@16/03/2025

From Artume

• Drakor, Paradox and Elara are in the Crystal Tomb wandering down a corridor when suddenly and silently from a crystal mirrored gateway out steps the beautiful and mysterious Lady Thuvia of the Red Sphere. She tells the PCs that she has returned because a "an ancient and eldritch force from the Elder Realm has compelled her to return to the deathly passages of the Crystal Tomb of the Empyrean Lords of the Astral Fae and conduct their mortal souls through time and space to a world in need of salvation by the actions of exemplar heroes such as themselves".
• She raises forth her glowing scarlet sphere and the PCs are wrapped in a swirling and disorientating crimson mist as all goes dark.

To Brimstone & Wytchbane

• Morna MacGruber uses her red rose pendant, a magical relic given to her years before by the Lady of Roses to call for aid in a time of need. This opens a Fae Crossing through the Elder Realm and brings three heroes from a strange faraway world to help with the situation at the Church of Saint Prudentia in Ragged Hollow.
  • Lady Thuvia and the Lady of Roses are actually different avatars of the same powerful and immortal Fae entity that appear across the multiverse.
• Once the PCs have come through the Fae Crossing, they manifest physically in the small MacGruber cottage at the edge of the forest. Their appearance and clothing have altered in ways that fit into the culture of the freeholds. At first they are in deep slumber, a sort of magical stasis from which they must awake.
• Knowing that her son will soon arrive, Morna locks the three sleeping strangers in her house and proceeds to the town square to await Will MacGruber. Once they are reunited, she tells him of the troubles and quickly takes him home to meet the others.
• All of the heroes (except Paradox) have awoken and somehow are aware of their surroundings and what has befallen them. They notice their changed appearance and have some knowledge of their new world and what is expected of them if they are ever to return home once again.

Adventure Setting

• Ragged Hollow is best known for its flax, which is pulped into paper and used to make books at the Church of Saint Prudentia, or made into cloth and oil (each family owns a loom and an oil press used during the long winter evenings).The town and its 500 inhabitants are governed by a council of priests from the Temple. There is no army or town guard. The paladin Lady Constance and her squire along with 34 villagers are trapped in the Church which is encased in some sort of magical sphere (that the villagers have come to call the Veil) where nothing can get in nor out.
• To the west lies a mountainous region dominated by Mount Mourn that no one ever goes into. To the north across the Rime River is the Gloam Wood, a deep dark forest that one generally avoids exploring. To the south stretch the notoriously ill-famed Wailing Hills, an area few enter willingly, though a trail leading to a few frontier villages some three days walk away does cross through them.

The Adventure Begins

• Will and the dwarven merchant Lofarr part ways as he meets up with a party of dwarves headed back to their settlement in Grimscarth. He wishes Will farewell and tells him he will visit Ragged Hollow soon. After waiting at the crossroads for his fellow village friends returning from their own Winnowing, he finally decides to leave after they don’t show up at the appointed time and he makes his way to the village.
• Will's mother Morna, sensing his arrival, leaves the sleeping heroes in the cottage and runs out to meet him just as he enters the village and sees the Veil for the first time. She tearfully greets him and pulls him along back to their cottage, explaining about what has transpired in the village and with the summoning brought about by the magic of the pendant given her years ago by the Lady of Roses.
• Will enters the cottage as two of the three heroes awaken. They seem to know what has happened to them and even have some idea of where they are and memories of this world somehow. After a quick meal, they set off to see what has happened to the Church of Saint Prudentia.
• Many of the villagers are wandering around in confusion and despair and they inform the party of the following:
  • The bell has tolled 36 times at midnight (the number of villagers and priests trapped inside).
  • Strange dream-like visions are seen at night when the bell tolls.
  • The Veil seems to be constricting bit-by-bit and the weather vane at the top of the bell tower is now poking out from the Veil where once it was covered.
  • No one can get in or out of the temple. Scholars and schoolchildren are trapped inside. Please help them!
  • As the priests are all sealed inside the temple, no one is in charge of the village. Everyone is afraid or angry. No one knows what to do.
  • A witness! Young acolyte Justin (who was out fetching milk) reported that Lady Constance and her squire arrived at the church last night with a third mysterious person and that everyone seemed under pressure.
• Armed with some information, the group decides to follow-up on some leads and speak to some key villagers:
  • Sharp’s General Store
    • Micah the Proprietor told them Tobias bought some rations and gear and was headed up to the Old Dwarf Tomb up at Mount Mourn.
    • He also tells them about Old Man Windler, a mad inventor who used to make clockwork wonders, and who died some years back. Said that his house on the river island is abandoned and probably haunted.
    • Micah also said "this damn village is cursed, everything's going to Hell, even the well water went bad".
  • Lost Ox Inn
    • Kenan the Innkeeper is sad because he is losing money because the village drunks who keep his business going don't come around no more as they are hanging out smoking at an old tower south of the village that used to be a bandit hangout.
    • A very drunken Justin the Acolyte tells them that was out fetching milk when the Veil appeared. Before he was sent out for the milk, someone banged on the church doors to get in. It was Lady Constance and her squire with some third mysterious person who looked sick or wounded...maybe...can't be sure... burp ...too much ale....
  • Home of Tobias
    • His mother said she always knew Tobias would be a famous hero one day because he definitely wasn’t touched by evil and is better than the others, but she doesn't know where he is. After being confronted about lying, she admits that Tobias went up to Mount Mourn and never returned.
  • The Dancing Needle
    • Laban the Tailor is plagued by vermin and offers 100GP to the party if they take care of the problem.
    • The heroes go down in his basement and kill 5 mutated spider-rat things and find a hole in the wall leading to rat tunnels that seem to run to different location in the village.
  • Village Well
    • After Micah told them that primary water well was not being used because of a horrible stench and taste, they go to investigate. Drakor is lowered down into the well and finds a cursed and mutated rat-goblin sick with some disease. It tells them that it was a normal goblin named Croaker who was cursed by the evil hag Orla.
    • They extract the cursed creature and take it back to Morna's cottage to be healed.