Archive for February, 2009

The Father Light, no Father at all.

Posted in The Shadow Road on February 25, 2009 by coyoteandthunder

Avari and her knowledge portal, a mouthy book called Akontahn were able to quickly research the lost names of the elder furiousity called The Father Light and assuage its vengence before her. An old Eladrin force that had become so powerful in ancient epochs that it was long imprisoned down in the so-called Electric Fields, forever together with its living spells, forever alone with its fury. Somehow related the Eladrin above: Oamrissa and Blendavin, the Father Light reveal itself in female form to the you and yet old Avari. In this true form, the Father Light is known as the Maiden of the Deep Stone, a wise council. It is the Maiden of Deep Stone who shockingly warned Avari and her team of Men that it is not Oamrissa who seeks mastery over the dark secrets of the Blight, but Blendavin of Starry Gardens. A terrible foreboding for the reopening of the Shadow Road.
Now free of her prison, The Maiden of Deep Stone gives a piece of herself to the Akontahn in debt of payment to the Fay Avari. She gives a book of herself to the little one’s collection.
the skulls behind the Maiden of Deep Stone were made of earlier adventurers who trespassed these halls to their doom. Counted in their number, as Tim, Walder and Zarconus were able to discern from the collected goods of the stacked body nearby, were the bodies of two related and long lost: Warren Bessallyn, uncle of Zarconus and Bartok Tigeon, grandfather of Tim. It was by Eladrin magic that the previous party of old had failed and lost their lives! Are the Eladrin conspiring with the Blight to keep the Shadow Road closed? Tim begins to consider the terrible ramifications of this betrayal.

The Invincible Fire Eaters

Posted in The Shadow Road on February 25, 2009 by coyoteandthunder

A company of fire Minions, wielding ancient, flint weapons and hidden behind masks of volcanic glass attacked the company apparently after having dispatched a party of dark elves who then lay buried in a pond of cooling, molten earth. The Orc Captain Dezr proved a mighty ally with his totem club (see below) and although nearly incineratedif not for the healing prowess of Tim, the warrior Zarconus faught valiently against the creatures who did not easily fall. The thief Walder was a tru hero of the day as his sneak and sword waylaid more than two of the brutes. It was Avari who crushed one of the Minions by destroying a living spell in a column of earth sending it crashing down.

The Glass Reaches of the Electric Fields

Posted in The Shadow Road on February 25, 2009 by coyoteandthunder

Down on the Obsidian Slopes into the great cavern known as the Electric Fields. Journeying south, The Party marched through razor wire and living spells encased in the rock and set loose furiously across the expanse towards a brilliant column of lightning that the Fay character Avari only calls “Father Light.” The paladin Zarconus recognizes that phrase as one his religion uses to describe Bahamut, or Unonbate, the father of all dragons.

Gate to the Electric Fields

Posted in The Shadow Road on February 23, 2009 by coyoteandthunder

It was Kaiel’s map that had the hidden code to open the sealed gate to the Electric Fields beyond on the road between Old Fang and Starry Gardens. What purpose did gate serve? What is the nature of the Electric Fields?

Friend or Foe in the Fungal Forest.

Posted in The Shadow Road on February 23, 2009 by coyoteandthunder

After the incident in the Corridor of Ancient Verse, the Party made their way to an enormous underground cavern made of limestone and hollowed out by fifty underground rivers converging. Enormous and glowing monolithic fungi populate this forested environment.

It was there that the exhausted party met Dezr Oakenmeld, a Orcish captain who had lost his party and was alone and trapped in the Fungal Forest. After a night of story telling, Tim Tigeon figured out that Dezr’s party was made of the orc soldiers that he and Kaiel had killed and who were employed by Tel Omak, the Oni Lord and had come for Tiki Mumbai.

Dezr told the party of an ancient and well shielded door at the other end of the forest and he would show them, especially since it was quickly learned that Kaiel’s map of the Shadow Road had the coded password to open the door.

Kaiel’s map of the Shadow Road

Posted in The Shadow Road on February 23, 2009 by coyoteandthunder

Scribed by the priests at Gavin Wel, Kaiel of the Raven held a document that was not discovered by his friends until after his death, that described the path and the plan of the Party. Most shocking was the revelation of a secret tunnel between Old Fang and Starry Gardens: a mysterious connections to powers who were thought to be unaligned.

click image to enlarge.

An ancient and impotent man

Posted in The Shadow Road on February 23, 2009 by coyoteandthunder

Mikiiel is the husband to Oamrissa and cursed to live in her basement in the Corridor of Ancient Verse under Old Fang. When the Party of the Shadow Road found him, Tim Tigeon had become so enraged by the loss of Kaiel his oldest friend that he had little patience with the old eladrin. In a moment of fury, the ranger bashed a tankard of beer over the deathless eladrin’s skull. The alcohol, Tim knew, was poison to Mikiiel and after watching Oamrissa’s husband begin to dissolve as if the brew was a powerful solvent, Tim smashed Mikiiel’s head under his heavy boot.

The Brass Man and the Little Girl

Posted in The Shadow Road on February 18, 2009 by coyoteandthunder

After the death of Kaiel Bessalyn, Tim, Walder and Zarconus strode up the ramp into the collapsed tower of Old Fang. Under an inky net floated a fay girl in a bright pulse of green light. A guardian of old magic rushed the intruders, a Brass Man, entered into combat thus awakening the little girl from her imprisoned stasis. Avari helped to defeat the Brass Man in this, Oamrissa the Eladrin’s main chamber and from her desk, the emancipated fay retrieved her trappings as her memory began to come back. The three men, learning from Kaiel Besselyn’s map that there is a secret road between Old Fang and Starry Gardens decide to take the thin hall exit from the structure and into the world under the forest floor once again.

A creature of multiple worlds, Avari and Zarconus the Half-elf strike immediate and friendly albeit formal rapport, both straddling their own pluralistic cultural origins.

The Revenant inside the Chamber of Sorrows

Posted in The Shadow Road on February 15, 2009 by coyoteandthunder

Down a long slope and behind many doors and fallen archways, the party came to a large domed room filled with the same type of tiefling statusque monuments they had encountered ouside of Girto’s tree. In one alcove Kaiel found a small effigy to be what he identified as the Raven King, an image of Corellon as the consort of Lady Death: a tielfing reliquary, a key tool in restoring the Shadow Road by activating the Sentinels.

“Look out!” somebody yelled, weak and thirsty. They then realized that there where many prison cell inside the room as well. Prison cells with prisoners still alive!

Kaiel recognized the voice “Zarconus?” he yelled.

“Brother, behind you!” the voice yelled again from one of the cells. At that, then came striding in was a blighted beast of a man, warped in body and lacking of mind or conscience.

Kaiel engaged the brute with shield and hammer as Tim bounded toward one of the cells where he found a friend from Maiah, of all things…Walder the rogue.

Ary had already begun to swoon and Tiki realized that something was terribly amiss in the elf’s mind already. Magic was about and shifting reality and Ary was lost in the middle of whatever was going on. Tiki held her hand over the young elf mage’s heart, shielding her from the onlaught of Blight magic raining down on her so malevolently. Lest they both die in this torrent of evil magic of unknown origin, Tiki called upon ancient and esoteric runes to wisk both her and the elf away, where they went, she was not quite sure…but alas, far far away.

After a bit of back and forth with the Beast, Kaiel was dealt a mighty blow from the beast’s cursed sowrd that liquified the room’s floor into a silver ichor, smashing Kaiel’s face and sending him face down into the muck. Zarconus used all his remaining strength and faith to pry open the rotten bars of his holding cell and lept down from his perch. In the locker at the bottom of the wall, he found his sword and engaged the Beast. Tim recognized that poison gas had then been released in the room, perhaps a fail safe against the prisoners escaping and the chamber’s only exit was sealing off as a stone slab was moving into position.

With blinding fury, Zarconus destroyed the revanant beast with a blow from his blessed weapon. The beast exploded from released energy knocking Walder and Zarconus through and passed the closing door. Tim found Kaiel’s unconscious body and was dragging it to the door through the silver mud but the door was closing too fast. In trying to rescue his friend, Tim broke both of his arms. There bleeding and confused, Tim, Walder and Zarconus sat on the other side of the room now filled with poison.

In his last effort, Kaiel had apparently had the foresight to toss the effigy of the Raven King through the passage way. Perhaps a key that could be used later, if hope had not yet been entirely lost.

The Secret Entrance

Posted in The Shadow Road on February 15, 2009 by coyoteandthunder

Just as Eartha had discovered in the Chamber of the Daughter at Starry Gardens, there was indeed a secret passage behind a waterfall deep in the ravine under Old Fang.

Ary had come back to the party so the four: Kaiel, Tim, Tiki and Ary desceded the harrowingly slippery slope and crept behind the waterfall. There they found a creature that did not mean to be awakened. An ancient Gargoyle that had been standing guard for however many hundreds of years since his ward had been crossed. With mighty valor and not without sustaining bruises and broken bones, the party was able push the wingless brute off the ledge of the waterfall, then shattering the visciuos stone creature on the rocks below.

Under the waterfall, Kaiel invoked his power as a dedicated priest of the City of Gavin Wel and conscripted Tim Tigeon by oathful allegiance, to become a rural sherriff of the Valley of Gavin Wel. Tim, always having fancied himself a lone farmer never thought he would become an important member of society.