The Undead Problem

## So the Journey Begins...Meeting at Valhingen Graveyard

   Five strangers met at the entrance to Valhingen Graveyard, answering the call of Doomguide Yorvir Glandon from various handbills posted around the City of Phlan - far to the East of Faerun in the Forgotten Realms.

> *"Valhingen Graveyard looks more like a park than a cemetery and stands in stark contrast to the ramshackle, half-built Phlan. Gravel walkways wend between tall trees, well-tended beds of shrubs and flowers, sturdy mausoleums, and rows of headstones, monuments and commemoratives statues."*
>
>

A driving hunger to prove herself as a good person brought one; an opportunity to spread the word of her lord brought the next; a need to rid the world of the Undead brought two more, and one beefy guy was passing through hoping to find the answers to his own questions. Anguish, Elenya, Creswinda, Mardred and Hirsch met with Doomguide Glandon to find that in the past Valhingen Graveyard was overun by weeds and the undead but was rescued and returned to the glorious resting place they saw before them. However, recent events hinted that undead were once again rising in the catacombs of Valhingen and the Clergy were not in a physical state to defend.

The party agreed to investigate the catacombs, and the Doomguide gifted them all Nightvision goggles and assistance in the form of a perky young Acolyte, Cassyt. They accepted her help begrudgingly as she knew the catacombs well and there were no maps for them to take with them, on their journey she told them numerous facts about the catacombs and the various funerary practices in Phlan.

## The Catacombs

The party faced many encounters with zombies, ghouls, and skeletons - pretty much confirming that some form of necromancy was taking place in the graveyard. Our adventurers found it pretty easy to dispatch most enemies within the upper catacombs and resisted the temptation to steal the precious jewels and items left by mourners for their loved ones which gained the trust of their Kelemvor Acolyte. Not all avoided the temptation of treasures in the Crypt - and the group did aid the escape of a group of thieves that had been trapped in the catacombs by a group of ghouls gaining the group the *Favour of the Welcomers*. Though they didn't end up stealing anything, this tarnished Cassyt's view of the group for a while, though her desperation for friends who were not old men soon overcame her clerical judgement.

After leaving the Sun Pit behind, the group found that the Obelisk set up centuries ago to protect the upper catacombs from any "evil" (modern understanding: undead) had a missing element, meaning that the ward was broken and there was foul play at hand. The group moved quickly through the Tomb of Sedrair II, setting off most of the traps and managing to convince Cassyt that it was better to steal Sedrair's knife and stay alive than it was to be dead without it. They next encountered a neat row of skulls with which the group talked about any strange goins on, and deciding that it *wasn't* wrong to steal the animated skull of a deceased being if they asked to be brought along however, each party member (except Mardred to her knowledge) gained a travelling partner.

### The Skulls

#### Anguish carries *Sepurcia de Gadea*

She was the wife of Phlan's most prominent Mob Boss who mysteriously disappeared after her husband was found dead. Rumour is she found out about his child labour practices and killed him herself, not even the Kelemvorites know how her skull got into the catacombs.

#### Creswinda carries *Niklas Bohm*

He was a lawyer who managed to somehow die of old age while being the town gossip - knowing everything about everyone. He was a very wealthy gentleman and generally well liked - seemingly harmless, though the people who disliked him tended to end up behind bars...

#### Elenya carries *Florinda:*

She was the daughter of a human nobleman who died at the age of 25 falling from her window while being serenaded by the blacksmiths half elven son. He was banned from visiting her in the catacombs and her afterlife consciousness has developed a terrible fear of heights.

#### Hirsch carries *Zathran Alanarel:*

He was a doctor and community healer, generally not a chatty fellow he saved thousands of lives across his life, but regrets that he never got to see the world. He did fall in love though, he fell deeply in love with Ellisandra the lower town baker witch, he would call on her constantly and loved her dedication to her cat Mog.

#### Mardred carries the stowaway *Mog*:

Unknowingly, Mog the famous Phlan skeleton cat snuck into Mardred's pack for a warm place to rest her bones. Ellisandra loved her cat so much that when Mog passed she cast a necromancy spell so powerful that it outlived her by centuries - when Ellisandra was interred into the necropolis Mog followed and has been catching mice and bugs that find their way down into the depths.

## The Necropolis

The necropolis is where most new internments are taken and so Cassyt was very familiar with the layout and twists and turns.

> "*It's as if you've entered a subterranean city. The crypts here are modeled after surface homes and other buildings, although they're only about two thirds the size of their real counterparts."*
>
>

   The party encounters sentry Kobolds and all but annihilated them instantly because Kobolds are very weak, they did however have one Kobold that was quick enough to raise the alarm and so had to quickly run to the Amphitheatre where they found the source of the undead issue - the Red Wizard Rorreth. Along with a Thayan Knight and a crazed Cultist, he led a group of zombies and cultists against the adventurers - but despite this he fell swiftly without time to flee.

Rifling through the belongings and documents he tried to hide and burn - the group found that Rorreth had been trying to raise an army of undead against the City of Phlan for a group called the *Cult of the Dragon*. He stole into the catacombs and had been living down there for a month raising corpses with the Cultist with the aim to dig under the city to find the Pool of Radiance. Rorreth was clearly trying to pack away anything that implicated the Thayan wizards in the scheme, but Rorreths journal linked the Thayan wizards to the Cult of the Dragon and their plan to free Tiamat from her imprisonment.

They discovered that the Pool of Radiance was likely located under Valjevo Keep, and there are extensive maps and calculations left behind from the cultist and Rorreth himself which they took to the Doomguide when they reported that the catacombs were now clear of undead. The Doomguide takes them through a door and tunnel to speak to the Lord Sage of Phlan about the Pool of Radiance resurgent...