Saviors of Pompeii

Saviors of Pompeii was a campaign that began in the summer of 2020, my first campaign on Discord/Roll20 using people from the Internet. It takes place in the province of Roma, the heart of the Roman Empire and home of the capitol city of Rome in the year 464 AP.

#### The Festival of Fire

Our tale begins in Pompeii, at the Festival of Fire, a celebration of the events that saved the city from certain volcanic destruction at the hand of the god Ares 385 years prior. Our heroes, Tyra, a half elf Artificer, Rhodias, a half elf Bard, "Cloe" a human Cleric, and Prosophus, an aasimar Sorcerer, ran into each other during the festivities. Near the end of the day, the townsfolk gathered in the central square where the city put on a play depicting the events that saved Pompeii all those years ago. The star of the show was Pompeiian leader High Priestess Corianna, playing herself.

During this play, a mysterious robed figure unleashed a mighty and unknown spell upon Corianna, taking the form of a ghostly fiery bolt. One of her fellow troupe members shielded her from the brunt of the spell, causing massive burns to his upper body, as the mysterious figure fled the scene. Though our heroes gave chase, the hooded man managed to escape. Upon returning to the scene of the attack, the party saw that the troupe member that had saved Corianna’s life had been completely petrified, his body turned into a plaster cast of what it had formerly been.

Days later, after seeking out herbs that Corianna thought might revive the man who saved him, Corianna informed the party that the condition was permanent. There was nothing more anyone could do. What was more, the unknown fire spell seemed to have a larger area of effect than previously thought. Corianna had miscarried, her unborn child just as plaster as the man who gave his life for his city's leader. In her anguish, Corianna asked the party to find whoever did this, find out why they did what they did, and bring them to justice.

#### The Lament of Prosophus

Gathering information from witnesses led our heroes south to the nearby port town of Naples, where the unknown assailant had boarded a one man craft and set sail for shores unknown. All they were able to learn was that the man was bald headed and had a strange symbol tattooed on his forehead, an altered version of the symbol for the god Ares. Thier trail gone cold, the group decided to check in town for anyone who may have seen the figure in question. At the local inn and bar, they ran into Tordis, a young artificer apprentice from Tyra's home village of Javraig in northern Nordsted.

Tordis informed Tyra that Javraig had been abandoned. The villages leader and Tyra's father, Gustavo, had died of the illness Tyra had been seeking to cure. After his death, no one could decide who should lead their village, leading to endless bickering, while important business went undone. Eventually, enough people got fed up and left until there was no village left to lead. After Javraig, Tordis began working for a band of merchants. A few days ago, thier caravan had been attacked by bandits and thier wagons had been badly damaged. They had sent him into Naples to find help, Our heroes agreed to go with Tordis and help his friends as best they could.

Upon arriving at the caravan's camp, our heroes met the leader of Tordis' caravan, Rick Morganum, and the truth of the matter quickly became clear. These weren't traders, they were thieves. Tordis had been sent to town to "bring help", the next unsuspecting victims of the Wayward Bandits. After fighting off Rick's fiercest men, our heroes succeeded in capturing Rick along with a couple of his men, including Tordis. Upon questioning the two, Tordis revealed that after Javriag fell, he became bitter. Tyra had been sent several messages that Gustavo's condition had worsened, and yet she sent none in reply. When Gustavo died, his named heir was not around to continue leading the town, leading to it's downfall. Tyra assured him that she had never received these messages, but Tordis would not believe her.

Rick explained that he had formed The Wayward Bandits to rebel against the Roman culture of conformity. Many people within the Empire wanted to carve thier own future, as the Nords do. Many laws and regulations kept Rick and his followers from living the lives they would have liked to live, so they decided to thieve and swindle. If civilization would not give them freedom, they would cease to be civilized. In a inspired speech about his own history of being an outcast, Prosophus convinced Rick to give society another chance, to build his own town, independant of Rome, where he could decide a new future for his people. He agreed and our heroes released Rick and his men. The tale of this exchange was eternalized by Rhodias in his epic poem "The Lament of Prosophus".

#### When In Rome

After seeing Rick and his men on thier way to find a place to settle, our heroes set thier sights to Rome. They had received a mysterious missive from a benefactor calling himself Atticus. He offered to tell them the whereabouts of the man who attacked Corianna. They were to seek him out in Rome to gain his favor. Cloe had concerns about returning to her hometown, fearing her father and his many eyes and ears in Rome would find her and force her to stay for good. As such, the group made preparations to keep a low profile.

The first thing our heroes did upon arriving in Rome was to pay a visit to the temple of Ares. They asked the head priest about the religious symbol the attacker had tattooed on him. The priest explained that the symbol was of a sub section of the followers of Ares.

After Ares nearly destroyed Pompeii 385 years ago, followers of Ares were faced with a dilemma. The already fairly unpopular god had been cast in a vicious light. Acolytes found themselves dividing into two camps: The Traditionalists and The Sect of Mars Ultoris. The traditionalists began to focus on Ares' good and neutral traits, such as conflict as a means to a productive end, and the light and warmth of fire as opposed to it's destructive nature. The Sect on the other hand, swerved the opposite direction. They wanted Mars (they do not refer to his newer Greek title) to return to the stories of the ancient times, before the rules of the gods were placed, wherein Mars was a plague of wrath and chaos upon the world. The Sect was outnumbered by the traditionalists, so eventually they were ousted from the temples of Ares. They began to find hidden places of worship, and developed ways to slowly expand their influence.

After learning what they could about The Sect of Mars Ultoris, our heroes sought out the mysterious Atticus. Asking around for his whereabouts led the to a high end tavern in the Dragon's Crossing district. Inside, the party found a hooded man claiming to be Atticus. Before he would discuss any details, he told the party he would need to test the party. The hooded man led our heroes to a trap door in the back of the establishment, and down into the Roman Waterworks. There, the mysterious man conjured several exotic beasts for the party, which our heroes defeated soundly.

Impressed, the man led the party further into the sewer system, underneath the River Tiber, to a place underneath The Forum proper. On the way, he explained that he worked for a powerful shadowbroker who used the name Atticus as one of his many interchangeable aliases. He led our heroes into a secret opening in the sewer walls and into the basement of none other than the real Atticus, Publius Cloelius, Cloe's father.

After a tense reunion, Publius informed the party of his reasons for contacting them: He had a job that the group, Tyra in particular, was perfect for. Publius had found the location of a renown Nordic artifact called Odinhelm, hidden within the ruins of Tyra's home village Javraig. Publius had found evidence that Tyra's father and village leader Gustavo had hidden it away in his secret workshop. In return for the retrieval of this artifact, Publius offered the current location of the Sect of Mars Ultoris. Upon negotiation, Publius further agreed to have a set of protective amulets made that would hide the party from the effects of spell that could be used to track thier location. Cloe wanted to be sure Publius would let her go and not have them followed as he had done before.

After the deal was struck, Publius led the party into a side chamber, containing a large and intricate arcane machine. An assistant there explained that this was an experimental form of a Transportation Circle, able to teleport beings without many of the requirements of the spell it mimics. It was ready to send the party to the other side of the continent, to Northern Nordsted, directly to Javraig.

#### The Recovery of Odinhelm

With a loud flash of light, our heroes were whisked away from the Roman Undercity and found themselves in Tyra's hometown of Javraig, or at least what was left of it. Tordis had been right: the village had been abandoned for months and the town showed signs of being ransacked by scavengers. As they approached the large shack that had been Gustavo's workshop, the party wondered if Odinhelm could even still be here.

Looking through her abandoned home, Tyra used her knowledge of the place and of her father to locate a secret passage in Gustavo's study. Following a staircase leading down into a metal-lined basement, our party found themselves in Gustavo's hidden workshop, still watched over by mighty mechanical guardians. It took every last ounce of thier strength, plus a little mechanical tinkering from Tyra, but our party eventually cleared the basement of its protectors.

Behind sealed doors, locked away in an ornate trunk, our heroes found what they had come for. Odinhelm, in all its age and glory. The party quickly made thier way back to the rendevu point, and were whisked away once more, this time back to the Roman Undercity.

Upon thier return to Publius' chamber, our heroes found the shadowbroker in the company of a tall muscular man in official Roman Senator attire. Publius introduced him as Vincus Adsumus, a senator of some renown and infamy. The Senator was notorius for his radical views on the Grecian Accord. He believed peace with Nordsted made Rome weaker, and was not shy about voicing his distain for thier neighbors to the north to anyone who would listen. Recently, Adsumus had found a small but notable following in the capitol, and a few political backers as well.

With some hesitation, the party handed Odinhelm over to Publius who immediately handed it off to Adsumus. The Senator thanked the party for thier hard work and left. Publius thanked the party as well, giving them was had been agreed upon: four magical amulets, a large sum of gold, and the location of the Sect of Mars Ultoris, in the mountains behind Zadar. Before the party left, Publius tried one last time to get Cloe to stay and help with his work. She had shown such promise in this task, he assured her, that she would make a fine broker of information. Cloe sternly refused, sensing more than a little of her father's usual manipulations.

As our heroes made our way out of Rome, everyone had a bad feeling about thier encounter with the senator and the shadowbroker. It was only after a few days journey that word reached the party that Vincus Adsumus had publicly destroyed Odinhelm, an act that Nordsted would no doubt take as a hostile act. They had unwittingly been the catalyst of a major political event, one that could lead to a second Great War. What was more, the amulets that Publius had given the party had been enchanted in a special way. The anti-tracking effect would last a week at most before reverting to a previous enchantment, a magical tracker, that would tell Publius precisely where the party was at all times. After this information was revealed, the group quickly destoryed the amulets, knowing that Publius would be aware his ploy had failed.

#### Publius Strikes Back

After journeying north for sometime and handling some adventuring along the way, our heroes decided it was finally time to seek out the Sect of Mars Ultoris, but before they could set off, they received a missive from Rick Morganum. It seemed their new settlement, New Javraig, had been progressing well, but they were now facing a series of assaults from a mysterious band of mercenaries. They were attacking the new town on a regular basis, each time only damaging property and killing those who would fight back, and the might of their forces seemed to be escalating. Our adventurers decided these attacks needed to be stopped, so they left for New Javriag.

When they arrived, they found the new town had managed to recruit over 50 people so far. The idea of a Roman town set apart from the culture of conformity to the glory of Rome had attracted many of wandering souls looking for a home. One of them, Jaydys, seemed eager to help the party in anyway possible, and soon gained our heroes' trust. Rick explained that the mercs seemed to be attacking at regular intervals, so the group decided to wait for the next attack and help defend the town. They didn't have to wait long.

The next day, mercenaries attacked, and this time, they brought the big guns. They had managed to capture an assault griffon and began bombarding the town from above. After a brutal fight, the merc were beaten. The group managed to capture one of the assailants, and after a brief but effective interrogation, revealed that they had been hired by Publius, as a way to get his daughter's attention. He was well connected, had heard of New Javraig, and knew that the party would come to assist the town they had help found. To what end, the merc did not know.

Cloe took this as a sign that she needed to leave as soon as possible, but others in the group were less sure. Some wanted to stay and protect this new beacon of freedom and individuality, others wanted to complete their quest to seek out the Sect of Mars Ultoris and bring the would-be assassin to justice. And so it was here that Tyra and Prosophus decided to stay in New Javraig to help build and protect the town they helped establish, and Cloe, Rhodias, and new friend Jaydys would push forward and complete the quest they had been tasked with.

This is the end of the tale of the Saviors of Pompeii, at least for now. The fates of these heroes and another band of adventurers will likely cross in the upcoming Return of the Crimson Dove campaign.