Dunmari Frontier - Session 72

Ice Heart: in which the party confronts an ice maiden

Featuring: Seeker, Delwath, Kenzo, Wellby, Riswynn
In Taelgar: Nov 23, 1748 DR to Nov 24, 1748 DR
On Earth: Thursday Mar 02, 2023
Hralgar’s Palace in the Sentinels

The Dunmar Fellowship learns valuable information from Hralgar and defeats an ice maiden now inhabiting his ancient palace.

Session Info

Summary

• Hralgar shares knowledge about the Drankorian Empire, skyships, and powerful magic.
• He invites the party to journey to his old palace to retrieve a Phasing Stone, and offers lore on volcanoes connected to the elemental Plane of Fire
• Hralgar parts with the party, granting them a wind blessing for swift travel.
• The party arrives at Hralgar’s ruined palace and encounters an ice maiden.
• After failed negotiations, they battle and defeat the ice maiden and her icy crystal heart.

Timeline

• Nov 23, 1748 DR, night: Listen to Hralgar’s stories into the night
• Nov 24, 1748 DR: The party says goodbye to Hralgar and receives his wind blessing, allowing them to travel quickly as clouds to his ruined palace in the mountains. Scout, and find dark shadows boiling out of the basement, and a icy structure on the main floor. Parlay with an ice maiden, until she brags of freezing travelers on the passes and Wellby shoots. Defeat her ice maiden form, and then crush her heart of ice and crystal, destroying her.

The Mirror of the Past

• Nov 24, 1748 DR: Mirror of the Past used to look at the Enchiridion of the Occulta Ludum, seeing the Enchiridion of the Occulta Ludum Viision. recharge mirror

Narrative

We begin at camp, as Hralgar returns from hunting with a brace of antelope and Delwath begins to cook a late dinner. Hralgar and the party talk, and Dunmar Fellowship hears Hralgar’s story and learned a little of Drankor, about the skyship Vindristjarna, about Apollyon and the Omnis Pura, and about volcanoes and how to destroy powerful magic.

Hralgar spent his younger days uninterested in the doings of Humans, paying little attention to them on the plains below, during the Golden Age of Drankor. Visitors came, and went - Dwarves, Stoneborn, Humans - and they spoke of ancient magic, of myths and stories. When the Golden Age ended in civil war, and the Omnis Pura came to power, things became more difficult, and some time later he was trapped by Eudomes, during Apollyon’s reign. Hralgar knew of Apollyon as a powerful wizard, an artificer of great skill who wielded the magic of command. His lair, on a circular island south and west of Drankor in the Sea of Storms, was shielded and could not be approached even by power storm giants traveling as the wind.

Hralgar also spoke of the skyship Vindristjarna, and the Phasing Stones that once powered the great kingdoms of the giants. Their power is weakened now, but there is still enough magic left that they could be used to make Vindristjarna fly again. Hralgar once had one in his palace in the mountains, which he invites the party to take, although he warns them that it has been a millennium since he was last there, and who knows what might inhabit it now. Should they find it, on the lower floor that was once his library is a great pillar that will reveal runes describing the construction and repair of skyships when lightning magic is channeled into it. He also tells the party of a little book that contains his notes and research on the history of Vindristjarna.

Finally, he describes places in the Taelgar he knows of that contain volcanoes, some of which may retain lingering connections to the Elemental Plane of Fire: far to the north, stretching west to east across the central mountains; continuing to the northern coast of Green Sea and the island that the Humans called Irrla; and also the islands in the Nevos Sea. Hralgar mentions that the fire giants may know more: they once lived in the mountains east of here, but whether any linger now he does not know.

In the morning, Dunmar Fellowship prepares to bid farwell to Hralgar. He bids a fond farewell to the party, thanking them, and gifting Kenzo a fragment of storm giant ki before vanishing. As he turns into the winds and departs, he also gives the party a wind blessing, allowing them to turn to clouds and travel on the wind until sunset. Before departing for the mountains, the party looks at The Enchiridion of the Occulta Ludum in Eudomes’ Mirror.

Flying fast on the wind, the party reaches in the mountains and Hralgar’s palace in only a few hours.

Scouting as wisps of clouds, the party sees Hralgar’s palace, looking much as it did in the dream world, but ruined, with the roof gone, as well as the upper stories. A structure of ice filled with elaborate ice sculptures sits at the back of the main floor, and shadows billow up from the lower level. Pacing back and forth is a woman, maybe 10 feet tall and seemingly made or coated in ice, jagged shards clinging to her and forming something like a crown.

The party decides to negotiate, with Delwath approaching to speak while Wellby and Kenzo invisibly sneak to hide behind ice pillars, and Riswynn and Seeker linger invisibly (but noisily) at the top of the stairs. The ice maiden speaks with Delwath, who asks about the shadows below. The woman seems not to care if they wish to venture there, telling Delwath should he wish to journey into the nightmares of Kurome, it is no concern of hers. When asked about the phasing stone, her patience grows thin, and she tells Delwath that he is welcome to seek it in Kurome’s realm, but to go quickly either way, for there are foolish travelers to freeze in the wastes and her attention cannot long linger here.

At that, Wellby looses an arrow, and battle is joined. Wellby and Kenzo have been sufficiently silent - and invisible - that they get the jump on everyone, and Wellby’s arrow bursts into flame as it strikes true. The ice maiden is caught off guard as Kenzo lunges to attack as well, using his fist of planar power to push her across the ice. Staggering, Delwath strikes her down with his sword and magic, only for her icy crystal heart to rise up and attack with blasts of cold. The air around her becomes bone-chilling, and those close to her begin to freeze. As Seeker hits her with a psychic blast - turned to fire by his glove - and Riswynn with a blast of sacred fire, the icy heart staggers. A whirling storm of obscuring, blowing snow rises around her, and more blasts of cold shoot at the party, nearly killing Kenzo except for the blessing of the dwarven gods provided by Riswynn, which keeps him from falling unconscious. Finally, Delwath cracks the icy heart with bolts of pure magic.

As silence falls, the wounded party gathers around as Delwath makes a fire and a warming meal and the group rests as the session ends.