The Citywide Coldsnap

and

Justin as the DM

"**The Citywide Coldsnap**" is the twenty-sixth episode of Rise of the Arcane, the third season of Tales From Del'nasra

Potential allies have been met who are on the hunt for the truth around their old friend, Kena Peshan and the party have each received strange sigils branded on the back of their hands inviting them to the masquerade three days from now.

## Episode Synopsis

#### **Previously on Tales from Del'nasra**

*"Antyr, Lionel, Doe and Hopper dealt with the corpse that had withered in front of their eyes, with Hopper bashing the corpse through the latrine with their shield. Upon successfully hiding the body, the group left the brothel, gathering oysters along the way for snacking. As they left, they witnessed a mugging and some thefts happening around and after asking for directions to a tailor, they were pointed to someone called Quay off in the marketplace.*

*As they made their way towards the tailor, the other group consisting of Grin, Torger and Vonkar scouted the sewers some more and eventually surfaced near the marketplace just in time to see the others making their way through. Torger, shadow stepped towards Antyr utilizing the gloom from the storm and tugged on the backpack that Doe had transformed into it, but became adhered and the three of them fell to the ground.*

*Picking themselves up, the group arrived at the tailor in question, a shop called The Strap which was run by a human man in his 70s called Marius Quay. Costumes were purchased, while others were paid to be custom made and would be available for pickup the following morning. While there the party learned that the Marquis had been demanding unique outfits for each guest attending the masquerade and that he had intensified the security around this year’s masquerade fearing that people were after him.*

*After acquiring their outfits and preparing for the masquerade in three days time, Hopper pulled the group into a nearby alleyway to discuss what to do next, and while talking someone on the rooftops above slipped and made their presence known and began running off along the rooftops, having clearly been spying on the group. Torger and Grin took off after the hooded figure across the rooftops, where they called out to an incredibly fast individual, also hooded and cloaked.*

*Eventually, a tussle broke out between a few members of the party and the hooded figures who revealed they were looking for Guardian Peshan and had falsely believed the party were working closely with them. The hooded duo mentioned they should speak in private and led the party to an abandoned shack where the duo were revealed to be a bugbear with red-dragon-like mutations and a tall goliath woman named Druck and Dax respectively. They explained they used to travel with Guardian Peshan and mentioned they encountered people being held captive at their tower and when confronted about it, they attacked the duo.*

*They were seeking answers regarding their other friend Flitz who they hadn’t heard from since Peshan met them at the Soulspyre Academy around a little over a week or so prior, and the two of them couldn’t enter the academy for information due to not being students nor staff. As night fell during the talking, an invisible courier arrived and gave the party their invitations to the masquerade in the form of unique brands on the back of each of their hands, which Hopper identified that each brand was affected by a form of magic that detailed the individuals known names and titles, as well as each brand had a geas spell affecting it, ensuring that every guest entered the front gates for the masquerade.*

*Most of the party then chose to spend the night in the shack with Hopper and Grin spending the night at the brothel."*

#### The Episode

Grin and Torger both wake up in their separate locations of Port Creach with the former waking up in the brothel while the latter woke up in the shack where most of the party slept the night before. Immediately, the both of them were extremely cold and could see frost having formed on every inside surface and anyone that they could see had seemingly frozen solid in an instant, including members of the party. Outside, Port Creach was being hammered by a horrific winter cold snap and blizzard in the middle of summer, something that didn't make sense for this bayou-like, sub-tropical climate.

While the pair of them tried warming themselves the best they could, a commotion could be heard coming from the street in the form of cackling and laughter. Following the source of the noise, Torger and Grin not only reunited but saw a group of five ice mephits defacing a couple of people who had been frozen solid during their day to day affairs in the city. The mephits saw Grin and saw that he was not only unfrozen, but was wielding a flaming torch, something they perceived as a hostility and attacked.

The mephits were easily defeated by the pair of them, with each one exploding into jagged ice shards upon death. During the conflict, the sound of thunderous footfalls could be heard fading to the east and the blizzard seemed to be coming from that direction, but also the source of this whole affair seemed to be coming from a mint-green tinged rift in the sky. Deciding to see if they could stop this severe cold snap before it got worse, the pair of them followed after the large, three-toed humanoid footprints being left behind in the snowfall.

After about an hour of following the tracks, Grin and Torger came to a towering humanoid-like figure made of solid ice lumbering through the city a few blocks away. They could make out vague features and it seemed to be freezing everything around it from the howling winds and blizzard-like conditions that it expelled from massive vent-like pores all over its body. Deciding they would try and stop this entity, believing it to be the source of the strange winter storm, they chased after it.

Eventually, they caught up to the figure as it was entering the residential district of the city and it seemed lost and appeared to be growing agitated. It tore a fountain out of the ground and tossed it extremely far out of frustration and continued walking along, towards the city's western wall. Torger enlarged himself and raced towards the figure, while Grin flew onto a nearby rooftop to remain hidden. Torger began throwing punches into the creature's back, and felt the temperature surrounding it plummet to nearly unnatural levels. The creature retaliated with a few punches in return and spoke in a language neither Grin nor Torger could understand, while Grin attempted to shoot at it from the distant rooftop with his crossbow.

Standing near the creature Torger was buffeted by the severe cold and shadow-stepped away to avoid the creature's powerful blows, but seemingly agitated from being attacked, it followed after Torger and knocked him out with two powerful blows to the face causing Torger to start dying. Once it dealt with Torger it turned around, paying no attention to Grin and continued walking towards the city's eastern wall. Grin flew over, seeing that Torger was bleeding heavily from the head and dying, he cast *Cure Wounds* and healed Torger. Torger then downed a *potion of healing* to further heal himself.

The pair of them then chased after the hulking ice-creature as it began to climb the city wall, and speaking the entire time in it's mysterious language. As it climbed Grin and Torger peppered it with their crossbow and shortbow, while Torger got in close with his flying boots for more melee attacks with Grin delivering the final blow with their crossbow causing the creature to plummet from the wall, and with its defeat the blizzard ceased and all the snow, ice and this creature's body were sucked back up into the rift, including any mephits still hidden throughout the city.

As the rift closed, the weather returned to normal and people and buildings around the city began to thaw with nobody having any knowledge of what had transpired, but were seemingly confused about how it was so late at night suddenly. Grin and Torger discussed getting new tattoos after their victory and headed towards the Salted Goat tavern for drinks.

#### After the Break

They arrived at the tavern and immediately felt a strange sensation run down from their head to the back of their necks, but entered anyways seeing that it was loud, boisterous and had a nautical theme to it. The place was packed and they had just entered to a see a dwarf getting kicked out for getting far too drunk, and for having a history of potentially killing someone inside, even though the owner, a copper dragonborn man mentioned he didn't mind a bit of bloodshed in the establishment on occasion.

Torger and Grin approached the empty stools at the bar and opened up a conversation with the owner, revealed to be named Falkus Brinestone and that people can't tell a deliberate lie while under the tavern's roof due to some strange glyphs he carved into the ceiling and support pillars with help. He gave the pair of them expensive whisky and bottom shelf rum and after some talking, started a game of twenty questions with the pair of them. It was through these questions that they learned Falkus was an ex-contract killer, and learning this, Torger attempted to hire Falkus to help take care of someone.

After intriguing him on the nature of his target, the city's very own Marquis Torgol Marrshade, he mentioned the party's name without having been prompted, revealing he was hired a few days prior by Kastagar to bring the party to him upon their arrival in the city. He said their contract seemed far more interesting, and mentioned that he "always wanted to live in the Marquis manor". The pair then paid him a total of 1,000gp to aid them in dealing with the Marquis and that they would signal him with a small trill on Grin's accordion when the time was right. He expressed excitement in working together and seeing what would happen, offering the pair of them accommodations for the rest of the night upstairs, and due to the *Zone of Truth* spell affecting the whole of the tavern, mentioned they were safe here.

They then retired to bed for the night.

## Featured Characters

### Player Characters

* Antyr Xiloscient
* Doe
* Grin
* Hopper Thimblefoot
* Lionel
* Torger Otrson
* Vonkar Eldsaga

### Mentioned

* Kastagar, Architect of Sorrowed Gloom
* Marquis Torgol Marrshade