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Dunmari Frontier - Session 7

Northward Bound: in which the party heads to Raven’s Hold

Featuring: Kenzo, Wellby, Delwath, Seeker, Riswynn
In Taelgar: Apr 07, 1748 DR to Apr 12, 1748 DR
On Earth: Sunday Aug 16, 2020
From Karawa to Raven’s Hold

The Dunmar Fellowship heads north, encountering refugees and centaurs, and survives a gnoll ambush as they approach Raven’s Hold.

Session Info

Summary

  • The Dunmar Fellowship departs Karawa with Riswynn Brawnanvil, tracking gnolls north towards Raven’s Hold.
  • The party encounters Shani, a Dunmari refugee fleeing a fire and gnoll attacks.
  • An ambush by gnolls interrupts the group’s rest, but they successfully defend themselves.
  • Seeker speaks with a vulture, learning there is minimal movement on the plains but significant activity at Raven’s Hold.
  • They meet Tharandros and his Centaurs, discuss the spreading corruption, and convince them to warn Karawa.

Timeline

  • Apr 07, 1748 DR: Dunmari and festival visitors leave Karawa with Havdar and his band, moving as quicky as they can towards the relative safety of Tokra. Party leaves Karawa tracking gnolls.
  • Apr 08, 1748 DR: Party travels north towards Raven’s Hold.
  • Apr 09, 1748 DR: Party travels north. Crosses road, meets Shani and her companions, who were trapped by a large fire started by permanent lightning storm. Fight and destroy a group of gnolls late in the evening.
  • Apr 11, 1748 DR: Party travels north across the plains.
  • Apr 12, 1748 DR, morning: Party meets Centaurs just south of Raven’s Hold, speaks to Tharandros. Convinces him to take his band south to Karawa. Travel towards Raven’s Hold.

Narrative

The session begins in the pre-dawn light, as the people of Karawa prepare to flee west and the party, joined by Riswynn Brawnanvil, gather their gear and plan their journey north to Raven’s Hold. Amidst the bustle and chaos of hundreds of people packing food, supplies, and what belongings they can carry, the party says their goodbyes and heads north, following the tracks of the gnolls and maw creatures that attacked the night before. 

The tracks lead roughly north, heading overland but relatively near the well-traveled path that connects Karawa to the ancient trade road running across Dunmar. As the party follows the trail, the stream of refugees leaving Karawa in a long line of people, horses, sheep, and other animals can be seen at a distance. A few miles north of the trade road, the tracks converge on an area where the creatures clearly spent some time, perhaps a camp. It seems a larger group was here, and split up, with some heading west, and others heading south to Karawa. The tracks continue north and east from here, towards Raven’s Hold, where it seems the larger group came from. At this point, the party decides to ride straight and fast for Raven’s Hold overland, and gets in a few more hours riding before making camp and spending some time in the evening discussing the approach to Raven’s Hold and looking over Riswynn’s maps from her great uncle Eberk Brawnanvil.

The next day of travel is an uneventful day of riding across the plains: north of the road the terrain is greener and more rolling steppe than dry, rocky desert, and with the winter rains, much of the grassland is in bloom, covered with bright yellow flowers. However, what would normally be good grazing land is empty of people, and even the animals around are skittish and distant. The following day, the third day of traveling, the party reaches the road. In the distance, a cloud of dust alerts the party to the presence of travelers heading south on the road. Scouting ahead, Delwath and Wellby see these are a small group of Dunmari, some on horses and some on foot, traveling with a large herd of goats. The woman in front, Shani, tells the party that they were caught in the north by a large fire, started by lightning from the giant unmoving storm, and were delayed getting to the Festival. A cousin, missing them, rode north to warn them of the attacks south of Karawa and that plans were to flee west, that all land east of the River Hara was abandoned to Dunmar’s enemies. However, this group was caught on the road by a group of gnolls, and lost several horses and many goats, but were able to flee. 

The party decides to head north along the road for some time. Traveling north the rest of the day, the party makes camp off the road, in a surprisingly quiet landscape. No animals moving, hardly even birds or flies. In the middle of the night, they are ambushed by gnolls – some warriors with spears, others with longbows with nasty barbed arrows. Seeker groggily tosses the Chardonian coin, which transforms into a floating platform, and puts a caged rabbit on it; this distracts one of the gnolls, but only briefly, as it bites the rabbit’s head off. The fight is tough as much of the party is caught asleep and unawares, but the party prevails. 

After resting into the morning to recover, Seeker speaks to a vulture come to feast on the dead gnolls, who, while not the most scintillating conversationalist, does report that little is moving across the plains to the north, and lots of things are moving in the fort. As the party rides north over the next two days, the large storm hovering to the west comes into view: a massive thundercloud, just hanging in the sky, miles across, and not seeming to move. The mountains ahead are now also clearly visible, rising like broken teeth out of the flat plains the party is riding across. The evening of the fifth day of travel, the party camps perhaps 10 miles south of the mountains, a short journey from the pass and from Raven’s Hold to the east. As the sun sets and they set up camp, a whiff of something – the smell of rotten flesh, burnt flesh, sulfur – drifts across the plains. Nothing is moving, and the night is silent.

The next morning, the party is surprised to see travelers crossing the plains from the east, heading for the road. A large group, maybe 20 or 30 at least, and traveling fast on horseback. As they approach, it becomes obvious these are not people at all, but Centaurs. Tharandros, the leader of this band of Centaurs, tells the party that they are moving west, leaving their lands east of here. He tells of disease and poison flowing from a rope that binds the land to another plane, of poisoned water flowing from Raven’s Hold and contaminating more and more land, of Demons that sicken the earth. He tells of how all the infinite imaginings of people exist somewhere in the infinity of the Divine void, and how long ago, in ages long past, humans who preached hellfire and damnation created the Abyss, a realm of chaos and torment and violence, and now the nightmares of people sustain it and places like it. Although Tharandros is dismissive of Humans, and has little concern for the troubles of the Dunmari, he is eventually convinced by Delwath’s arguments and ultimately by Wellby to ride south to speak with Candrosa, to warn Karawa about the possible spreading plague of cursed water, and to learn what he can about the Dreamworld. 

With that, the party packs up camp, and proceeds up the road for a few hours, eventually stopping just south of the Charmheart’s camp, looking across the mountains rising to the north, and the valley of Raven’s Hold a few miles to the east, and pondering their plan of attack.