Book 1: The Marked Bandits and Their Ascended

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Book 1 Summary

* Arix, Artemis, and Morgana meet and try to figure out what's going on in the town of Triel, where people are going missing.
* They find out about cultists and follow them into a temple they later learn is the Temple of the Elder Tree.
* Fighting their way through the Temple, they come across the Wanderer, locked in a cell after having been captured by the cultists while traveling.
* All four of them find out that they have to purify the Tree's roots to give it enough strength to kick out a monster called the Ascended from its heart. Along the way, they learn about the five Wards, and that they're all weak and failing, but they can still be saved.
* They find a message for someone they only know as the Man in the Black Coat from a man named Orestes van Lynets, or the Man with White Hair. He taunts the MitBC about finding a Book and burning it.
* The Tree gives them a brief description of the Books and what they do, but is unable to tell them what's become of them other than they needed to be destroyed if found.
* They fight the Ascended, kill him, and leave after the Tree gives them two shards of wood from himself.
* The party goes to Elturgard, where they meet the High Overseer, the Grandmaster of the Blood Hunters, and their--sort-of secret--daughter, Wistray.
* The previous Overseer went mad and was locked away in a cell beneath the cathedral to be questioned, but he turned into a monster and was killed. Arix, Artemis, and Morgana couldn't get much out of him.
* The party winds up forcing the Overseer to tell her daughter that her unknown father is the Grandmaster.
* The party is asked to escort Wistray part-way to Caer Gwaed, getting off at Baldur's Gate.

Chapter 1: The Marked Bandits
In the town of Triel in Elturgard, a Kobold named Arix managed to harass two Blood Hunters, an elite monster-hunting organization famed for their use of Blood Magic to accomplish their goals, was barely able to smooth things over and managed to befriend the half-orc Hunter Garun. The next day, an Owlkind named Artemis and a Half-Elf/Dwarf named Morgana found their way to the inn, and so too did the Grandmaster of the Order of Blood Hunters, who briefed Garun and his partner Pholtera on an important issue in Elturgard they needed to look into. The pair of Hunters entrusted part of the issue, with the Grandmaster’s blessing, to Arix and his new compatriots before riding off towards Elturel, the capital of Elturgard, and sent them towards Scornubel, the temporary residence of the new High Overseer, once-Overseer of Scornubel Lahriel Stusk, who replaced Thavius Kreeg after his summary execution at the hands of the Blood Hunters’ Grandmaster when he betrayed his nation to the demon Zariel at the start of the War in Heaven. After the Hunters left, the party was attacked by a group of mysterious assailants with unearthly brands on their foreheads and who claimed to have no control over their own actions. Called “Marked Bandits” by the local crier, their attack on the party led them to be taken to Scornubel to report to Chief Minister Heuven Fathub, second in command to High Overseer Stusk herself. Arix managed to schmooze the Minister and win his support and compliance, gaining leads including that the inciting incident of these “Marked Bandits *happened when the entire town of Qheldin’s Mask, Southeast of Scornubel, mysteriously disappeared after a group of people clad in green cloaks appeared mysteriously in the Reaching Woods*.
The Party eventually made it to the Archives where they met Brenxaris, a half-elf from Qheldin’s Mask, whose sister still lived in Qheldin’s Mask at the time of the incident, and who confirmed that no one in Scornubel knew about the incident until now. In the depths of the Grand Archives, in the sealed section, three books needed to be located, but only two were there, with the third, a Black Book full of knowledge of the arcane and the profane, mysteriously missing. They learned of the “Lost Cult,” who once tried to black out the sun and bring their dark god to the waking world, but failed due to the intervention of the First Hunter. Morgana found out as she walked Scornubel’s market square, The Walk, that the majority of those taken were from the peasant class, except for the mother-in-law of Raymond Tifflich, Baron of Wandermere. The party made their way back to the Town Hall during a reception full of the Nobles of Elturgard, including Baron Tifflich, a bitter and sarcastic noble, completely disinterested in the goings-on of statecraft, who confirmed that his mother-in-law was Lady Balthilda Rhethmann of Qheldin’s Mask. After reporting back to Minister Fathub, terrified of the prospect of Elturgard’s neighbor Amn’s revolution spilling over and taking Elturgard as well, the party was given permission to take a ship upriver to Qheldin’s Mask.

When they arrived, they found the town abandoned, quickly and quietly. Morgana befriended a raven, who told them that a man with white hair had been in the town before the “Qheldin’s Mask Incident” occurred, and desperately tried to get people to leave, and that a mysterious man in a black coat and black glasses had been in the town a few weeks before him and went regularly into the woods before leaving suddenly. The raven also told them of a wizard with a staff made of metal and wood who could shoot fire from it and hated deer and frequently used his magic to kill them. Arix went into the marketplace, where he found a kris dagger made of a mysterious material, and upon trying to pick it up, it severely hurt him and disintegrated in his hand. Upon going into the woods, the party found that the “wizard” was none other than Baron Tifflich, now more relaxed and happy since he was no longer in Scornubel and was actively engaged with his hobbies of hunting and using modern technology- a musket. He and his elven companion, Erlamin Beechflower, briefed the party on recent events before everyone was attacked by a Cultist and a skeleton. Tifflich dispatched the cultist with his musket, shooting him square between the eyes as the rest of the party dealt with the skeleton. Tifflich became enraged when the party told him that Fathub was restricting information, and Tifflich theorized that this was to boost his own image. Tifflich nearly raised a militia to march on Scornubel, but Arix dissuaded him and asked for three days to correct the issue. Tifflich agreed, and the Party went searching for the location of the cult’s hideout, a fortified cave in the middle of the forest.

With the help of a Couatl, who healed Arix of the damage done by the dagger, called Deep Corruption, the party found the fortified cave, inhabited by a single human and a small army of Eldritch Zombies, as well as three cultists who told the Bandit Captain to be thankful that he was not also “converted” and that “Master Volar” had more need of him as he was. Thanks to Arix and Morgana, the party managed to free a group of villagers of Qheldin’s Mask who were being held captive in the fort, including Ophimae, the sister of Brenxaris, who agreed to help the villagers get to Baron Tifflich’s domain in Wandermere. The Party sneaked back into the cave, finding it empty except for a tree that had been warped and disfigured by a corrupting rot. In the roots of the tree was concealed a door with a riddle attached. After solving the riddle by putting two gems that looked like eyes in the sockets of the bas relief on the stone door, they made their way into an ancient temple hidden beneath the rotted tree. Arix scouted the first few halls of the temple, leading the party through stealthily, successfully stealing the hat off a skeleton before leading the rest of the party into battle with four cultists and two skeletons, one now hatless. After defeating the cultists, including one who used a strange, profane magic to summon a tentacle to deal the same corrupting damage dealt to Arix earlier to the other two members of the party. Arix managed to persuade the hatless skeleton to turn on the other cultists by giving his hat back and telling it that the cultists would steal its hat. The Skeleton helped defeat the last of the cultists and gladly stood guard and allowed the party to rest and recuperate from the Deep Corruption’s damage. Rested and ready to continue, the party carried on.

Chapter 2: The Ascended and the Wards
As they fought their way through the dungeon, the party of three came across the prison cells used by the cult, one of which was occupied. Defeating the cultist and his skeleton minion was easy, but meeting the prisoner was more tricky. Known only as the Wanderer, the mysterious elf had been previously captured days before. She told the party of all she had heard, that a man in a black coat and black glasses had been there to help the cult, and that a man with white hair had been there to sabotage it. It seemed that the Man in the Black Glasses had provided the cult with a Black Book, the same one missing from the Archives of Scornubel, which had helped one of the cult’s leaders to “ascend” into some sort of other being. Pushing forward, the party learned of the Five Wards, once used to seal all of Toril against some massive paranormal threat. The seals included a sapling, a dagger made of ice, a metal cup with a white flame inside, a flaming coal in the shape of a heart, and a shining bottle full of liquid. The party quickly surmised that the sapling was the tree they had seen in the cave above, and that it was evidence that the cryptic message they had seen before was true: the ancient seals had been broken, and that the supernatural danger that threatened the whole world had no defenses to meet it.
The party then entered into a large, circular room with a massive cluster of roots in it, alongside two cultists there to guard it. After dispatching the cultists, the Wanderer noticed a pink, unnatural light emanating from cracks in the root, and then worked to temporarily dispel them, revealing that the tree was still alive, and could communicate with them. The tree revealed itself as the Elder Tree and confirmed itself as one of the Five Wards, begging the party to help it reclaim its body from the cult, but also telling them that the cult was nothing new―that it had existed in some way for thousands of years―since the Day of Black Sun. The party was confused, saying that the Day of Black Sun was only three hundred years ago and had been a misunderstanding. The Elder Tree said that while the Day of Black Sun from three hundred years ago may have been a hoax, the Day of Black Sun from thousands of years ago had been real, and that only barely did the Wards hold and total annihilation not come for the material plain from “He Who Sleeps in the Center of Creation,” which the Elder Tree said was a dark, godlike abomination whose mere presence was a threat to reality as a whole, and that the Wards were created to keep it at bay. He begged the party to help retake the whole tree, and so the party went to the two other chambers where the Root Clusters were and dispelled the presence of the Ascended, allowing the Elder Tree to revive somewhat, after which he thanked the party for their help, but asked their help in reclaiming the Heart of the Tree in the center of the old temple.

The party agreed, after which they found a side room and, upon investigation, discovered it was the room of the Man in the Black Sunglasses―and that it had been raided by the Man with White Hair, who left a holographic message for him, as well as a charred cultist crucified to the wall. The man revealed himself as Orestes van Lynets, an Eldritch Knight who knew the man and his master’s “purpose” and why they were seeking the Black Books. He then taunted the man in the black sunglasses by holding up one of the Black Books. He called it the “Book of War” and subsequently ignited it with magic before finishing the message saying “your move.”

Arix, on a lark, stabbed the crucified corpse with an Eldritch Dagger, and shockingly it sprang back to life, cursing the man in the white hair, begging for help from his master, and taunting the party, saying that the Ascended would help bring holy destruction. A deeply sickened and indignant Wanderer demanded that Arix withdraw the dagger, and so he did, after slashing the animated corpse across the throat, silencing him for good. The Wanderer then found a black coat that belonged to the man, but also found it warded against prying eyes, obscuring the wearer’s intention and identity. Arix found the man’s black glasses and, using his Kobold proficiencies, ascertained that these had been around the world, but most notably a ruined cathedral, in which the man had sworn allegiance to a man in an off-green cloak. With the knowledge accrued in the bunkroom, the party finally was prepared to face “The Ascended.”

The team marched into the Chamber of the Tree’s Heart to see two cultists near a beating heart dripping with a strange pink ooze. A voice taunted them, saying their efforts were in vain and that the Day of Black Sun will come again soon, this time swallowing up the world into limitless destruction.

The two cultists turned to attack and were dispatched. Enraged, the voice revealed itself as the Ascended, a large, translucent, pink mass of viscera who used to be the third cultist leader. The Ascended forced the roots it still controlled to trap the party. Arix, the Wanderer, and Artemis escaped the clutches of the roots, but Morgana was not able to get out at first. The rest of the party attacked the Ascended with attack after attack, with Artemis hitting it with one of the fire pearls on the Fireball Necklace.

As it grew weaker, the Ascended sought refuge in the heart of the tree to heal itself, but it was in vain, as the party managed to expel it with fire and seal the heart off. The Ascended had regained some of its strength, enough to attack the Wanderer by throwing out a tentacle and latching itself onto her head and extracting her memories. The Ascended then taunted the Wanderer by saying that she destroyed everything she touched―and then morphed into a seemingly perfect replica of the Wanderer―the only thing missing was her trademark mask. The Wanderer was horrified to see the face, similar to her own but different in enough ways that she knew who it was. The Wanderer suffered a mental breakdown after being tortured by the Ascended, magic lashing out and harming Morgana. The rest of the party was quick to act, with Artemis dragging the Wanderer out of the way and Arix administering the killing blow. As it died, the Ascended taunted the party one final time, saying there was nothing they could do anymore, that the Day of Black Sun was inevitable and that they would be destroyed by it.

As the Ascended melted away, the tree returned to life, lighting up the room and the entire temple with it, purging away the remnants of the cult and their misdoings. The Elder Tree thanked the party for their work but asked them to save the other Wards as well, as the Day of Black Sun was indeed coming and that all five wards would need to be active to save creation. It also asked them to find the Black Books and destroy them so that those who would seek to abuse them would never be able to use them again. The party agreed, and the tree opened its roots, helping them to leave.

As they left, the raven, Birb, returned to them, warning of danger and informing them that Baron Tifflich was on his way to Elturel. The party made it to the Ferry, where Tifflich and a group of the refugees awaited them. After catching up with Tifflich, the party departed to the capital of Elturgard.

The Scars of the War in Heaven were still very present in Elturel. Buildings were either half-destroyed or patchwork repair jobs, gashes in the earth were still visible, and many people had the scars of the Descent on them. Before the High Hall, Tifflich, the refugees, and the other nobles of Elturgard arrived in time for the end of Mass, where the High Overseer and a number of Overseers were exiting the great Cathedral. High Overseer Stusk thanked the Nobles for coming to Elturel and called them all inside the High Hall to discuss the future of Elturgard.

Chapter 3: The Impossible Daughter, a Monster in a Cell, and the Honor Guard
TBA