were off to meet Torg over the lottery escapee, and the party decided to accompany them.
12 #battle #ColdHeartedKiller Torg's warehouse thinned out later in the evening. When asked about his time on the ship, Sephek attested that those days were in his past life. When asked about the girl, Sephek praised the winter goddess, and spoke of his valiance in honoring her quarry. Battle ensued, and Sephek's true nature was exposed, as he dueled with sword and dagger of ice. He tested the strengths of Crank, Oona, Azgul, and Fern, but was hopelessly outmatched when Hazel and Tetro arrived as reinforcements. Moments before his total demise, Sephek called for Auril to witness him. Sephek slit his throat and his curdling scream began to intertwine into of a woman. In the cold Targos night, Azgul picked up Sephek's now inert longsword, noting its etched runes: Isolation, Cruelty, Endurance, and Preservation.
11 #TheRimeoftheFrostmaiden Auril demanded to see the Summer Star, whose magic she detected when its radiant burst fired. When the party resisted, she froze Crank and Oona and used the time to hone her detection of the magical item. She found it, teleporting besides Tetro and clutching the "useless trinket." Her frost began taking it over, the magical creaking and craftsmanship coming undone. With quick thinking the party set up a diversion, Fern using Jarnathan as bait, Azgul creating mirror images of himself about the Frostmaiden, and Tetro casting heat metal on the Summer Star before wild-shaping into a velociraptor and dashing into the woods. The party fled Auril, who looked through the remaining Azgul before teleporting onto the back of her Roc and flying away.
11 #battle #LakeMonster The party fought the plesiosaurus from their rowboats as well as from nearby ice floes after Crank netted it. They were surprised when the beast spoke! It had been awakened by Ravisin to terrorize Ten Towns and convinced by her that if it failed to kill in reverence of the the Frostmaiden, then she would revoke its new-found intelligence. The party, with mixed-feelings, decided it was best to neutralize the murderous beast.
10 #TheGoldenDawn The Black Cabin was a dilapidated, abandoned structure on 20 foot stilts, creaking and groaning in the wind. A soft, thick snow had blanketed the area, removing all sight of tracks, but some lush vegetation and greenery appeared to be present in a close radius to the cabin. Tetro and Fern assessed the integrity of the building, finding some weak stairs and flooring, so Fern shattered a window and Hazel led the way, light-footed, to secure a rope and passage to the interior for Crank. In the meantime, Oona and Tetro looked through what seemed to be a workshop with smith and tinkerer's tools. Oona entered the main area by hacking through a wall.
10 #TheGoldenDawn As the party pieced together clues in the Black Cabin, strange occurrences occurred. Loud knocks, three in a row, would bang as characters interacted with the items of the house. Rugs and curtains would shift, tools would fall off tables, and Copper's letter, in the hands of Crank began to tug him in different directions, like a dowsing rod. A bottle of wine Fern found was nearly tugged from her grasp. Oona was fed up with this nonsense and smashed her axe into the cabin in a rage. Eventually, the party uncovered that they needed to forge a third ring, etch it with the appropriate runes, and reconstruct the Summer Star. With Crank smelting a new ring and Fern forging the runes under Azgul's guidance, they pieced it together.
08 #TheWhiteMoose The half moon chambers of the Elven Tomb contained sarcophagi. In the southern room, the sarcophagus was opened and disheveled. In the north room, Crank saw a drying rack of herbs, druidic implements, and a nude, intact body of a recently dead woman lying atop the sarcophogus. A berry bush in the corner of the room seemed to move as well, but before Crank could react, Ravisin, a frost druid who was skulking in this room could no longer stay hidden. An altercation erupted between her and Crank, leading to battle.
07 #TheWhiteMoose Chwinga appeared by the dozen and began playing around the party's sled, playfully pelting Azgul with snowballs while Crank and Hazel watched over the recuperating party. The chwinga tugged at the party's cloaks and led them to a clearing. Time seemed to ebb a bit differently for the next couple hours. Almost as quickly as the clearing came into focus, the chwinga disappeared. The party had arrived at Elvish ruins. A row of six statues faced a 10 ft berm, over which a massive crystalline gnomon sat in a wide circular depression. They had came across a massive moon dial. Upon further scouting, they noted a sarcaphogus flanked by blue heiroglyphic pillars, a marble gazebo on the other end of the berm, and a hole broken into the nearby cliffside, tunneling into darkness.
04 Six sled dogs and a sled were rented for 20gp for the day's run to Targos. It is unclear if this rental will be honored. With the stable keeper in a hurry, Crank noted they never left a deposit, after all.
03 #battle #FrostedMugs Six goblins, a goblin boss, his pet hawk, and two wagon-laden polar bear were encountered. Two potions of animal friendship, a bone whistle, and 60 sp were found afterwards. The polar bears were set free by Tetro. The hawk was charmed by Crank and later sold to Hruna for 5 gp.
01 #SpecialDelivery Oona and Crank have been working gigs for the Luskan Deliverers, a merchant and courier guild. The were tasked with delivering a small parcel - an unmarked, unhinged metal box - to a Ragammel in the town of Bryn Shander. The commissioner was reportedly an Arcane Brotherhood member named Maccath.