Skip to content

Dunmari Frontier - Session 51

The God Tree: in which the party meets a mysterious elf who is not what he seems

Featuring: Kenzo, Wellby, Delwath, Seeker
In Taelgar: Aug 29, 1748 DR to Sep 06, 1748 DR
On Earth: Friday Jul 22, 2022
Arendum and the Elderwood

The Fellowship engages with dark forces, uncovers secrets in Arendum, and navigates the perils of the Elderwood while preparing to confront the enigmatic Mezzar.

Session Info

Summary

  • TheDunmar Fellowship battles a shadow hunter, rescues Seeker, and uncovers the hunter’s human form and dire warning about Chardon.
  • They arrive in Arendum, gather information, and spread rumors of their journey to mislead potential followers.
  • Traveling invisibly, they reach the Elderwood where Kenzo connects with a God Tree but senses a disturbing corruption.
  • In the Bek’eni village, they meet Theba, learn of Mezzar’s influence, and retrieve Theba’s magical gear despite dangers.
  • The party prepares to confront Mezzar at the God Tree, wary of the intentions of this mysterious elf.

Timeline

  • Aug 29, 1748 DR, late night: Attacked by a shadow hunter and two yeth hounds around Kill shadow hunter. Manage to sleep.
  • Aug 30, 1748 DR: Travel east during the day, heading overland away from the Chasa. Camp about 20 miles north of Arkad.
  • Aug 31, 1748 DR: Travel through the day.
  • Aug 31, 1748 DR, night: Arrive at Arendum; take rooms at the Laughing Wolf Inn.
  • Sep 01, 1748 DR: Spend the day in Arendum, asking questions and planting rumors about going north upriver to the Dwarven Kingdoms. Send letters to Chardon.
  • Sep 02, 1748 DR: Travel north to the confluence of the Kayan and the Chasa. Turn invisible, and head southeast along the Kayan. Travel through the day, moving slowly to maintain invisibility with Delwath’s magic.
  • Sep 03, 1748 DR: Continue to travel invisibly southeast along the river. Reach the eaves of the Elderwood.
  • Sep 04, 1748 DR: Travel southeast into the Elderwood. Kenzo’s staff begins to pull him east, leading him to a massive tree, called a God Tree by the local Deno’qai. Kenzo meditates and becomes one with the forest. Meet a patrol from the Bek’eni, who escort the party to their village to meet the elf, Mezzar. Spend the night in the Bek’eni camp, where Delwath is treated like a lord.
  • Sep 05, 1748 DR: Spend the day at the Bek’eni village. Meet the disgraced Godcaller Theba, who has information about Mezzar and the Te’kula. Spy on Mezzar’s house; steal Theba’s spear and shield. Debate what to do.
  • Sep 06, 1748 DR, morning: Attempt to leave village. Stopped by the chief, Zaro, until he is swayed by Seeker’s magic. Travel to the God Tree to wait for Mezzar.

Mirror of the Past

Narrative

We start in combat, with the party fighting the shadow hunter and his shadow dogs. Seeker, mostly drained of spells, turns into a Huge Giant Crab for the fight, which sadly does not last long. While Wellby deals with the dogs, and Kenzo flees due to the magical fear effect, the shadow hunter knocks Seeker unconscious and begins to flee with him, until saved by Delwath and banishing smite. 

After the battle, the party watches as the mask falls off the face of the shadow hunter, and in death he shifts to a normal human, looking pale and gaunt. As he dies, he warns or threatens the party that there are many more chalyte zombies in Chardon and it will not take long for Fausto to make more hunters. Before sleeping, the party looks at the mask in Mirror of the Past, seeing a vision of its past.

Over the next two days, the party makes their way to Arendum, arriving late at night and taking rooms at the Laughing Wolf Inn, outside the gates. The next day – the first of September – the party spends in Arendum, getting information and planting rumors, and sending letters back to the people they met in Chardon, warning them of Fausto. From their time in Arendum, they get the sense there is tension between the Chardonians and the Deno’qai: there are no Deno’qai in the town, and it feels like the town is organized around defense. Delwath buys supplies for a journey north, and spreads rumors about heading to the Dwarves and then over the mountains to Sembara.

The next day, the party heads north, before turning east and south at the confluence with the Kayan river, turning invisible as they depart the Chasa. For the next two days, the party travels along the Kayan, invisible, passing pastures and dairy farmers, the occasional forester, and a Chardonian patrol returning from the eave of the woods. Traveling slowly to maintain invisibility during daylight, it takes two days to get into the depths of the Elderwood. 

By September 4th, the party is deep in the woods, following the Kayan river under the eaves of the giant redwoods of the forest. Around mid-morning, Kenzo begins straying from the path along the river, his staff seeming to lead him deeper into the woods. Deciding to follow, the party arrives as a massive clearing, at least 400 feet across. In the center stands a huge tree, towering over the forest itself, stretching maybe 400 feet into the sky, with a 50 foot diameter trunk. Kenzo, drawn to the tree, goes into a trance, becoming one with the forest itself, feeling his perception extend and merge with the network of trees, experiencing the forest as a web of relationships between ancient entities. As Kenzo goes deeper in this trance, he touches something sour, an acidic corruption covered by a sickly sweet taste. Trying to probe deeper into the corruption, Kenzo is ejected from his trance, dazed. 

Meanwhile, the rest of the party has encountered a patrol from a Deno’qai village, led by Zevi of the Bek’eni, a warrior from the Bek’eni tribe. He questions why they are in the Bek’eni forest, wonders at the behavior of Kenzo, and asks the party to come with his band of warriors to their village, to meet Mezzar, an Elves who has been advising and aiding the Bek’eni for the past 10 years. The party agrees to go, helps Kenzo stand and walk, and heads 5 miles east with the Bek’eni.

Arriving at the village, the party meets Zaro, the chief of the village, and Itar, the Godcaller. Delwath is treated like a lord, offered a place of honor at dinner, while the rest of the party is relegated to meager accommodations. Zaro and especially Itar talk a lot about Mezzar, saying he is expected in the next couple of days and he will be eager to meet Delwath. Itar knows little about the tanshi, but is eager to talk about elves and Mezzar, and dresses in an imitation of the elven style. The party learns that Mezzar is trying to deal with the corruption of the Te’kula, and has been taking villagers from the Bek’eni and training them for this purpose. The party goes to sleep, a little suspicious of Mezzar but also eager to meet another Elves, especially Delwath. 

The next morning, while Kenzo is discussing his experience with the God tree (having been incoherent the day before), Wellby catches a woman, apparently not well-treated by the tribe, listening in. She introduces herself as Theba, the former Godcaller, ousted by Mezzar. She tries to convince the party to help her recover her magic gear, taken by Mezzar (who claimed it belonged to the tribe, not her), and then flee with her to investigate what is really going on with the Te’kula (she offers to guide the party if they help her recover her stuff). Theba tells them of another Elves, Belegor, who stayed for a while and then vanished after speaking with Mezzar, and does not want the party to suffer that fate. 

Suspicious but not swayed, the party goes to the God tree. Delwath scries Belegor from a drawing Seeker makes based on Theba’s description, but the scry fails. Kenzo communes more with the God tree, reaching out and feeling two elves in the forest (one here, one to the south), which the party assumes are Mezzar and Delwath, despite learning that Mezzar is supposed to come from the East. 

After returning to the Bek’eni village, the party debates what to do. Still uncertain, they decide to at least get Theba’s gear for her. Clairvoyance reveals the layout of the house, and a basement with a small treasure pile (including Theba’s gear), plus two things that look like patrolling clouds of poisonous gas. Delwath scouts and encounters large poisonous snakes hiding in the trees, and learns the two statues by the front door are magic and probably trapped. Seeker and Delwath dimension door into the stairs to the basement, where Delwath dashes to grab Theba’s gear (taking an attack from the poison cloud), and then both Seeker and Delwath flee with teleportation magic. 

That night, the party decides in the morning they will meet Mezzar by the God tree, but be ready for a fight. The next morning, the chief Zaro is reluctant to let them leave for the God tree until Seeker uses Suggestion on him. The party then proceeds to the God tree to wait for Mezzar.