Editing Sessions

==Session Notes==

===The Cast===
====The PCs====
Cormir De'Glast - A man of many talents, Cormir De'Glast, or Corm for short, is a fighter first and foremost.  Obsessed with giants, he has studied their lore for years, finally making a breakthrough recently as he became a Rune Knight - using   

Backstories
Background Summary:  Morthos the Tiefling and Drex the Aasimar - two very different looking beings making an unusual friendship - grew up on the streets of Pacadon, leading a life of petty crime and joining a guild called “The Black Hand”.  After refusing to do something unsavoury for the guild, the party were black-listed and being hunted by a particularly vicious guild enforcer - Grim Halfaxe.  Cornered, Drex called out for help, and was answered by a fiend, who gave Drex power in return for entering into a pact.  Knowing that life would only get more tricky for them in Pacadon, the two decided to flee.   

Meanwhile, our other hero, Cormir De’Glast had a more civilised upbringing, and hoping to follow in the footsteps of his well known father, General Fabian De’Glast, joined the Iron Legion.  Rising through the ranks to a Junior Lieutenant, he found himself one day tasked to provide escort duty for a couple of Trades Guild leaders - Ernest Johanus of the Silver Syndicate and Olly Stanchion of the Jade Group.   Unusually, half his squad was chosen for him by his superior, a Captain Mac Hayden, and they turned out to be traitors, as at an obviously predetermined signal from Ernest Johanus, they turned on their companions.  Witnessing Ernest killing Olly Stanchion himself, and marking the body as if a victim of the notorious Black Hand assassin himself, Cormir managed to escape and jumped on a ship to flee the city.

Coincidentally, it was the same ship that Morthos and Drex had jumped on.

During the long voyage, the three met and became friends - all having a linked connection - a desire to flee Pacedon and some sort of connection to the Black Hand.

Session One - 3rd March 2023
Day Zero - the 1st Meteor Strike - Glacier starts to melt.
Day Twenty - the (2nd) Meteor Strike
Our three heroes - if you can call them that - meet on the ship to the Colonial Lands, the party see the after affects of a meteor strike far in the distance.  They arrive in Safeharbour a day later to find the city wrecked and mostly abandoned.  Apparently a large glacier that had covered most of the area between the mountains - a 6000 square mile area(!) had melted and caused multiple floods.  In fact, the meteor they had seen had been the second one to strike - the first one having struck nearly three weeks earlier.  Refugees board the boat, and the PCs disembark (having no money to pay for passage).  The PCs head inland, joining a small group of travellers who are heading towards the village of Tomar’s Crossing, the one place that was apparently unaffected by the melting glacier due to being on a bit hill that was above the glacier.   On route, they help some other refugees get  their wagons out of the mud and are rewarded with 4 vials of holy water.  Pushing onwards on their own, they are attacked by some Winter Goblins, and then when they made camp, by some bone shard flinging skeletons.

Session Two - 17th March 2023
The party continue their journey to Tomar’s Crossing, managing to eke their supplies out and pick up some blankets from an abandoned farmhouse (where they were attacked by zombie rats).  Crossing a couple of rivers, they arrive at the village, some 8 days after arriving in the Colonial Lands.

Day Twenty Eight - Arriving in Tomar’s Crossing
In the village, they see a old bearded elf sitting in a rocking chair watching the world go by, and meet with Cormir’s old friend Orich Stronghammer - someone he knew and trusted from his days in the Iron Legion before Orich had retired to Tomar’s Crossing.  Looking for work in a village already filled with refugees seemed like it might be hard, but given how unusual the three looked, Orich seemed to think that the three of them might get some work out of the Village leader - Bjalien Viadas.  

Session Three - 31st March 2023
When the PCs speak to Bjalien, he mentioned that there were Goblins in Frostfell (a nearby fort), He asked if the PCs could keep an eye out for his niece, and find Allie Thernius, and he also mentioned that he suspected one of the other council members (Colinus Birthwitch, Kadra Tourmaline and Paumine Sandalwood) might have stolen his Missing Locket.  Bjalin offers to pay 200gp to the group if they can clear out the goblins and rescue the PCs & return any stolen supplies.   He offers a bonus of 50gp if they can bring back the head of the hobgoblin leader Dourkeg and parade it around town telling everyone that Bjalin had sponsored the PCs - it’s election time shortly and Bjalin wants to improve his reputation before the voting! 

The PCs visit the refugee camp from Fort Icewind - as a refugee there claims to have escaped Fort Frostfell.  They meet Huberg Greyborn, the leader of the refugees, and he mentioned how they had been attacked by goblins, and that they had kidnapped several people before holing up in Fort Frostfell.  They had tried to counter-attack, but the goblins had been armed with alchemical bombs.  Hearing the PCs plan to go there, he promises to pay 5gp for each pair of goblin ears they bring him. He also tells the PCs that the fort was an ancient structure, but that twenty years back it had been occupied for a while by the Knights of the Last Bastion - before they moved to the main town of Safeharbour. on the coast, deciding it was too isolated to be of real use.  As there were a group of knights in Tomas’s Crossing, the group decide to go speak to them, ending up speaking to Sir Brenarfom Steelcrest who begrudgingly told them about a secret door that led directly into the basement of the fort.

LEVELLED UP TO LEVEL 2

Session Four - 14th April 2023
Day Twenty Nine - Leaving for Fort Frostfell
The party make their way to Fort Frostfell, where using  the information gained from Sir Brenaform Steelcrest, they find the secret door and enter the cellars, avoiding some traps and defeating a couple of skeletons.   Exploring further, they come across a pair of suits of dwarven armour, that animate and attack.  An undead wight (named Gothmog Plaguereaper) joins the battle and calls for assistance from a woman warrior who was in a room nearby.  As the woman comes out and exchanges blows with Drex, Cormir gets knocked out and Drex turns his attentions to the wight, at which point, she disengages, uninterested in fighting further, either to help the PCs against the wight, or to help the wight against the PCs.   At the end of combat, just after Cormir has come around, he is handed the wight’s sword, which reacts painfully to his good nature, and he passes out again!  The woman’s name is Harlyot Crushade, an ex-captain of the watch from Safeharbour.  She explains she was rescued from a flash flood a week after the first meteor struck by a wizard named Ralekai Gravemore, who in turn, explained that he had recently awoken, having been buried beneath the glacier for a thousand years.   He didn’t seem like undead, but…  who knows.  Apparently, he was researching a cure for something called “The Demon Plague”- and he persuaded Harlyot how important his work was.   She has since been helping him, though isn’t happy with her current assignment - which is basically keeping an eye on a disgusting gnome magic user called Harlan Barrypot. Harlan, despite being a cowardly slob, had also been “rescued” by Ralekai, and had been tasked with investigating the ancient library in Fort Frostfell, to see if anything of any use in Ralekai’s research.   Talking with Harlyot, the PCs discuss the goblins in the fort above, and Harlyot explains that she disapproves with Ralekai’s recruitment of goblins to capture subjects for his research - “for the greater good”.   She also really hated the fact that Ralekai had assigned the wight to keep an eye on everything at Fort Frostfell.  Unwilling to go against Ralekai directly, she was however happy to let the PCs take care of the goblins.  After a short rest, the party headed up to the keep, where they discovered a room full of prisoners where three hobgoblins were busy amputating a limb from one of them.  They start a fight with them…  


Session Five - 5th May 2023
Finishing the fight with the hobgoblins, the PCs release the prisoners, and glance outside, where they see a bunch of goblins and what looks like a wyvern talking to them.  They bar the door and consider what they plan to do, before the goblins start to chop the door down.  As a hole forms in the door, a flaming hands through the door causes the two goblins immediately outside to die - the wyvern squeezes into the passage and talks to the PCs.  It seems strangely obsessed with gems, and agrees to allow the PCs to kill the goblins if they give it some gems.   The party agree and step out of the prisoner room, leaving the prisoners behind them.  The goblins, realising the wyvern wasn’t going to help them, scattered up to the gatehouse towers - where they defend themselves as the party try to take them out.  Hurling alchemical flasks of either fire or some strange web-like glue, the winter goblins defend themselves well, but are eventually taken out by the PCs, though one is still missing.  Session ends with all three PCs having been unconscious at one point or another, and all exhausted on just one HP.  Two of the prisoners, Borden and Gower, are ex-militia from Sweetwater, and although weak, tried to help out.  It is getting dark.  In between sessions, I mention that all three PCs, whilst unconscious, had an image of a kindly faced grey haired old lady with twigs and leaves in her hair who wanted them to follow her down into the cellars below the keep…

Session Six - 26th May 2023
Exhausted from their battle, the heroes paid the wyvern Chillwyrm his gem, and collected 7 pairs of goblin ears before returning to the prisoners.  From the supply hoard in the bottom of the Tower, they salvaged food and medical supplies, before barricading themselves into the same room that the ex-prisoners had been chained up, and resting up for the night.   

Day Thirty - Departing Fort Frostfell.
In the morning, each of the three had their own revelation in some way (aka went up a level).   
For Cormir, it was reaching a breakthrough in his interest in Giant runes.  Something suddenly clicked, and he realised he understood Giantish better - and how to invoke the magic within some runes (Rune Knight).   
For Morthos, his own interest in magic finally fell into place, and the few magical tricks someone had previously shown him suddenly made sense (Arcane Trickster).   
For Drex, his demonic master pushed new knowledge into his brain - additional magical spells, along with a new magical book containing some ritual magic (Pact of the Tome).  One of the rituals was the ability to summon a familiar - and as the refugees made preparations for leaving, Drex summoned a familiar.  What turned up was a Seraph - a small, humanoid figure with luminous, opalescent skin and radiant, feathered wings. Its eyes glow with a soft celestial light, and a faint halo encircles its head. The seraph's wings shimmer and flicker with starlight, creating an otherworldly, ethereal aura.  It’s name was Starborn - but Drex of course called it Barbie.

Despite having another dream about the old lady trapped in the basement, the still exhausted heroes decide that they would rather return to Tomar’s Crossing - which is where the 8 surviving ex-prisoners wanted to go.  Borden mentions that when he and the other refugees left Sweetwater, a village only a few hours from Fort Frostfell, there was a priestess Phalin and her acolyte daughter Callie who had remained behind.  Apparently, many years ago in the village, a miner (Branock Finthar) had fallen in love with a nymph named Galell, but his brother Allan, in a jealous rage, had murdered both of them.  The nymph returned as an undead horror - a merath, after murdering Allan, she terrorised the village, until the priests of the village intervened and, unable to vanquish the merath, the bound it with special wards in their catacombs beneath the village church.  The merath has been stuck there for several generations now - with the priests renewing the wards every day to ensure she remains bound.  The few times they failed, she escaped and killed someone, so Phalin and Callie remained behind when the comet struck and the villagers fled - to continue to set the wards every day.  (Not that the PCs are interested in this bit of back-story - they were just interested in finding a priest to get rid of their exhaustion with a greater restoration spell!)

Exploring a few other rooms in the keep, the party find a map showing a place marked Gardong Marhold.  This is where Halyot Crushade had mentioned that the other prisoners had been taken to - and presumably where the necromancer Ralekai Gravemore who was “working on a cure to the Demon Plague” was located.

The ex-prisoners worry about the wyvern which is still flapping around outside (and eating dead goblins), and the party decide that they will bargain with it more.  Asking if any of the refugees have any gems, one of the ex-prisoners mentions that she had some, but they were taken off her when they were captured.  Morthos searches the Hobgoblin’s quarters and finds the pouch.  It contains a pearl and an agate gemstone, that they decide to give to the wyvern as the ex-prisoners make their escape (with all the supplies they found) on a cart pulled by an (undead) horse.

Initially, the PCs wanted to go to Sweetwater, to find the priestess there - but as the various ex-prisoners were more interested in going directly to Tomar’s Crossing, that is where they headed.

On route, they encounter a group of cultists worshipping someone/something called “Gar’tulmak” camped around the other side of a rocky outcrop.  Morthos sneaks up, but still exhausted from his near death experience the day before, one of the cultists hears her and tries to capture him.  As the cultists chase him back towards the cart and the refugees, a wider battle happens and a lot of cultists die, including their leader (based on her hat), who tries to use a dwarf as a hostage, but Morthos called her bluff and she slit the dwarf’s throat.  The cult leader was taken down immediately, and Drex’s familiar zipped forward and managed to save the dwarf’s life before he bled out. Two of the cultists fled on foot, running into the ruined landscape and out of sight.


Session Seven - 16th June 2023