05 August 2020: recap of the couple of sessions played on Roll20.
Approximately 200 years before the start of the campaign, a powerful clan called the Strongfells initiates a mass coup against the benevolent rulers of Halvendus the dwarven nation and take over.
They take power and over the next 50 years they initiate a mass genocide against all nondwarves and all political dissidents, rewriting history in the process.
Meanwhile a strong bugbear called Ka’la unites his people, where they sneak away to a small island and use illusory magic to hide.
Avoiding further disenfranchisement of their people.
During this time a vast majority of the elvenkind are slaughtered. Currently the only known elf left alive is Marikoth, an old wizard living in the capital of the human city.
About 100 years into their rule, the Strongfell clan try to colonize more land, pushing them into war with the Udilon Empire, a land controlled by humans with a history going back 1000 years.
After 25 years of slaughter and bloodshed, the Udilonian emperor Blesskus XII calls upon an artificer named Grignard Reagent to develop mechanical servants to turn the tide of the war. He is successful and the two nations form an uneasy truce.
Eventually grignard makes another kind of warforged with complex thoughts and emotions with the help of Forsythia, a powerful fae who broke off from the summer court to form a rogue court called the dawnbringer court.
Grignard makes the council, 3 warforged who are tasked with governing the Udilon Empire.
Somehow a plague spreads across the warforged, allowing the emperor’s son Blesskus XIII to take the throne. His father goes missing, it’s alleged that he died of his old age but most people agree he was murdered.
Ingish and Throckmorton find a powerful axe / hammer surrounded by a legend that claims whoever wields the axe is the rightful heir to the dwarven throne.
The legends also state that there’s a powerful artifact simply called ‘The Flame’ that’s somehow tied to this mysterious axe.
And stranger still, a third artifact consisting of magic water in an ornate vase has shown up as well. It is in the possession of Ka’la, the beast king.
In the hunt for the rest of the artifacts, the PCs have become intwined in the business of some kind of cultish secret society, the Bronze Brotherhood. Not much is known about them except for that their members have a knack for magic items, as noted by their collection of animal-human constructs called the broken ones, who they haphazardly leave in the island inhabited by Ka’la and the goblinoids. The broken ones are led by a dwarf with the bottom half of a donkey, like an embarrassing centaur. Most people call him the Ass King.
After making an example of a brotherhood ship, they’ve come across a map leading to their hideout.
Ingish and Throckmorton are accompanied by Dianne, a powerful bard with a mysterious past (recently revealed to be part sylph,) and Lynxie, a broken one with sharp claws and a charming personality.
Meanwhile, two warforged are entrusted with granting sentience to new companions and bringing peace to their disenfranchised race.
Thysbe and Ö, two living robots, become companions. Thysbe lives to serve her fae patron, Forsythia. They are approached by a secretive rebel group of other living robots. Together with their new companion, Avo, a druid with her own fae connections, they travel to the old home and workshop tower of Grignard.
Inside, they met Grignard’s old apprentice-bot, also named Grignard. He informed the trio that Grignard had been imprisoned by the Royal guard, in an unknown location. He also explains that the ‘plague’ that destroys the life of protos is really a coordinated attack, in an attempt to wipe them all out. When a warforged has their stack severed from the rest of their electronic brain, they become basic, non-sentient servants.
He gives the party a few stacks to help them free Grignard from his prison.
As the party leaves the tower, they stumble into the Feywild by crossing a magical creek. The feywild is a strange, magical place where emotions dominate, rather than physics. The trio narrowly escapes a shrinking dining hall with enchanted food that makes you hungrier. Ö’s rage at the incident causes an angry fomorian to attack the party. After they defeat him and rest up, Thysbe’s patron, Forsythia, calls out to her through her sprite familiar.
The trio run into a myconid family and 3 blink dogs. After a short combat, the adult myconid calls off the dogs, and informs the party that in order to escape the feywild, they must follow the mushrooms. They do not understand this cryptic clue, but continue onwards to the crystal spire housing Forsythia’s Dawnbringer Court.
After three trials (potion puzzle, crystal owlbear, iceberg lake puzzle) and one cool sword (literally) the party makes it to Forsythia’s chambers. She reveals that she is imprisoned in this chamber, which is a reflection of Grignard’s own prison cell in the material plane, in the town of Morioh. She was banished from the summer court and imprisoned for giving Grignard the gift of life. All sentient warforged share a connection to the feywild because of the immensely powerful fae magic used to give them life.
The party rests in her chambers, but they realize that the feywild is beginning to take over their bodies. Forsythia informs them that the longer they stay, the harder it will be to escape the feywild.