Session0002

Episode 0002 - Good Tidings, Bad Tidings
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**Setting:**

Jungle Island - March 21st, 211 AW
**Synopsis:**

* The party awakens on the deserted jungle island after the previous day's shipwreck.
* The captain, Duncan Rivers, informs the crew and passengers that help is on the way and will arrive in a few days, and urges everyone to work together for survival.
* The party decides to scout out the island in hopes of cutting off any potential dangers, and sets off together on a scouting mission.
* Scouting out the island, the party finds a beachside fishing camp, and evidence that the island’s kuo-to and grung natives have noticed their arrival.
* The party finds a set of solitary grung footprints leading into the jungle, which the follow in search of clues about the island.
* Deep in the jungle, the party finds an eccentric grung hermit, Qaz the Proclaimer, who offers them bizarre magical omens.
* Qaz offers the party a map of the island, and information about its dangers: the other kuo-toa and grung, their god Great Wiik-Wiik, and a flying monstrosity called the corvid.
* Qaz warns the party that if the other kuo-toa and grung have found the shipwreck - as the party suspects - they will surely try to take prisoners to sacrifice to Great Wiik-Wiik and the corvid.
* Based on Qaz’s map, the party goes in search of ancient ruins, while Malkoth’s familiar returns to the shipwreck camp to warn the crew of the impending danger.
* Malkoth’s familiar returns from the camp with a message from the captain, informing the party that three members of the crew went into the jungle to forage and haven’t returned.
* The party finds the tracks of kuo-toa and grung with three prisoners in tow. They begin following this trail in search of the missing crew.
* The party battles dinosaurs and giant mosquitos in the jungle as they follow the trail of the kuo-toa and grung.
* Eventually, the party reaches the village of the kuo-toa and grung. They ambush the village and rescue one of the prisoners - a boy named Harper Wood who battled alongside them during the shipwreck the previous day.
* The party ventures into a nearby temple in search of another of the missing passengers.

## March 21st

The party awakens in the morning on the deserted island where the Tide King has shipwrecked. In the early morning hours, Jack and Gragnok discuss the dangers that they heard and saw on their respective watches overnight, as well as the kuo-toa and grung tracks that they encountered the previous evening. They decide that they should scout out the island further and form a perimeter for their campsite. The two take charge of forming a scouting party, and begin making preparations for the day.

Meanwhile, Ilex - a wilden passenger from the Tide King who used healing magic during the previous day's battle - performs a ceremony funeral ritual for those who died the previous day. Her ritual seems to channel the magic of the stars, and she references a constellation called Corvus, which she says guides the souls of the dead to the afterlife. Odell, observing her ritual, takes note that her magic seems to be divine in nature, although he doesn't see a holy symbol in per possession.

Odell, while discussing Ilex's ritual with Rye, asks Rye about the nature of his magic. Rye says that his magic is self-taught.

Shortly after, the party, passengers, and crew gather around for breakfast at the campsite. While they are eating, the captain, Duncan Rivers, explains that help is on the way. He says that his deck mage, Sybil Larou, has sent a message to port, and that help will arrive within a few days. He says that he has heard the allegations of who is responsible for the suspicious explosion that caused the shipwreck - particularly referencing Rye and the kobold passenger. However, he explains that he intends to let the authorities investigate and sort out the situation back at port. In the meantime, he insists that everyone stay off the shipwreck to avoid the possibility of anyone tampering with evidence. He emphasizes the danger of uncharted islands, and urges everyone to work together to survive.

Contrary to the Rivers' advice, one of the ship's passengers, a gnome named Langrim Puck offers payment for any treasures that anyone manages to recover from the island.

Gragnok asks Rivers what he and his crew have found on the shipwreck, and if they have any leads on who might be responsible. Rivers says that they have not found any evidence yet, which is the main reason he doesn't want anyone tampering with the shipwreck. He explains that he plans to have Sybil, the deck mage, do some magical investigation. In the meantime, only two of his own crew members who he trusts - an ettercap named Ix and a sahuagin named Zula - will be allowed on the ship to stand guard. Gragnok suggests that no one be allowed on the ship at all, including the guards, but Rivers is hesitant to leave the ship unattended. Gragnok suggests sending the kobold passenger - who the party suspects is the culprit behind the explosion - to stay on the ship. The kobold objects to this idea, as does Rivers, due to the fact that the kobold is a possible suspect in the explosion.

After the meeting disperses, Odell privately asks Rivers if he has any suspicions of who might be responsible for the explosion. He asks if Rivers has made any enemies in his line of work, insinuating that his work as a smuggler might have gotten him into trouble. Rivers balks at the suggestion, and insists that he is not a smuggler.

The party makes preparations to set out on their scouting mission. Rivers tries to convince Frog not to leave the campsite, concerned that he is putting himself in danger, but Frog seems unconcerned.

Before the party sets out, XVIII tries to convince the kobold passenger to come with them, saying that they believe him to be innocent. The kobold is appreciate of their assurance, but declines the offer, fearful of venturing into the jungle with the rest of the party - especially Rye.

The party sets out to begin their scouting mission. They begin by returning to the river mouth that they found the previous evening. Examining the area, they find that there are more kuo-toa and grung footprints, including several that are more recent than their own from the previous night, and seem to have found theirs.

Discussing their next steps, the party decides to try to follow the tracks of the kuo-toa and grung and find their home, in hopes of speaking with them if they’re peaceful, or getting the jump on them if they are not.

The party follows the kuo-toa and grung footprints along the beach of the island, eventually reaching a small campsite near another river mouth. The campsite is currently uninhabited, although there are signs of fairly recent activity. The campsite has fishing equipment and small fishing boats, dried herbs, and other equipment that lead the party to believe that it is a simply a fishing spot. Most of the equipment at the campsite seems to be salvaged from shipwrecks, including an armored mannequin with a woodburned message that reads, simply, “no.”

Searching for more tracks around the campsite, the party finds signs of several dozen kuo-toa and grung which come and go fairly frequently - most recently, about 7 hours ago. These footprints follow the river upstream into the jungle. The party also finds a solitary set of grung footprints, traveling alone into the jungle in a different direction from all of the others.

The party decides to follow the solitary grung tracks into the jungle. Following the tracks, they eventually come to a small clearing, where a lone grung hermit lives in a small hut. The hermit introduces himself as Qaz the Proclaimer, and offers to tell the party prophesies and fortunes in exchange for small offerings of trinkets or useful items.

Rye accepts Qaz’s offer first, and gives him a pane of glass from from the shipwreck. Qaz invites Rye into his hut, where he performs a strange divination ritual using a variety of oils and nick-knacks. When he finishes his ritual, Qaz recites the following omen:

> Such a strange time, yet even stranger still to find gladness and light, goodness and love, in such an unlikely place. You who walk among strangers and call them friends. Your voice in harmony with the melody of Primordial Chaos. What song will you play in the chorus of the world’s awakening?
>
>

After receiving this omen, Rye discovers that he has also earned a temporary magical boon, as tendrils of light and shadow wrap around his hands as he attacks. As he practices this ability outside the hut, Jack cautions him against such open displays of magic, warning that such behavior without a license to practice spellcasting could get him executed or imprisoned.
Malkoth is the next to receive an omen from Qaz, offering him a set of basilisk fangs. Qaz recites the following omen for Malkoth:

> You seek to master Primordial Chaos. To bend the infinite energy of creation to your will. Follow the path of blood. Chaos is the heart of all things. It is the bones and the sinew of the world. The Weave is a needle, and Chaos is the thread. Chaos is the blood of life, and there is great power in blood.
>
>

Like Rye, Malkoth finds himself imbued with magical power after the omen, although his boon does not have any obvious outward evidence.
Gragnok receives his omen next, after offering Qaz a basilisk leather belt. Like Malkoth's, the boon that Gragnok receives does not have any immediately-obvious visible effects. Qaz recites the following omen for Gragnok:

> An hour of dying follows in your path - an hour of blood and grief and hate. Death walks in your footsteps, you who carry the blood of the First Children. But a new hour draws nigh: an hour of reckoning, and an hour of absolution. There is no dawn, save that there is the night.
>
>

XVIII makes an offering of rations to Qaz, and receives his omen. His boon does not have an obvious outward effect. Qaz recites the following omen for XVIII:

> Chaos is the blood of life, and life surges onward, always rushing to a singular and inevitable end. Death is the completion of evolution, the realization of millennia of growth. Death is the final perfection of life. Against the inexorable passing of universal time, all else is futility. Chaos is life, and from life, there is only death.
>
>

Odell makes an offering of basilisk eyes to Qaz, and receives his omen. His boon causes his weapon and armor to begin to faintly hum with magical energy. Qaz recites the following omen for Odell:

> Mortalkind strives to manipulate Primordial Chaos into a tool, to hammer the energy of life into a convenient shape. Chaos may slumber, but only for a time. It cannot be contained forever. A time of rest is ending, and a new era begins. An age of awakening. An age of fire and of water, of earth and of air, of light and of darkness, of life and of death. Chaos can sleep no longer. Chaos must awaken.
>
>

After he receives his omen, Odell asks Qaz how he does this magic. Qaz gives an unclear and somewhat contradictory answer, saying that he was born with magic abilities, but also saying that he learned it from sacred texts. From studying Qaz's magic, Odell gleans that Qaz is simply channeling the voice of Primordial Chaos through himself, but is not actually in control of his ability.
Jack is the next to receive his omen, after offering Qaz a drawing that he produces from the trunk that he carries on his back. Notably, the drawing is of the sword that the party found in their collective dream a few nights prior. Malkoth takes a quick glance into Jack's trunk as he opens it, and notes that it contains mostly travel and survival gear, but also some illicit substances. When the proclamation is complete, Jack's boon does not have an immediately obvious effect. Qaz recites the following omen for Jack:

> You cannot run forever. Chaos will awaken, and there will be no shadow dark enough to hide you when it comes. A time of unbridling approaches, and your hands will be unbound and your sword unsheathed. Chaos must be freed from its restraints, or it must tear them asunder.
>
>

Frog makes an offering of gold coins and rosemary oil to Qaz, and receives his omen. His boon does not have an immediately obvious effect. Qaz recites the following omen for Frog:

> Where there is a road, there are those who would walk it. Where there is mutation, there are mutants. Chaos seeks always to grow, to spread, to expand. Just as water finds the cracks in a stone and shatters it in the winter cold. Where there stands a wall, always there will follow the forces that seek to dismantle it.
>
>

Finally, Patches receives his omen. His boon does not have an immediately obvious effect. Qaz recites the following omen for Patches:

> What strange mutation. What unlikely stroke of chance. Infinite possibility, evolution, mutation, a diamond lost among a thousand thousand grains of sand. Yet in the end, only one inevitable completion, and the utter impossibility of all else. Evolution demands accidents. All things are Chaos, and Chaos is all things.
>
>

The party speaks with Qaz for a brief while after they have all received their omens. He tells that party that he has lived on the island for all of his life, and is about 50 years old. He explains that, because of his abilities, he was shunned as an exile by the rest of the kuo-toa and grung, although they still come to him occasionally for omens when it behooves them. He seems to carry some animosity towards them.

Qaz warns the party of the island's dangers, including harpies that reside in an ancient ruin to the west, the other kuo-toa and grung, their god Great Wiik-Wiik, and a great flying monster called the corvid. He explains that the kuo-toa and grung make offerings of flesh to Great Wiik-Wiik in order to increase its power, and to the corvid in order to appease its hunger. He cautions that if the kuo-toa and grung find the party, they will surely capture them and sacrifice them to either Great Wiik-Wiik or the corvid. Similarly, he says that if the kuo-toa and grung have found the shipwreck - as the party suspects - then they will likely attempt to capture people from the camp.

Before the party departs his hut, Qaz draws them a map of the island, marking the locations of the harpies' ruin, the kuo-toa and grung village, the temple of Great Wiik-Wiik, the mountaintop where the kuo-toa and grung make offerings to the corvid, and a large lake where the kuo-toa and grung often gather.

The party sets off from Qaz's hut westward, in hopes of investigating the ruins that Qaz marked on their map. On the way, Malkoth sends Blakjak, his owl familiar, back to the shipwreck camp with a message warning the crew to prepare for a possible ambush.

After about an hour of traveling through the dense jungle, Malkoth summons Blakjak back to him. Blakjak conveys to Malkoth that Duncan Rivers received his message and will begin preparing. He also conveys that, according to Rivers, a few members of the crew and passengers left the camp to forage and haven't returns. Specifically, the ships' quartermaster, Ari Everbreeze, went into the jungle to forage, and when she didn't return, Ilex the cleric and Harper Wood, a young boy who fought alongside Jack in the previous day's battle, went looking for her. None of the three have returned. Rivers, as conveyed by Blakjak, emphasizes the importance of keeping Frog safe, and says the camp will begin making preparations.

After the message is received from Blakjak, Odell asks Frog about the nature of his business. Frog says that he is on a diplomatic mission, but does not offer any details.

The party continues to trek through the jungle toward the ruins, keeping an eye out for any sign of Ari, Ilex, and Harper. Along the way, they encounter a bush blooming with sweet-smelling flowers and paralytic berries, but they manage to avoid the worst of its dangers, and even harvest some of the berries.

Shortly after, the party comes across tracks of several kuo-toa and grung, with three prisoners in tow, seemingly a few hours old. The party diverts their trek away from the ruins in order to follow these prints, which lead northward toward the village that Qaz marked on their map.

As they are following the prints, the party is attacked by giant mosquitos and small dinosaurs, which they manage to defeat. After the battle, the party briefly regroups and salvages some dinosaurs parts. While they're tending to their wounds, they notice that those who were bit by the giant mosquitos - Gragnok, Malkoth, and XVIII - seem to have rapidly-spreading rashes. Gragnok uses his lay on hands ability to cure his own disease, which removes the rash.

The party continues following the kuo-toa and grung tracks. Over the next hour of travel, Malkoth and XVIII begin to feel exhausted and feverish, as the symptoms of some sort of illness begin to set in.

Nevertheless, the party presses onward. Eventually, the tracks that they are following diverge in two directions. Referencing Qaz's map, the party deduces that one set is seemingly headed toward the village, and the other set is seemingly headed toward the lake. The tracks which lead to the village seem to have Harper and one other prisoner in tow, while the tracks headed toward the lake have only one prisoner in tow. The party decides to follow the tracks toward the village. Malkoth sends Blakjak to follow the tracks towards the lake and report back about what she finds.

The party eventually reaches a village of kuo-toa and grung, where they see Harper Wood is being held prisoner within a makeshift cage. Beyond the village, they see a great temple built into a cliffside, with a statue of a giant frog monster at its entrance - presumably the temple of Great Wiik-Wiik. Malkoth summons Blakjak back to report on what she found. She reports that she saw several kuo-toa and grung headed toward the mountaintop - where Qaz explained that sacrifices are made to the corvid - with Ari Everbreeze in tow. The party deduces that Ilex must be somewhere in the village or the temple.

The party sneaks up to the village and ambushes the kuo-toa and grung. They manage to defeat the kuo-toa and grung, along with their chieftain, and a koibra which fights alongside them. During the battle, Harper manages to free himself, manifesting blades of psionic energy to cut himself free, and fighting alongside the party. Odell utilizes his rune magic during the fight - a strange blend of arcane and divine magic that none of the party members have seen before. Specifically, he utilizes the power of the goddess Avandra, the Change Bringer.

After the battle, the party quickly regroups, and gathers up some of the valuable left behind by the kuo-toa and grung, including a pair of magical items. Quickly searching the chieftain's hut, Odell finds a shrine with a statue of a great frog monster with tentacles and wings. Rye destroys this statue, to the chagrin of Odell.

Meanwhile, Harper explains that Ilex was taken into the nearby temple. The party hurries toward the temple in search of her.

Inside the temple's entrance, the party finds a mural depicting grung and kuo-toa bowing in worship of a grung, which seems to be ascending. Proceeding further into the temple, they find a chamber where several kuo-toa are worshiping a statue of a giant frog monster with twelve tentacles, seven eyes, angelic wings, and lightning bolts in its hands - inscribed with the title Great Wiik-Wiik. The party defeats the kuo-toa, as well as some grung who are standing guard over them, preventing a few from rushing further into the temple.