Episode 000 - Getting To Know The Gang

## Intro

**Episode description:**
World building, catch-up, getting to know the crew

**Catch phrase:**
*There were literally bags of poop thrown around, uhm"* - Sean, *"Multiple times"* - Wade, *"I forgot about the bag of shit, Jesus"* - Kyle

**Greetings:**
Sean: *"Hello and welcome to The Tabletop Champions Podcast. We are a new podcast, we're a 5th edition, real play Dungeons & Dragons podcast. I have players with me tonight who are named:"*

Scott - *"Hello"*

Ben - *"Hi"*

Kyle - *"Hello"*

Wade - *"Roll it up"*

## Description

The episode begins with introducing the characters: Stark, Torrin, Paeris, and Devin and the admittance of a previous fifth party member "that shall not be named" whose character's name has come to be called Night Breeze. They then gave background on the world of Irulan, a massive world with many cities and locals. The players, it has been said, have free rein to go and do what they please.

Four-hundred fifty years prior to the campaign, the world of Irulan was racked with war. At the time, five heroes were chosen to save the world. However, they were only partially successful. Now, these new adventurers, the players, are now learning of their new fate. The world of Irulan seems to be racist towards elves. There are six major gods of the realm: Corellon, Sehanine, and The Raven Queen fall into the neutral to neutral good range. Torog, who is lawful evil, and Vecna and Zehir, who are chaotic evil, round out the six.

In the past there were two separate major battles: **The Great War**, which involved The Chosen Five, and the **Widow-Maker's War**, which were disputes over land and property claims. Hundreds of thousands died in the Widow-Maker's War. Following the war, a king was voted in. United under the king were representatives from the different areas. A **Council of Nine** was created for lawmaking. Each house represented also represents one of the major continents.

## Episode

### The party assembles [21:27]

All the players had received a notice from a person called Ely Carbuncle. The contents of the notes were different, however the purpose of them was all the same; they were trying to bring the players to Loressea. All the players showed up in the city and all the sudden a dark shadow overtook the land. All the players went unconscious and when they woke up again, they found themselves in dark confined space and they saw light emanating from their chests. Torrin started to bust out of the confinement and he found himself in the middle of a massive funeral for 3000 people from the town. The sight of Torrin being alive started a mass hysteria in the crowd. Everybody started opening coffins to see if their loved ones were still alive, however only five people survived: Torrin, Paeris, Stark, Devin and Nightbreeze. In the midst of the confusion, the players were attacked by shadows, summoned by a person wearing clothes fitting a person from Yenpool.

### Quest starts (Meeting Silaqui, Cyric and Victor Enggold) [23:48]

The players met Silaqui, who is a powerful mage living in Loressea. She told the players about The Great War and the previous 5 heroes from the war. She suggested that the players traveled to The Lost City to explore it, since this was the battleground for the previous 5 heroes’ last stance against evil.

As the players were speaking with Silaqui, Cyric visited her. He requested that the players traveled to Avisac to seek The Council of Nine and report the events that had occurred in Loressea. During the conversation Cyric was being extremely racist and arrogant, which didn’t help his request for aid.

The players were also sought out by the town’s priest. He requested that the players stayed in Loressea to protect it in case more shadows showed up.

In the end, the players decided to follow Silaqui. They met with her at Lake Avisac, where she summoned a magical airship, captained by a pretty Sylph lady. The ship flew the players to The Lost City.

### The Lost City [26:39]

When the players arrived at The Lost City, they found it barren. The only exception was a little caravan with a gnome called Buck Flittergrinde, sitting outside the city. He told the players that only few people ventured into the city and even less came out. However, the people who did come out would bring valuable treasures that he would trade them for.

When the players entered The Lost City, they found it to be an old Dwarven city and in it there was a statue to the god Torog. Beneath the statue, they found an entrance to a lower chamber. The chamber was as place where people who followed the evil gods went to worship.

The players worked their way through the dungeon, where they found a crystalline portal. The portal had a green glowing color, but there was a crack down the center of it. In front of it, there was a stone table, with five stone figures (of The Chosen Five from 450 years ago). The figures looked like they had been frozen in time.  Each statue was wearing a talisman with a triangle figure. In the corners of the triangle there were the three symbols for the good gods. The players decided to take the talismans, and as they put on the talismans, the players’ chests started to glow again. Seeing the light in their chest, the PCs realized that they had been raised by this trifecta of gods to fight whatever evil scourges in the lands. They were the new Chosen Five (or The Five).

The Chosen Five started to leave the dungeons, but at the exit they met two talking dwarven stone faces. One of the heads was broken, but The Five repaired it. In return the working one rewarded The Five with a scroll. It explained the adventures of the previous Chosen Five and that they had to find something called the Occulus. The Chosen Five was surprised to see that the scroll was signed by a person named Angramar Mithalmyr, since it isn’t a common last name.

### Gnome Caravan [32:19]

 When The Five got back to the airship they learned it had been attacked. The ship was destroyed, the sylph was impaled to the bow of the ship, Buck Flittergrinde was wounded and his carts raided.

The Five healed Buck and he asked The Five to follow him to where the rest of his caravan was. When The Five got to the gnome caravan, they met a small boy who was locked up in a cage. The boy had been bit by a werewolf. Because it would be full moon that night, The Five decided to stay in the caravan to protect it, in case the werewolf would come back. Torrin purchased a “shitty” silver sword for this occasion. During the night, the caravan was attacked by a werewolf, who The Five managed to kill. After it was killed, the werewolf turned back to its human form. It turned out to be a young woman, with a slave tattoo from Yenpool. The Five concluded that somebody from Yenpool didn’t like them.

The gnome caravan offered to pay The Five with ale and gold; if they would follow and protect the caravan to Avisac (they accepted the offer).

### Choo [34:41]

During the travel, a child was kidnapped and The Five decided to pursue the kidnappers. They tracked the kidnappers to a tower where they heard some goblins talking about how they were going to get paid for ambushing The Five. The Five attacked the goblins and as they did, one of the goblins tried to send of a raven message. The Five managed to stop the goblin in time and instead they sent a forged document, telling that the ambush had been a success. During the battle, The Five killed all the goblins except one. Much to Torrin’s dismay, Devin decided to take the goblin as a ward and he named it Choo.

The Five continued travelling toward Avisac with the caravan (and Choo), however about halfway there; they were met by an envoy from the king. They were told that The King wished to speak to them and they are escorted to Avisac.

### In Avisac [36:21]

Once The Five reached Avisac, they spotted a person looking like a cultist, who was about to send a note with a raven. The Five pursued the cultist into an alleyway, where they managed to kill the bird before the message could get away. The first person who entered the alleyway was Nightbreeze and he just got to see the cultist casting some kind of magic on the note. It turned out to be a curse, however when Nightbreeze picked up the note, he resisted the curse. Without thinking much more about the curse, he proceeded to pocket the note, not telling the other players about the curse. In order to keep the cultist from fleeing, Stark had used his sword to impale the cultist’s leg into a wall. The Five then proceeded to interrogate the cultist.

Afterward, The Five were then brought through the city to an audience with the king. During the audience, Nightbreeze decided to ask The King what he thought about the note. But when The King touched the note, he became cursed. It now looked like The Five had committed regicide and they were taken into custody.

### In the prison [38:48]

The Five were thrown into the deepest and darkest cell available, where even darkvision can’t see. Several times during the weeks spent in the cell the other players were only inches from killing Nightbreeze for his indiscretion. Especially Devin was very close to doing it.

The Five were smuggled rations of food into their cell, with notes from a group called The Order of the Raven. The council woman from Llandy visited The Five during the imprisonment. She wanted to give The Five some support, she told that not everybody was against them and that maybe there was a way to save the king. She also told that The Five would be brought to the council the following day. The Five are brought before The Council of Nine and there is a big argument whether The Five should just be lynched on sight or they should be given a chance to prove their innocent. In the end, the council decided to give The Five a chance. If they wanted to be spared, The Five had to utilize the cursed note to go into The Shadow Realm and save the king. Since they were going to die anyway, the adventures decided to go along with trying to save the king. They are then led back to their cell, until the following day where they are going to try save the king.

At this point, The Five are visited by Cecil, who is the right hand for one of the members of The Council of Nine. The Five don’t like him very much and Nightbreeze decides to throw a bag of poo at Cecil. When he does this, Nightbreeze notices something special about Cecil, but he doesn’t share it with the rest of The Five.

The Five have also received some lockpicks and a note from The Order of the Raven saying, if The Five escaped The Order of the Raven would help them flee. This was the moment where Devin came closest to killing Nightbreeze, because Nightbreeze really wanted the lockpicks. However, Devin got the lockpicks first and wouldn’t let the other players escape. Torrin was also supporting using the lockpicks, but not because he wanted to join The Order of the Raven, but because he will do about anything to avoid imprisonment.

### The Shadow Realm [43:17]

The Five ended up deciding not to use the lockpicks and they were brought to the cursed note, the next day. They all touched the note at the same time and they were brought into The Shadow Realm.

Inside The Shadow Realm, The Five entered a long corridor of a castle, where they saw an image of a crystal with shadows coming in, monsters coming out. They entered a large room, where they saw a big floating head and behind it they saw a giant statue holding a mirror. Using telepathy, the floating head screamed in the heads of The Five, “Your souls belong to me” and it attacked. After killing the floating head, Cecil entered the room and he transformed to a Slaad. The Five fought and killed Cecil, but during the battle, Stark got cut and impregnated by one of Cecil’s claws. The King’s spirit was trapped inside the mirror, but The Five managed to save the king by pulling his spirit out of the mirror by hand. Afterward they destroyed the mirror, but doing so also broke the arms of statue holding the mirror. It looked like the statue was about to come to life, but before the statue finished, The King blew a whistle summoning a portal to The Mortal Realm.

### Back in the Mortal Realm [47:05]

The King and The Five appeared back in The King’s chambers. The King understood that The Five didn’t intended to hurt him. In fact, he was so grateful to be alive that he decided to reward The Five for saving him. Devin received his skirt and a Philter of Love; Paeris received a Necklace of Prayerbeads and a Whistle of Message; Torrin received an Axe of Vengeance and a Flask of Unending Ale; Stark received a Sword of Wounding and a magic crystal which stopped the development of the Slaad.

All of The Five also received a signet called “The Mark of The Fallen” and a part of the land outside the city (New Weedale) from The King. The signet functions as a proof that the person carrying it is working on behalf of The King.

After these events, The Five were brought before The Council of Nine again. The members are always from different parts of Irulan, and they all had problems in their home regions. The council requested that The Five helped solve the problem. Since they had limited time, The Five decided that they could help most people, by first going to Doladhon, then Weedale and last Stebrook.

### Doladhon [53:00]

When The Five get to Doladhon, the city is completely dark. All of the remaining people of the city are hiding on the edge of the forest. The citizens explain that the city was being invading by ogres and other creatures, and all of the sudden, the magical darkness covered the city and that many, many people died. (During this conversation The Five also learned that either one person or all the people of Doladhon were super racist (it depends on who you ask)).

The Five decided to enter Doladhon and they saw a portal being opened by a shadowy ogre. They fight the ogre and manage to stop it from opening the portal completely; however, they are not able to close it again. After an hour, trying everything they can think of to close the portal, Stark notices that the piece of his order’s relic that he has is vibrating. When he takes it out and peer through a part of crystal, he can see a keyhole at the top of the portal. Stark knows the relic used to be a key, but he doesn’t have all the pieces. The Five conclude that they can’t close the portal without the key and they decide to leave the city.

Before they exit the abandoned city, Torrin and Nightbreeze came to the conclusion that when you are in an abandoned city of people you don’t like (racists), the only logically course of action is to rob their bank and magic shop. And so they did. Torrin left with roughly 64,000 gold, a jeweled crown, a cloak of arrow attraction, a ring of fish attraction, a ring of deformity, and a ring of bureaucracy.

### Weedale [1:00:06]

When The Five reached Weedale, they found out that there is a madness striking the town. They are asked to go into the mountains to find the source of the madness. In the mountains they find a tower occupied by cultists. They enter the tower and fight their way through cultists to the top of the tower; unfortunately Nightbreeze went missing in the basement. Here, they see an image of Silaqui taking to a giant eye. When Silaqui sees The Five, she dissipates into mist and escapes, but not before The Five had heard some of the conversation. She said, “I tricked them into going into The Lost City, they somehow survived that. Everything I have thrown against them has failed. In the tower they fight and defeat a medusa like creature, but not before Stark manages to get himself petrified. The Five return to Weedale, carrying Stark in a wagon and he is reverted to normal. In Weedale the madness has disappeared.

### Stebrook [1:04:48]

The Five continue, travelling to The Floating City of Stebrook. Darius Dawntracker, councilmember and headmaster of the Mage School, tells The Five that the city is sinking. Darius believes the reason is that the lake beneath the city has disappeared (it wasn’t the reason; he was just doing things wrong). The Five decided to venture out to figure out what was blocking the water. It turned out that an Ice Dragon had nested at the lake, blocking it with a wall of ice. The Five fought and killed the dragon and destroyed the ice wall, removing the water blockage.

When The Five got back to Stebrook, everybody was happy until they found out something in the tunnels below the city was attacking the city guards. When The Five ventured into the tunnels to find the problem, they met Silaqui. She threw the head of Darius at them and said, “Good luck, I finally got you”. Then she created a stone wall, trapping The Five inside a room with giant under-spiders. The Five quickly dispatched the spiders and they traced their way out of the tunnels. When they got back to Stebrook, The Five found it under attack.

## New NPCs

* Silaqui - Elf Mage from Loressea
* Buck Flittergrinde - Gnome merchant, sell items from The Lost City
* Choo - Goblin, Devin's new ward
* The King - Dwarf