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Dunmari Frontier - Session 11

Demon’s End: in which the party confronts a vile demon

Featuring: Kenzo, Wellby, Delwath, Seeker, Riswynn
Companions: Vola
In Taelgar: Apr 12, 1748 DR to Apr 13, 1748 DR
On Earth: Friday Oct 23, 2020
Raven’s Hold

The Dunmar Fellowship battles and slays a demon at Raven’s Hold, stopping a demonic ritual that is creating gnolls.

Session Info

Character advancement: the party reaches level 4 after killing the demon.

Summary

  • The Dunmar Fellowship and newly rescued adventurer Vola discuss her 10-day captivity and the rumors of Drankorian artifacts at Raven’s Hold.
  • Vola reveals she was captured by an orc and jackalweres serving Agata Dustmother.
  • Kenzo and Wellby, aided by invisibility, scout and discover an undead gnoll and a festering demon performing a demonic ritual.
  • The party engages in a difficult battle with the demon and its undead gnoll minions, eventually killing the demon.

Timeline

  • Apr 12, 1748 DR, night: Discover a demon in Raven’s Hold performing some ritual to apparently create gnolls. Kill demon.
  • Apr 13, 1748 DR, dawn: Awake after a night of disturbing dreams.

Narrative

We begin as the sun begins to set, as the party, holed up in an empty guard tower protecting the inner keep of Raven’s Hold, tends to their wounds and sits down for a quick meal with Vola Forena, an adventurer from Chardon just rescued by the party. Vola, a member of the Society of the Open Scroll, has been a prisoner for about 10 days. During her captivity, she noticed that the noise of the animals - now a loud cacophony of howls - started a few days after she was captured, and has been growing every since. 

After some discussion of plans and next steps, the party discusses the situation with Vola, where they learn several notable pieces of information. She arrived, by herself, 10 days ago, when the entire place seemed empty, on a mission to search for lost artifacts of the Drankorian Empire and return them to Chardon. She had sought Raven’s Hold, as there is a rumor that after it was abandoned by Hobgoblins, it was briefly the lair of a three-headed beast, a creature part lion, part dragon, part goat, that may have left behind some treasure. Moving through the fortress, she was captured by an orc and two jackalweres, working for someone called Agata Dustmother, a possibly fey creature, hundreds of years old. Her captors wanted information on where they could find hidden Drankorian treasures, and when she tried to dissemble they said they would just take her to Agata, but had to wait to make sure the ritual succeeded before they could leave. 

Determined to find out more of what was going on in the evening, before sleep and despite Vola’s protestations that she was utterly exhausted after nights of bad dreams and haunted sleep, the party decided a scouting mission should investigate the inner keep. Kenzo and Wellby set up to explore, Wellby turned invisible by Delwath’s magic. Finding their way down to the inner courtyard of the fort, where mists and vapors rising from the ground shrouded them, they began to investigate the inner keep.

In the flickering firelight from the windows and open doorway of the keep, Kenzo and Wellby explore. While investigating, Kenzo accidentally makes some noise, and a undead gnoll creature, with flesh dropping off its bones, hears and looks directly at him. Moving quickly, Kenzo rushes forward, missing with his staff but moving with supernatural speed to make two quick unarmed strikes that bring the creature down, apparently without anyone noticing. Looking into the main hall of the keep, Kenzo and Wellby see a demon, a kind of goat-like bipedal creature with horns, vicious claws, a barbed tail with a stinger, and flies buzzing around festering sores all over its body. Flames flicker in several places across the room, as the demon just paces back and forth, waiting for something. 

Returning to the tower, the party discuses what to do again, and eventually decides that they need to know more about what is happening, and sends Wellby back to watch. After the sun sets, the demon begins dragging bodies of animals off a pile in the chapel, and dragging its claws through the flesh, causing it to start to rot and bubble with pus. It then drags each body to the main entrance, and does this to another. Returning to discuss with the party, Seeker notes the similarity of this to the belief among some demon cults described in a book he read several years ago, who believed the consumption of flesh of a demon would give the consumer the powers of a demon. 

Deciding they need to kill this thing, the party and Vola sneak across the inner courtyard and attack the demon and its undead gnoll allies. The battle is difficult, as the poisoned sting of the demon’s barbed tail causes considerable pain: Delwath and Kenzo both suffer the effects of its sting, there flesh beginning to rot and attract flies. During the battle Delwath is nearly killed, and the party struggles, but in the end Kenzo dispatches the demon with a expertly placed strike. After the battle, while Kenzo sits outside mediating with Vola, the rest of the party begins to search the keep. Although mostly empty, they do find a few signs of hobgoblin occupation, including a stack of notes that seem to document troop movements or something similar, in an unknown language. 

Back in the tower, settling in to rest, the party’s sleep is disturbed by dark dreams, disturbing their rest. We leave Kenzo, Riswynn, Delwath, Seeker, Wellby, and Vola as they struggle awake in the morning sun.