Sanctuary Campaign Journals

Journals

  • Luthiel’s Diary

    OMG, finally! Found some gross scraps of paper in this total dump so I can, like, restart my diary and actually write down all the awful stuff that’s happened since those totally disgusting Fire Giants grabbed me. I am SO not going into all the details of being their prisoner. Just thinking about it makes me want to barf. Seeing all my people being tortured and sacrificed to their creepy, perverted god and not being able to do anything? Literally the WORST feeling EVER. 

    We finally got freed by this bunch of, like, total maniacs who were just hacking and slashing their way through all the Fire Giants they could find. Not that the FGs didn’t deserve it, but they seemed to be enjoying it WAY too much. So gross. We tried to ditch them after they let us go, but surprise, surprise, there were still some giants around, and they cornered us and, like, killed everyone except me. Ugh, yay me, I guess. Then the barbarians rescued me AGAIN. Or, more accurately, killed the fire giants while I was passed out. And then they actually woke me up instead of just leaving me there. I was the only one who made it, and I think it’s ’cause one of the barbarians felt sorry for me. She’s a half-breed and her mom is from Trustor, which I guess is why she bothered to revive me. She’s definitely way less hairy and smelly than the others. I asked her stuff, and she says she’s one of the Ayarvundii, but then she said Ayarvunda got killed by the fire giants and now she’s a Temulliii instead, which means Ayarvunda’s daughter is dead too. So much death! Those giants are gonna PAY. Apparently, according to her, we have the drow, these dark kin people, to thank for getting the giants all riled up in the first place, and there were even some of them here in Snurre‘s gross halls, like, directing things and giving them money. Maybe my friends who got killed by the giants were the lucky ones, TBH. 

    Snurre and his queen are both dead, though! Killed in these two HUGE battles that I was totally part of. Even though the barbarians are, like, totally repulsive, they are seriously brutal and violent. I helped though, and I think I was pretty awesome. For the fight against Snurre, I even snagged this axe off one of them, so at least I looked the part. An axe though? SO lame. Snurre had this massive pile of our stuff, so I totally took poor Galathien’s armor and shield (the ones with the cute gold bits that I always loved) and Findal’s rapier, and Liliath’s dreamy bow to use myself. My heart totally breaks when I think of them while I’m wearing their stuff, but I keep telling myself they’d be happy that their things are helping me get revenge and rescue the others. Well, maybe not Liliath, considering what she said about my new robe. But I always thought her rapier was wasted on her anyway. There are still so many of us missing. Apparently, there are caves under the dungeon I was kept in, and they’re planning to go down there to find more loot, ’cause that’s all they ever care about. Hopefully, I’ll find the rest of us down there, and they’ll help me rescue them so we can finally go back to Trustor. 

    Ugh, these caves are SO hot and smelly and gloopy! Some gross goo even dripped from the ceiling onto the big fighter guy with the magic sword, and onto the little halfling – he was, like, completely covered in it! It looked like a giant bird totally pooped all over him or something. So now we’re even sweatier and smellier than before. Except for me, obviously. Didn’t even think that was possible. Plus, apparently, they think there’s this huge ancient fire dragon down here too, which is just great. We found this massive cave and totally sped through it in case it was in there. Then suddenly, BAM! We were surrounded by total darkness. The barbarians have this weird spell where we can all talk to each other in our heads, so I heard the big fighter rush forward and get out of the dark, and then he ran right into, like, a million dark kin who turned him into a human pincushion with their crossbows. Then someone threw something at us that smelled like the WORST thing ever. I was gagging so bad, and I think someone actually threw up, which did NOT help. So I ran back with the half-breed girl, who calls herself Sentinel (so lame), to get away from the arrows, but there were three more of the dark kin behind us, and I was so busy trying not to puke that I couldn’t do anything while they shot at us. Then the butch-looking woman joined us too, and she didn’t even seem to mind the smell – I guess she’s used to it living with all these guys – and she totally went after them, and they ran. Except Sentinel told one to stop and tried to capture him, and then he just, like, slit his own throat rather than get caught. It was SO gross. I don’t know how these people deal with all this yuckiness. 

    Anyway, after that, we were, like, super careful, ’cause the other dark kin had run away too, so we didn’t know where they were, but they were definitely still lurking around somewhere. The ones who got behind us had even covered up a passageway with some kind of illusion, so we knew they could totally mess with our heads. 

    So we started checking out the hallways, one by one. The first one went upstairs, and the halfling went up a bit and then heard all this chittering and decided it was SO not worth going any further. Sentinel decided to use magic to disguise herself as a dark kin and then make herself invisible, and just wait there to see if anyone tried to sneak up behind us. As we went down the passage where most of them had run, she thought she heard some noise back where the other two had gone, and when she looked, she saw someone running away. I followed the others, and we checked out this maze of hallways while Sentinel kept watch behind us. She found this big room with three dark kin chanting in it, but at the same time, the halfling also found another room with some total weirdos in it, so Sentinel went back to protect our butts. She also said she wasn’t exactly thrilled about taking on three dark kin all by herself. 

    The weirdos the halfling found in this smaller room could apparently see him even though he was invisible. They didn’t attack, though, just seemed kinda wary. When he got a better look, he saw that two of them were taller than the others and had these strange bulbous heads and tentacles instead of mouths. So gross! But the others said they’d met one of these before and called them mind flayers, and that they could be really bad news. These two didn’t seem violent, though. The others looked like their servants, just these weird, deformed, skulking creatures. One of the mind flayers talked to the halfling in his head, which the others said was normal, and from what he said, this mind flayer could totally give a Lord of the High Kingdom a run for his money when it came to talking down to people. It would be hilarious to put two of them in a room together and see who ended up on top. Anyway, it turned out they were just watching the dark kin too, ’cause they’re enemies as well. We suggested they help us, but they just laughed and said we were totally out of our league. Like I said, major High Elf vibes here. They said that the hallway on the other side of their room went to the dark kin’s place, and that a lot of elven prisoners had been taken that way. They’re prisoners of the dark kin, which means they’re probably being tortured and stuff and totally wish they were dead unless we can rescue them. 

    Clever questioning from yours truly got him to spill more than he meant to, I think. The dragon’s name is Brasimil (the others already knew that, I guess). There are two dark-kin “houses” (that’s what he called them, like our clans maybe) up here, called House Eilserves and House Norqua. They totally hate each other. The wavy dagger thing of Eclavdra is the symbol of House Eilserves. House Taunter is supposedly the strongest of the Dark-kin houses, and they hate both of the other ones. The other symbol we found, the circle with three lightning bolts and flames around the edge, is the symbol of some kind of fighting group. Maybe mercenaries that House Eilserves hired? 

    Then the mind flayer just floated away, and we realized we hadn’t heard anything from Sentinel in a while, and she wasn’t answering our head-calls. We went back to where we left her and found some of her stuff just lying around (which I totally snagged, including her rapier, which is ugly but magical, so major dilemma there). But no sign of her. We started looking for her when we heard this ROAR. Like, I almost jumped out of my skin! Turns out the dragon wasn’t just a rumor. We went up a bit and there was this HUGE red dragon just hovering in the middle of the cave, screaming in Draconic or something. Seriously ticked off dragon. Definitely not something you want to mess with. The halfling snuck around into the cave where Sentinel had seen the other dark kin, but they weren’t there anymore. The dragon started screaming in Human as well as Draconic – something about thieving humans, so I guess those dark kin did something to make it mad. Probably stole some of its treasure. We SO didn’t want to get blamed for that, so we went back to the room with the mind flayers while the halfling went into the cave he was in and found this big, dragon-sized exit, and also a passage that curved back to meet the passage from the room we were in. So we all met up there and decided to go down that passage to see if they’d taken Sentinel that way. I was actually kinda impressed by how worried they seemed about finding Sentinel – I didn’t think humans could even feel like that. 

    The halfling went first, invisible, and ended up in another massive cave with a river of lava running through the middle and this iron bridge across it that looked super rickety (lol). On the other side, he could see a doorway and a whole bunch of dark kin with tied-up prisoners too! We totally freaked out for a while thinking about how dangerous the lava bridge looked and how many dark kin with poison crossbows would be shooting at us while we crossed. But as we were talking about it, more and more dark kin left through the doorway, which we now saw was shaped like the mouth of a demon face. How tasteful. So, like, the problem was kinda solving itself. Then Sentinel came back online! She was tied up and gagged and blindfolded, so she couldn’t teleport out of trouble, but she said she felt like she was on the back of some kind of lizard going downhill through a tunnel, super fast. We decided it would be best to follow them without them knowing, rather than attacking the last few and making them go even faster, so we just watched them leave while we took a breather. Sentinel told us what she could hear around her. Her captors were speaking this really old-fashioned kind of Elvish. Some names kept coming up – Ixstansus (he’s a guy) was the captain of the warriors. Jayvan (also a guy) was another dark-kin who was, like, a total joke because of how he died – the others guessed he was the one who got cut in half by the portal closing. Apparently, when they met dark kin before, they opened a portal in the wall, and you could see this doorway on the other side. The portal closed while one of them was halfway through, and he got sliced in two. Saelcoffer (she’s a girl) was also mentioned, and they talked about her with, like, total awe and respect. 

    I really hope Sentinel knows what she’s doing – she promised to keep talking to us while she could and to try and escape if she got the chance. I’m finding myself, like, strangely worried about what happens to her.

  • An unexpected party member

    In last week’s episode of derring-doery, our band were trying to liberate an, as yet unknown, inventory of items from the Dwarven tomb of Lord Torril Flametongue. They managed to trip a poison gas trap leaving the poor hobbit Drogon feeling a little peaky, whilst simultaneously causing two perfectly fine giant dwarf statues to animate. Let’s see how they fared… “Bugger!” said Drogon as he felt the poison take hold, staggering as the two lumbering statues turned to face him. Kurog leapt to his aid and faced off against the right-hand statue and Thorg was quick to follow. Unbeknownst to them all, the statues had a nasty surprise. A wave of magic emanated from them causing all three to slow down, like pulling weights through treacle. Kurog brought his mighty Axe, Destroyer’s Vengeance down hard, sending chips of stone flying but seemed to have little effect. The diminutive rogue sped into action and moved behind the left-hand statue to perform a stealthy attack, causing his own fair of chips and cracks. Before the left-hand statue could march any further our bardic beauty, Sentinel, commanded it to “Halt!”, which it dutifully did. Griff grinned ruefully as he knew that everyone did as the half-Elf said without the command spell. Ever creative and unconventional, Griff the Wizard decided to cast one of his few remaining spells to open the ground under the left-hand statue, sending it falling thirty feet down into a pit. Both Kurog and Thorg shook off the slow effects and laid into the Statue left at ground level, with Drogon firing his bow from the other side of the now yawning pit between him and the other target. Finally, the pernicious statue crumbled into pebbles and dust. The other statue was then pelted with anything our team could lay their hands on, ever arrow-parsimonious, whilst it climbed out of the hole. It got back out swinging catching Drogon hard. Drogon is Halfling enough to admit he cried. The team piled in and Sentinel had the joy of delivering the killing blow on the huge dwarven golem, by blowing on it slightly. The rest of the group stared in disbelief, as the bard broke into a new ballad all about her destroying statues single-handedly. Griff suddenly remembered he could read and write dwarven and proceeded to translate the runes on the golems and the wall. Yup, definitely desecrating a dwarf leader’s tomb, one Mr. Flametongue. With gleeful relish, the merry band lifted the lid from the sarcophagus to reap the rewards for their hard work and bruises, to find it was totally empty. “Bugger!” said Drogon again Sentinel performed a more thorough check for secret doors and found one by the stairs where they came in. She couldn’t help but wonder if they could have avoided all of the poison and statue nonsense if they’d just found this first. “Ah well, think of the experience.” She thought. The team entered the secret passage with our stout-hearted thief checking for traps all the way, meticulously. As he rounded a corner, he discovered a square room with a large twenty-foot iron statue at the far end, next to a marble dais. The dais had a carving of a dwarf in repose form etched into it. Perhaps the real resting place of Lord Flametongue? Learning from their previous encounter, Griff boxed the metal statue inside a wall of force leaving a prudent gap for poking. The team then investigate the dais and tried to lift it. Of course, the metal mammoth of dwarven engineering animated and when finding itself trapped, it blew poison out into the room through the handy gap the team has left. Luckily, the three nearest avoided it. It was then that Thorg noticed Griff was missing. He tutted when he realised the wizard had legged it around the corner. Kurog confidently walked up to the dais and tried to lift it again, pulling a bicep muscle. The whole group joined him but to no avail. “You know what guys?” said Griff, his voice slightly muffled due to the corner and distance from the others. “Let’s come back another day. Honestly, I’m worried about the horses we left outside. No really! Thorg, why are you looking at me like that?” The team tactically retreated from the dark crypt, determined to return to continue pilfering the lawful good dwarf lord’s final resting place. That’s what adventurers do! Sneaking out backwards, carefully closing all doors behind them, our intrepid team turned slowly and quietly and faced each other to offer a round of high-fives, only to find a group of dwarves staring at them, tapping their battle axes. They did not look amused at the desecration of their former leader’s tomb. 

    Without the slightest of pause, Sentinel took a deep breath and started to spin a tale of amazing altruism, one where they were in fact tomb savers, not tomb robbers. Nope definitely not robbers, heaven forfend! Luckily the corpses of the two fire giants were on the ground where they had fallen by the door. Her tale involved a lot of pointing at the corpses, especially during the weaker parts of the story. 

    Thorg looked down at his feet guiltily, with Griff whistling a merry tune looking at his spell book, an attempt at nonchalance. Kurog and Drogon nodding along with Sentinel’s story, throwing in the odd bit of colour here and there. Mostly the half-orc grunted and Drogon trying not to laugh when Sentinel described them helpfully checking the sarcophagus hadn’t been opened, by opening it. 

    The Dwarf leader, Guthrum was suitably impressed and seemed to buy into the pack of lies, but dutiful reader, I suspect he just wanted the Half-Elf to stop talking. He offered respite from the harsh mountain clime and would take them to the dwarven fort of Eagle’s Nest further up into the mountains. 

    The party hastily agreed, the thought of food and a bed pushing the last modicum of guilt from their minds. 

    Guthrum led them up a stone staircase that wound itself up the mountain, towards the fortification at the top. The group couldn’t help but be impressed the defences, from arrow points, to ballistae all poisoned to defend the road. 

    Once inside the grounds, the party was struck by the state of the dwarves, old, battle-weary and had clearly seen better days. They also noticed someone watching them from a window up high. Definitely not dwarven and but perhaps human and female. 

    Thorogrimm, the dwarf chieftain came out to meet them and listened to the tale of their adventures. Seems the dwarves and the party had a common enemy, giants! This group of dwarves really hated the fire giants. Thorogrimm decided a feast was in order! 

    They were given rooms to rest in and after they were escorted to the feasting hall. There they met a human cleric called Jude Ellstar. Jude had been staying with the dwarves after a few adventures of her own, recovering from injuries. Jude declared herself from Chalke, and her home was in the Theocracy, north of the Ashen Plateau. She had had to run due to the rise of the cult of The One in Chark and they had wanted to try her for heresy, being a loyal cleric of Lathander. 

    All the time they were drinking and chatting, the dwarves got more and more rowdy. Jude leant in to Kurog and whispered “Here we go, here comes the bloody songs again!”. As if a prophet, the dwarves started banging their tankards on the tables in rhythm, so that Thorogrimm could start the song. 

    It was a sad tale of long-ago King Argorod and the fight against the fire giants and also the songs referred to a “red aberration blocking out the sun”. Through the songs the party learnt of the traditional homeland of the dwarves had been lost to them. A Hall further up the mountain. Sentinel sang her own ballads and the dwarves cheered along and thoroughly enjoyed the performance. 

    Jude and the party chatted some more and Jude agreed to join them on their mission, hoping that they in turn would be able to help her in Ranke. She assured them all, that she had a few healing spells and she’d keep them alive. She looked at the scars on Drogon, and wondered if she had enough healing for that one. 

    A very drunk Thorogrimm challenged the party to an arm-wrestling competition which Kurog readily agreed. He was caught trying to cheat, twice. Once with his giant-strength girdle and another as Sentinel started to fire up a rousing, Kurog-strengthening tune. The dwarf was drunk, not stupid! Kurog won, just. 

    The party were then escorted to chieftain’s reception room where he remonstrated them for their tomb opening activities and desecration. The party again spun their tale, Jude from the back smiling gently to herself, recognising a familiar tale from her own adventuring. She advised then to apologise. 

    The chieftain was willing to forgive if they could just help him with itsy-bitsy problem he had. Something of so little import that it was barely worth worrying about. Just a huge, flying, dwarf-eating, spike firing, pissed off manticore that had nested somewhere near the entrance to their old home. 

    The party had little choice but to agree to help the dwarves begin the recovery of their ancestral land. At first light Guthrum and Argarod, leading a party of some thirty dwarves, headed off up the mountain path with our hung-over party following now a sensational six. 

    Once they arrived at the stunning entranceway and entrance hall, they could see it had collapsed at the back and the dwarves instantly set to work to clear the rubble that blocked the way further in. The ceiling too high to see and was pitch black. 

    The adventures hatch a plan and bait and trap the beast they hunted, then forgot about that as Sentinel and Drogon leapt a-Pegasus-back and patrolled from the sky, leaving the heavy metal and the robe-wearer to hug the ground. After a few hours it was clear the beast wasn’t going to appear. It then crossed the team’s mind that the nest might be inside the entrance hall itself, up in the dark ceiling. The flying team soon discovered this to be true as spikes flew out from the darkness. 

    The Pegasus was hit and poisoned, leaving the winged horse to plummet knocking the pair of riders off. “Bugger!” said Drogon as he fell. Luckily the quick-witted wizard cast feather-fall and the pair floated, very slowly down.

    The manticore burst from its hiding place. This was not your usual manticore, it seemed bigger and angrier. Sentinel made a strong suggestion to the beast that fighting would be much easier upon the ground, which is did. This bard had serious skills. 

    The manticore was not a trivial beast. After being blessed by Jude, the sword wavers strode into battle. Where Kurog was promptly smacked hard enough that he thought he was a teenager again and called for him mummy. Not wanting you, faithful reader to miss anything, this fight might appear in a longer tail. Suffice it to say, they kicked its leonine arse, but not without having a few chunks ripped from them in turn. The dwarves cheered and did a lot of back-slapping. It was a momentous day for them. 

    A judicious search of the manticore’s nest found two items of interest. What they are and how the team progress will have to wait until next week my friends.

  • The journey upcountry

    My lord Wesloke,

    As requested, I will be sending you periodic accounts of my investigations into giant activity in the Northlands, as ordered by General Vordenheim. I successfully located Lord Kurog, Thorg, Drogon, Griff and Aquilla despite them having vanished from Runsinane on some mad quest in the mountains, and escorted them to Harken as instructed by General Vordenheim in your letter. I was also able to communicate with Shadow, but she claimed to be on some sort of critical mission which had the potential to reveal secrets of great power, and refused to say where she was or join me. I recommend some sort of suitably severe punsihment when you do get your hands on her, possibly forfeiture of all her treasure and equipment to a more suitably loyal employee.

    I met General Vordenheim and his troops at Harken, or rather the remains of Harken – I’m afraid the giants have made a bit of a mess of the town and most of the castle there. He was his usual charming self, and ordered us to leave as soon as possible to investigate the reports of a hill giant fort in White Wolf Pass. It may interest you to know that Lord Quarl was also at Harken in person – it looks like he left Ranke not long after I did, no doubt fleeing the plague. I kept well out of his way. Tangard, was also supposed to be there and leading a force against the eastern giants, but had not arrived by the time that we had to leave. Probably drunk in some brothel instead. I did see that Vordeck, his master of assassins, arrived just as we were leaving though, which never bodes well.

    The journey past the Stone Tooth and into White Wolf Pass was uneventful – we borrowed a scout called Verdelain from Vordenheim who knew the lay of the land, but he left us after the first day. Something about obeying orders. As we entered the pass, I discovered giant tracks on the northern bank of the river – not hard, as they had made no effort to cover or disguise themselves at all. We decided to scout for a cave to leave the horses in amongst the foothills of the northern peaks, but in the process found a valley where a battle between some orcs and giants was taking place. At first the orcs seemed to be on the verge of destruction, but suddenly a second force of orcs, bearing an eye symbol and riding great wolves, appeared and fell upon the giants from the rear. They were led by a great orc riding upon a wyvern. The giants beat a rapid retreat, and the first tribe of orcs, whose symbol appeared to be a toothed maw, seemed to give alleigance to the newer tribe of orcs. From this I surmise that there is a hierarchy of power amongst the orc tribes of the area, and that there is an emnity between the orcs and the giants.

    Travelling onwards, we finally sighted a mighty steading upon a low hill by the river, made of great tree trunks and at least eighty or ninety feet in height, like a vast longhouse. On one side was a watchtower, and great doors, and at the rear a walled pen or yard, from where the howling of many wolves came. The only method of ingress that we could see was the great doors at the front, and as we watched a giant went in through that route. I suggested that Drogon and I have a look inside on our own, without the less stealthy members of the group. Hastily, Griff cast a spell of invisibility on Drogon, and I on myself, and we, being the stealthiest and boldest of the party crept forward and through the crack in the incompletely closed great doors.

    Within, we found a vast hall, lined with many cloaks and packs of giant size. We were fortunate, for, although there were two giant guards upon the door, they were both asleep in a drunken stupor. In the far corner were great steps up to the tower, which we climbed with much effort, especially Drogon. Indeed I pretty much had to carry him. At the top we found a further watchman, or watchgiant rather, also asleep. I latched his shoes together, and cast the beater for the warning gong over the side of the tower, to slow him down a bit if he wanted to ring it. If he leapt up and fell down stairs with his feet tied together in his alarm, then that would have been a bonus, but we were so stealthy that I think no alarm was raised, and so this cunning ruse went unused.

    Returning to the entrance hall, we tried both the side doors with no success, for the latches were high up almost above our reach, and our strength was insufficent to move them. But, as we waited, a giant opened the central double doors. A wave of noisy merriment bellowed forth, so we slipped in through the closing door. Within was an even greater hall, lit by a vast fire, and with a ceiling supported on mighty wooden pillars that rose beyond our sight into the smoke. Fully two dozen or more crude giants were making merry there, alongside some other even taller giants – two with grey and smooth skin, two with fiery red hair, and skin as black as coals, and one, the tallest of all, in fine robes, and seemingly distainful of the riotous scenes before us. Indeed, I crept under his table and used magic to understand their speech, and learned that indeed the giant that ruled the festivities was Nosra, lord of these crude hill-dwelling giants, and that the tall and fair giant indeed found this crude merrimaking beneath his contempt.

    There was little more that we could learn in this hall, for most of the giants were deep in their cups by now, and fights were breaking out between them. Fearing to be caught in such violence, even unseen, we crept through an open arch in the left hand wall, and into a great corridor. On the far side we discovered a great kitchen, staffed by not just giants, but also ogres in a menial role. Off an unused part of this kitchen, we found a giant pantry, and steps descending into the ground. Venturing below, for we had not realised that this dwelling had a cellar, we found three rooms guarded by bugbears and holding many orcish prisoners, no doubt captured in raids similar to the one that we had witnessed the previous day.

    Ignoring these for the moment, we found a chamber with a well, and then also a forge underground, manned by two of the red-haired and black skinned giants, who seemed impervious to the heat of their great fire, as they worked iron into great cuirasses and mighty swords, we assumed for the giants above. Alas, before we could explore further, our shrouding spells expired, and I grabbed Fuzzyfeet and teleported us both out of the dungeon before we could be seen, so that there was no chance of them getting suspicious or raising the alarm.

    Obviously this is an as-yet incomplete account but venture to suggest that the presence of many kinds of giants hints at a wider conspiracy. I shall investigate further.

    Sentinel