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Dunmari Frontier - Session 52

Grimbaskal’s End: in which a tyrant dragon is vanquished

Featuring: Kenzo, Wellby, Delwath, Seeker
In Taelgar: Sep 06, 1748 DR to Sep 30, 1748 DR
On Earth: Saturday Jul 23, 2022
Te’kula territory and the Elderwood

The Dunmar Fellowship flees from Mezzar, who is revealed to be a dragon named Grimbaskal, escapes to Te’kula territory, and ultimately defeats the dragon, restoring peace.

Session Info

Character advancement: the party reaches level 10 upon killing Grimbaskal

The party recovers Grimbaksal’s Hoard

Summary

  • The Dunmar Fellowship sets an ambush for Mezzar, who is revealed as an adult green dragon; after a skirmish, the party flees into the Elderwood.
  • After mourning the dead, they meet Theba who guides them through the forest to the Te’kula territory.
  • In Te’kula, Kenzo and Alayah’s jade pieces cause a shared vision; the village’s history and the dragon’s tyranny are revealed.
  • The party, joined by Theba and village chief Yota, plans and successfully executes an attack on Grimbaskal’s lair, defeating the dragon.
  • The treasure is gathered and the party aids in the restoration efforts until they leave, and the Te’kula territory returns to the Material Plane.

Timeline

  • Sep 06, 1748 DR, afternoon: Mezzar arrives. Revealed to be a green dragon in disguise. Combat; party flees into the Elderwood.
  • Sep 06, 1748 DR, evening: Arrive at clearing where Theba told them to meet her. Rest.
  • Sep 07, 1748 DR, early morning: Theba arrives. Discuss situation. Scry Bek’eni, learn they are spreading out to hunt the party. Theba promises to lead them to the Te’kula village.
  • Sep 07, 1748 DR - Sep 09, 1748 DR: Travel through the Elderwood, following Theba.
  • Sep 10, 1748 DR, morning: Travel through the Elderwood.
  • Sep 10, 1748 DR, noon: Arrive at outskirts of Te’kula land. Pass through dream boundary, see visions.
  • Sep 10, 1748 DR: Arrive in the Te’kula village. Meet Yota, chief of the Te’kula, and Ayalah, Godcaller of the Te’kula. Kenzo and Ayalah talk, jades touch, experience vision of Rai.
  • Sep 10, 1748 DR, evening: Dinner in the village. Meet Belegor. Delwath prays to Aaviskar. Theba prays to the Tanshi. Alayah and Kenzo dream together overnight.
  • Sep 11, 1748 DR: Theba proposes killing Grimbaskal, the dragon. General agreement. War planning at the Te’kula village. Convince Obel, an old hunter whose parents and family were killed by Grimbaskal to join. Get blessings from the Tanshi.
  • Sep 12, 1748 DR: Leave the village for the dragon’s lair, guided by Theba and the Tanshi. Travel through the Elderwood.
  • Sep 13, 1748 DR - Sep 14, 1748 DR: Travel through the Elderwood towards Grimbaskal’s lair.
  • Sep 15, 1748 DR: Find Grimbaskal’s lair and the corruption spreading from it. Fight Grimbaskal. Defeat Grimbaskal. Rest.
  • Sep 16, 1748 DR: Organize treasure in Grimbaskal’s lair.
  • Sep 17, 1748 DR, morning: Leave Grimbaskal’s lair to return to the Te’kula village.
  • Sep 17, 1748 DR, afternoon: Travel through the forest, now beginning to clear of its evil influences. Find dead Deno’qai who were once the snake people turned by Grimbaskal.
  • Sep 18, 1748 DR - Sep 18, 1748 DR: Travel through the Elderwood.
  • Sep 20, 1748 DR, morning: Arrive back in the Te’kula village.
  • Sep 20, 1748 DR - Sep 28, 1748 DR: Spend time recovering and resting in the Te’kula village.
  • Sep 29, 1748 DR: Prepare to leave village with Theba, to help the other tribes heal from the traumas inflicted by Grimbaskal over the past twenty years or more. The elf, Belegor, agrees to come. Kenzo gets the second piece of jade from Alayah.
  • Sep 30, 1748 DR, morning: Leave village, collapsing pocket dimension in the process as the Jade Piece of Rai’s Hand holding it open is removed. As the pocket dimension collapses, the party is scattered in all directions.

Mirror of the Past

Narrative

We begin as the party waits at the God tree for the elf Mezzar, debating whether to wait or to flee. While doing so, they look at the God tree in Mirror of the Past, seeing a vision.

The party then sets an ambush: Wellby is hiding behind a minor illusion of a coil of rope on a wooden platform suspended 30 feet above the ground, while Kenzo waits about 100 feet up in the lower branches of the God tree. Mezzar arrives, introduces himself, and attempts to cast Suggestion to first get Seeker, and then Delwath (twice) to step away with him and have a conversation privately for a few minutes. The spells fail, and Wellby, seeing the third attempt, shoots an arrow as combat breaks out. The combat is initially going well for the party, as Seeker turns into a Huge Giant Crab and Mezzar’s attempt to dominate the beast fails. But as the spell fails, Mezzar shifts form, turning from an elf to an adult green dragon, and takes to the air. After a blast of poison gas from his breath weapon catches all of the party and kills every Deno’qai who came with Mezzar from the village, things look rough and the party decides to flee. The heroic rope Ladder remains behind, tangling with the dragon, sacrificing itself so the party can escape. 

After the dragon leaves to go back to the village, the party takes the time to bury the dead, leave a letter explaining what has happened, and construct a crude stone monument with Wall of Stone, before leaving for the clearing to the south where Theba said she would meet them the following day. 

Theba arrives early the next morning, after Delwath has spent the pre-dawn and early morning hours scrying, learning that the Bek’eni are out hunting for the party (presumably), and the letter they left describing what happened has been torn up. Theba leads the party quickly through the forest to the Te’kula territory, covering the 110 mile journey in a little more than 3 days, thanks to Theba’s guidance. 

On the afternoon of September 10th, the party arrives at the boundary of the Te’kula village, which has been shifting into a pocket dimension. Theba warns the party not to leave the path, which twists and turns through dense forest. Despite seeing scenes of fears (whether actually occurring or imagined) and other images, the party enters the village of the Te’kula. 

In the village they are greeted by Yota, the chief of the village, and Alayah, the young Godcaller. Alayah has been expecting the party, having dreamed of Kenzo before. When the party meets, Alayah’s Jade Piece of Rai’s Hand and Kenzo’s Jade Piece of Rai’s Hand are drawn together, and they tentatively let them touch, transporting Alayah and Kenzo into a dream. 

After the vision, the party has dinner with the village. From Alayah, they learn the story of the Te’kula. Thirty years ago, Jordo found the Jade Piece of Rai’s Hand embedded in a fallen God tree, and took it, starting to have dreams of Rai. When Grimbaskal came asking to trade for the Jade Piece of Rai’s Hand, he refused, defiantly, and for his refusal the village was attacked. Many died, but in desperation Jordo called out to the tanshi, and miraculously the Te’kula were sheltered in a pocket dimension.

Later, Delwath and the Elves Belegor have a chance to speak. He talks of what happened to the elves: many were killed in the battles against Cha’mutte’s lieutenants during the Great War, and many of the survivors turned inward, to isolationist, hiding their settlements away in secret places, or even in the Feywild. However, many elves also vanished, and Belegor does not know exactly where they went. Some think they were pulled away to other planes, as Cha’mutte died and his attempted unraveling of the separation of the planes failed. Others think they left to fight evil across the dimensions, or they fled, teleporting whole cities to other planes. 

Belegor returned from the wars to have children, but did not want to stay hidden forever, so when his children were grown old enough to join their generation-mates he left the hidden town of their birth to wander. He found the Deno’qai, and spent some time with the Bek’eni, but when he met Mezzar, he was suspicious. Mezzar attempted to geas him, and when he resisted, turned to a dragon and drove him off. He found the Te’kula, and has been hiding here ever since. 

That night, Delwath prays to Aaviskar, and understands the truth of the dimension that protects the Te’kula. The tanshi do not normally have power to influence the material world so directly, but through the power of the Jade Piece of Rai’s Hand, which formed a hole through which the Tanshi could act, Aasimti, the spirit of the forest leaves and dappled shadows, managed to create a pocket dimension that could not be accessed without their consent. 

That night, Kenzo and Alayah also dream together. 

The next morning, Delwath speaks with the old woman Ariel, who remembers the lost tanshi and tells him they can be found in the Forest of Dreams, to the north. Then Theba approaches, telling the party she has been praying all night and decided they must fight the dragon. 

War planning then commences, with Theba and the Tanshi offering blessings to help, and Obel, an old ranger whose parents and brother were killed by the original attack volunteering to join as well. 

The next morning, on Sept 12th, the party leaves for Grimbaskal’s lair, traveling with the guidance of Obel, Theba, and the Tanshi for the next three days, arriving at the lair on September 15th. The forest is warm, almost tropical, dense and close here, the tang of saccharine sweetness in the air covering the rot, the only animals snakes that stare at the party as they pass. The lair itself is a cave underground, in the rotted out root complex of a God tree. A massive banyan tree grows around where the trunk of the God tree once was, forming a tunnel the dragon can fly out of. Shafts in the earth provide light and ventilation for the cave below. 

The party prepares for the fight, and enters the lair both above and from the main entrance. Although the dragon is waiting for them, and has four snake-person minions with him, careful planning helps ensure the battle goes well for the party. A well-placed Wall of Stone traps the snake minions, and the metal anchor chain animated by Seeker manages to grapple the dragon, keeping it pinned to the ground for a few rounds, until it is also destroyed. Delwath, Theba, and Kenzo fly around the dragon, getting consistent solid hits despite its high Constitution making stun almost impossible to pull off, and Wellby is able to pincushion it with arrows. Finally, Kenzo manages to bring the dragon down with a massive magical punch, and it comes crashing down on its hoard. 

After a breather, the party spends the next day gathering Grimbaskal’s treasure hoard, with many thousands of coins, plentiful gems, and beautiful objects of art and magical items. Spending three days to return to the Te’kula, the party then enjoys some well deserved rest and downtime to train, while the treasure is gathered and divided up, and the bodies of the Deno’qai transformed by Grimbaskal are collected and given a proper burial. Messengers go out to the other tribes, and Theba organizes a diplomatic mission to break the news of Mezzar’s deception and the other corrupting influences the dragon had on the forest. Kenzo speaks with Alayah, who turns over her Jade Piece of Rai’s Hand to him at the fallen God tree, where he also takes some wood to carve into figurines to give to people whose stories he collects. 

During this time, the party also looks at two items in the mirror of Eudomes, seeing the Mace of Terror Vision and the Hralgar’s Eyes Vision.

Finally, on September 30th, the party leaves, with Theba, a diplomatic mission, and the Elves Belegor, to go to visit the rest of the Deno’qai tribes. As Kenzo leaves the pocket dimension with both jades, the portal allowing the Tanshi to reach the world disappears, and the Te’kula territory returns to the Material Plane. 

As the pocket dimension closes, the party is caught in the backlash. For a moment, briefly, they can see each other being pulled in different directions: Wellby, to a ship approaching the jagged coastline of an island far across Green Sea; Delwath, to a campfire hidden in the Forest of Dreams; Seeker, to a meadow of butterflies with two satyrs frolicking across it; Kenzo, to a dense, tropical forest, the wooden paths of a Lizardfolk village just visible amongst the greenery. In this moment, you realize what is happening and you all think to each other, find a way to the Feywild, to the portal near Stormcaller Tower, we will meet again there. And then, you are falling.