The Fortunes of War
Tier 2 Advancement & Character/World Development
“Momo”
Let’s find out what characters chose at level 5 as they advance from “Local Heroes” to “Heroes of the Realm”
How were the characters affected by the Battle of Cairn Hill?
Who is someone that had a major influence on the character when they were adolescent?
What are three major regrets of the character? Or choose one regret and draw a secret….
Salvage Mission Tier 2 - Skeletons in the Closet
Breaking a peaceful afternoon, Kali screams as a phantasmal Ghallandan Halfling comes out from her room. See the video above.
Having earned 1,000 more salvage, 2,000 salvage spent on upgrading the base to Tier 2. Ye Olde Thunderpath is now home to phantasmal blink dog Momo. Saying “that’s a good boy” in halfling makes Momo open a portal to the tower hidden in the edge ethereal above the hill.
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Salvage Mission Tier 2 - Order and Progress
Drego is sent by his mentor Endira d’Deneith to do a background check on the potential replacement for Sheriff in the nearby town of Vathirond. Bilge Tally was a sergeant in the “Big Company,” a Brelish force consisting of ogres, half-ogres and goliaths, that participated in the Battle of Cairn Hill. Normally, this would be handled by Brelish intelligence forces, but they are tied up at the moment and have hired the Sentinel Marshals to perform this task. Our heroes arrive in Vathirond on Candlemass Eve, a festival celebrated by Silver Flame adherents in memory of the sacrifice of the couatls to trap the overlords many millennia ago that formed the Silver Flame itself.
The investigation uncovers the past of Bilge. While Fighting honorably at the Battle of Cairn Hill, a separate force attacking Vathirond killed his wife. Bilge’s son, Junior never forgave this chain of events and joined the Swords of Liberty, a radical splinter group within the Brelish military that was disbanded for war crimes but continues to secretly push for a more “hawkish” stance among the leaders of Breland, including threats of terrorism and overthrowing the throne. Tracking down Bilge, the heroes interfere with the operations of the local Swords of Liberty, defeating the local cell, but not before they set off an explosion of their local cache of arms, destroying the cathedral above on the cliff and many adherents to the Silver Flame within.
Rewards: 2000 salvage!
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Salvage Mission Tier 2 - Mind Games
Arriving in Sharn, Kili Aztec is attacked by an agent of the Dreaming Dark, a dreamily addict who was taken over by a roach thrall. As Kili fought off the attacker in the realm of dreams, Hammer and Drego destroyed the roach. This turned out to be too late however, as Aztec, Kili’s quori was poisoned by a dark quori. Returning to Sharn, the heroes were met by twin sister Sentinel Marshals, Lalia and Tasra d’Deneith of the Sharn branch of House Deneith. Tasra directed the team to “The Lullaby”, a new dreamily den in the Precarious district of Sharn that is at the heart of this new outbreak of roach thralls in the city.
At The Lullaby, Riedran agents have a portal to Dal Quor that uses an artifact from the Age of Giants, an ancient giant face in stone that allows passage of a Quori to the material realm. After defeating the Riedran agents, Aztec, Kili’s Quori, brings them into the realm of dreams where they recover the antidote.
Rewards: Ring of Mind Shielding (Kili Aztec), 2,000 Salvage
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SANDBOX MISSION TIER 2 - To Seek and To Save
Hammer leads as the heroes follow the information in the Sharn Star, to the beautiful villa of Nonaq ir’Tonclin in the wealthy Platinate district of Upper Menthis. Gaining an audience with the young master of the house, the heroes discover the influence of a fiendish cult and go in search of “the sanctum” below the manor.
Rewards: Infernal Puzzle Box (Drego)
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SANDBOX MISSION TIER 2 - IT GOES DEEPER
The heroes encounter a strange wolf that leads them through the sewers to a lair of fiends where they are reunited with Brother Baunsen from the monastery. After a “collegial exchange” they enter a large theater where a short cephalopod exits leaving them with the Master of Cruelties. After a long and arduous battle they send him back to Khyber and are met by the wolf… An orcish druid named Korg of the Gatekeepers who tells them about the seals being maintained by the druids to keep back the forces of the Overlords. Further contact with the Gatekeepers is available through the a shifter named Keln in Stoneyard (Lower Northedge).
Rewards: 4,000 salvage! Rescued Karrnathi Husky “Flint” (Hammer)
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DDAL-EB-05 - A Century Of Ashes
We see a flashback 12 years ago to an ancient ruin as team Graystrife stumbles upon a crystal skull, only to be shortly thereafter destroyed by a powerful necromancer, a slightly younger Irullan Karrnach.
Back in the present, Drego receives a letter from the spy they sent to track down Irullan, while Kili composes a poem about meeting with Zell Mar, one time crush but also professor at Morgrave University and expert in artifacts related to the draconic prophecy.
He shares information about research his laboratory performed during the Last War into developing technology that could read the draconic prophecy and give advantages on the field of battle. He recognizes a mark on the box of Sulring Mroranon, a dwarven artificer. He offers to connect the party to the sphinx Flamewind who lives in Morgrave University, in exchange for help impressing Jia, a student on a date.
A successful date later, the heroes enter Lareth Hall and are ambushed by a raiding party before meeting Flamewind. Flamewind will look into the prophecy and contact you to help you understand it more. That evening, Kili composes another poem and the latest edition of the Sharn star arrives.
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SANDBOX MISSION TIER 2 - What Goes Bump in the Night
Drego recieves a letter from Endira. The party assembles with the notable lack of Falko ir’Kessler, and then is sent by Tasra d’Deneith to investigate an attack on a gambling den in Callestan. The characters received Feather Tokens and use of one skycoach equipped with crossbow turrets.
On arrival at the scene of the crime, it is found that most of those killed did not defend themselves. Among the fifteen bodies, nearly half were heavily armed halflings with a tattoo of a dragon perched atop a tower on their neck. One, with scars instead of ears hidden by his long hair, was killed by lightning bolt and had a press pass by the Sharn Star slung around his neck. Investigating further at the Sharn Star, the heroes are contacted by the leader of the Boromar Clan, who wants to point them at the targets they want to hit anyway, as long as those targets also benefit the Boromar… As a first example, he points them at the perpetrators of the hit on the gambling den, saying he knows they have a meet at The Red Hammer, an establishment servicing the local Warforged community in Blackbones (Upper Cogs). The editor of the paper, a D. Danno Dameson, wants information about an ir’Kessler, and calls him a “menace”.
In Upper Cogs, Hammer is asked about ideology. Whether he would stand with creating races, or fight against them to form a nation of Warforged under the banner of the Lord of Blades. By rejecting this idea twice, he gains the confidence of Smith, a priest of Onatar who tends the Pool of Onatar’s Tears, and Blue, one of two proprietors of The Red Hammer, who has grown uneasy with the subversive nature of many of her current clientelle. She points the party at a meeting happening right now in the cellar accessed from the back alleyway of the Red Hammer between agents of Daask and the Lord of Blades.
Defeating the Daask and Lord of Blades Warforged troops after several rounds of vicious combat (although the leader of the Warforged, named Cudgel escaped), a lull in the music occurs, allowing them to hear footsteps on the stairs down to the cellar. There before them, a grinning Falko ir’Kessler.
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SANDBOX MISSION TIER 2 - THE MANY SHADES OF GRAY
Falko leads the party post haste to an abandoned warehouse with a body left within, and then slams the door and locks the party in. As Hammer and Kili bash down the door, Drego inspects the body and finds that it is a bloodied and bruised Falko ir’Kessler. Returning to their hotel, they get directed to Kurala’s House of Healing, a House Jorasco facility next to the inn. Their attendant nurse knew the real Falko before Cairn Hill, and is working for the Boromar Clan. She passes on a message to the team to interrupt a shady deal going on at the docks.
During the short ride by elemental skiff across the Hilt, the party discovers that the organization that they’re covertly working for have ties to the cult of the Daughter of Khyber. It almost gets violent when loading the vessel with large pieces of a druidic binding stone are loaded in chunks onto the boat, but the elvish pilot of the craft convinces them that he’s not with the cult and the party decides to follow the cultist to the site where the excavation was taking place.
On arrival, Hammer and the party suddenly attack and kill the cultist while he is alone. Exploring the ruin they find the broken seal was part of a fountain and then discover a secret passage to the cultist’s living quarters. The episode finishes as they discover that where there should be five pillars representing five colors of dragon, one is missing… the green pillar.,,
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SANDBOX MISSION TIER 2 - A POPPED SEAL
According to Falko: Explored the ruins, was confused by all the hints, fought a large slime, was confused by all the hints, heard/saw demon claw.. run run run run run, road boat back to Sharn, went to see a rude newspaper guy, went to go see a nurse about a thing. :3
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DDAL-EB-06 The Last Word
The sphinx Flamewind deciphered the prophecy spoken by the Oracle of War and sent you to Wroat to foil a Thranish spy’s strike against the King’s Dark Lanterns. You infiltrated a royal armistice ball to identify the spy and uncover their mission.
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SANDBOX MISSION TIER 2 - WHERE SLEEPING DOGS LIE
Two days earlier in Sharn, Falko met with Nurse Tetzel and learned about the mission that the real Falko failed on. A coffin-sized, purple box with a House Kundrak seal was picked up from near the Mror Holds for delivery to an arcane laboratory of a wizard with a knack for opening things at Black Pit. Bad luck found Falko in the middle of the Battle of Cairn Hill where he dumped the cargo and the smugglers attempted to run…
Falko convinces the party to return to Cairn Hill to find the dumped cargo. Passing the heavily militarized border between Breland and Thrane, the party journeyed to the site of the battle. It seems that the garrison stationed at Cairn Hill has been corrupted, but there’s a back way into their stash, through the cairn beneath the hill… oh, and Hammer got a gelatinous cube dropped on his head.
Rewards: (salvage session), Falko found gold on the bodies of the “garrison” soldiers, and Kili got a glowing gemstone engraved with Dwarven runes that say “powerlessness”
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SANDBOX MISSION TIER 2 - S.A.M. I am
The party climbed up into the floating fortress and retrieved their “box”, a purple coffin-shaped box covered with House Kundrak seals, while their guide grabbed his father’s sword and ran away. On the way out, a freaky monster came out of another plane of existence and Hammer ended it in one massive hit, but not before Kili got a piece of dragonshard embedded in her shoulder.
They brought the box to the lab at the Black Pit and found it was a magically animated facility. Advancing towards the center of the Structure for Assisted Magic (S.A.M.), they encountered a variety of magical oddities including a greenhouse that attacked them.
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SANDBOX MISSION TIER 2 - Hello, my name is…
Making their way to the heart of the lab, the party eventually met S.A.M., the magical intelligence granted to the lab, being lonely and hungry for adventure had constructed a mobile body for itself. It wanted to test its abilities to survive in the greater world before heading out and challenged the party to a battle, which Hammer indulged him in. S.A.M. seems able to learn the spells used in its presence and turn them against the weilders… finally seeking adventure, Falko gave it a map and pointed it in the direction of the Mournland…. nothing could go wrong with this…
In the workshop, the party found a tool for opening the box, Amari Bacci’s Universal Opener, and uncovered its mechanism. Inside they found a statue of a woman that was melting, and dwarven messages saying “Maximum Security”.
The party brought the mysterious box and its contents to the edge of Sharn and pursued multiple avenues for gaining information about the occupant, and confirming that Nurse Tetzel could in fact break the petrification. Nurse Tetzel discovered an aberrant dragonmark on the body, and Kili researched the War of the Mark. Drego and Hammer gained intel on the Tyrants, the second largest criminal cartel in Sharn, and their whereabouts.
Finally, the party removed the curse of petrification. The woman statue did a changeling transformation into a male statue. When asked who he was… “My name is Ek” …
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SANDBOX MISSION TIER 2 - Ja’Shaarat
Dealt with Ek in mausoleum and learned some stuff about Falko….
Entered Ja’Shaarat beneath Sharn and found the Tyrant arena, complete with a bee breathing tyrannosaurus, the King of Feathers… Ek escaped and disappeared…
The party was coopted by Phileas… Elemental ship pilot… no… dragon. He demanded that the party undertake a mission in Q’Barra to recover artifacts for him.
The party split… Drego bought some daggers and had a verbal showdown with the Sharn Deneith twins. Meanwhile Kili was finding out that the Sharn Deneiths have been overwhelmed by dark quori. Hammer shadowed Falko on a date more or less… actually less successfully.
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DDAL-EB-07 Song of the Sky
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