Tuesday Knights - Age of Worms

  Having uncovered a plot to spawn Kyuss Worms in an egg chamber in the bowels of the Godsdeath Brewery at Boareskyr, the party consider what to do next. After a troubling nightmare Mesmer has of some sort of dream snake going after the Librum Mortis, they have enough hints now that these foul workings are coming from the northern Serpent Hills. Against some warnings, they resolve to investigate, at least checking in at Blackwall Keep to ask what those knights had seen. The Monks supply them with rations and ale and the Abbess provides a Letter of Introduction to Sir Celbion, and the party begins traveling into the foothills that the Winding Water spills from. The land begins to turn desolate and quiet and by the time they turn up towards the Serpent's Tail stream they see the vast stretches of the High Moor lay desolately to the northwest. They fight off some Kyuss spawn wearing the livery of Blackwall, and worry for the keep. The worries are legitimized as they find it in ruins,...

  Forgot to write this session up right after but basically the party found a hydra guarding a clutch of eggs in the Fermenting Caverns of Boareskyr and killed it. Also the Abbess pushed Dravej into an ethereal jaunt, so he got to watch the fight a little bit outside of space and time.

  The party reaches Boareskyr Bridge and the cluster of cliff buildings the monks live in around it. They see the Godsdeath spring bubbling up from the waters below and meet Satchel , an attractive tiefling monk standing vigil. She notes that it has been 130 years since Cyric slew Bhaal at this spot, and that the monks have been here far longer than that. She welcomes the companions and offers them food and lodging if they wish it. The party decides to make use of the hot spring baths here and meet a few more of the monks. They find them quirky, boastful and diverse in origin. Dravej is gently ribbed a little for leaving the enclave, and some strong mushroom brew is shared, hitting Amanon particularly hard. Finally it is time for shared dinner, though Wanda is tired and chooses to retire early. At the Hall of Sustenance they meet the last of Dravej's trainers, a half-orc hunter and chef who prepares a tasty dinner of salad and boar. Mesmer, ever eager to acquire knowledge, attempts...

After several weeks of recovery in their observatory at Diamond Lake, the party packs and prepares for their journey north through the hills to the Trade Way, about a week's travel. The journey is straightforward, and the companions reminisce and get to know each other a little better as they camp in the wilderness. Mesmer gains some insight into the nature of the Librum Mortis, apparently known in some circles as the Necrotome of Trask, and finds that an old antagonist has passed. Halfway through the journey, they encounter a troupe of ogres carrying a captured gnome whom they decide to rescue. The ogres are dispatched without too much trouble, but the prisoner, Hisni Ertix Yegim-Wrefan from Trielta, is a particularly morose fellow and not terribly fun to travel with. On the last day before reaching the main roadway, they spot a distant black dragon, probably hunting from the Forest of Wyrms to the North. The party reach the trade way and elect to travel southwest to Soubar for ...

  The party collapses at their Observatory, resting and bathing for a few days while discussing profits and plans. Mesmer animates the taxidermied goblin butler and names him Jeeves, and starts setting up his laboratory and library. Finally, somewhat rejuvenated from their adventures below, they decide to head into town for a warm meal, some shopping, and most importantly, some good carousing. They discuss hiring Kullen as a guard for their new shared home and loot while they travel abroad, and send for him. He arrives the next day, looking somewhat conflicted, and when Mesmer expresses faith and fairness in him Kullen suffers an emotional break and insists they accompany him into town where Smenk is engaging in a power move to seize the Dourstone holdings. Smenk has successfully lobbied the mayor into executing Dourstone for harboring the cultists in his mine, but the party casts suspicion back on him with the use of some illusions, and disavow the credit he claims for rooting the...

  Having successfully defeated the last overlord of the Temple of the Dead Three, the party set themselves to the task of returning to the surface. They elected to take a long rest to replenish spells, but were interrupted by strange tremors and the sound of distant screams. Finally feeling fortified, they left the Faceless One's chambers and headed south, but not before deciding to check out a few unexplored chambers along the way. One of them, a huge cavern, contained a fiendish looking wizened monkey trapped within a magic circle of protection. Suspicious, they questioned it a little and it introduced itself as Torgrodd the Wise , summoned to reveal secrets of divine animation. It bantered a bit back and forth, until the previously seen Crawling Claw snuck in to disrupt the protective magic, upon which Torgrodd reverted to a more demonic form and attacked. It managed to fell Mesmer but was ultimately brought low by attacks, including a rare thornwhipping from a non-beastformed A...

Mesmer rejoins the party outside the laboratory of Vecna, and they cautiously open the door to the inner sanctum of the master of this underground cult. It's a spare chamber, reflecting an obsessive ascetic who clearly cares little about finery. A thaumaturgical voice booms across the walls: “If you’re here, then the rest of my brothers and sisters must have fallen. They were always going to die, we all will, but you denied them the chance to die for something better, something greater. “You will hinder the Ebon Triad no longer. Your corpses will be the final submission to the slumbering aspect, to awaken it in the glory of murder and in its wake I shall rebuild this world anew.”  The party offers their thoughts on that and begins exploring the room, but when enough of them line up, a vicious lightning bolt arcs from wall to wall, doing considerable damage to the front line. Dravej charges the source of the bolt to discover that one of the walls is illusory and the Faceless One him...