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Dunmari Frontier - Session 84

New Beginnings: in which the party gathers information

Featuring: Seeker, Delwath, Kenzo, Wellby
In Taelgar: Jan 01, 1749 DR to Jan 03, 1749 DR
On Earth: Monday Sep 11, 2023
Tollen

The Dunmar Fellowship exchanges artifacts for lore and strikes a deal to journey to the Edge of Echoes with Faldrak Bronzehammer.

Session Info

Vindristjarna’s crewmember is introduced: Faldrak Bronzehammer

Summary

Timeline

Narrative

We begin on Jan 1st, 1749, as the new year, by Tollen reckoning, dawns.

*On the skyship Vindristjarna, however, none of the travelers would mark this as the dawning of a new year, were they not in Tollen.

The hammers and bells of the Dwarven Kingdoms of the Sentinel Range will not ring to mark the new year for another few months, until March 17th in the human reckoning. Few except the dwarven lorekeepers now remember, but this will mark the beginning of the 5,882nd year since the planes were pulled apart and time began on Taelgar.

In Dunmar, the new year – the 192nd year of the Nayan Dynasty – will not come for another three weeks, when the The Festival of the New Dawn on January 23rd marks the end of the holy month, and the beginning of the new year.

Among the Halflings in their ships and caravans traveling the world, the new year has started already, when the days began to lengthen after the winter solstice. The song of the Year of Shadowed Dreams is over, and the song of the new year is beginning.

*To the elves, the turning of the year, the days growing shorter, and then longer, then shorter again, is merely a small part of the larger cycle of the ka, the elven count of generations, stretching back to the original elves who lived in the shadows of the Firstborn, and does not usually warrant much comment or celebration by itself.

The party spends the day of the new year on Vindristjarna, taking a much needed respite. Wellby works on his extensive maps; Kenzo tends the budding garden; Seeker tinkers with his mechanical creations; and Delwath watches the horizon, thinking.

The following day, on Friday, Jan 2nd, the party goes to visit the guildhall of the Ancient and Honorable Guild of Philosophers. It is in the oldest part of the city, the Skepwalk district, an oasis of quiet and calm nestled among shipyards and busy taverns, with a strangely out-of-season garden. Inside, the party is served tea and settled at a small table; there are a few other people here, but their conversations fade into silence as the party sits down. Soon, Delios the Sage emerges, happy to see the party again. After some discussion, the party ends up asking for information about four things.

First, they trade the Mace of Terror for information about the Binding Stones taken from Stormcaller Tower, that had been involved in trapping Hralgar. Delios tells them that these stones can be used to create a powerful, nearly eternal prison, trapping a creature in chains, or in a tomb underground, or in eternal sleep. This prison can only be undone by the most powerful magic, or by a specific event that must be specified when the prison is created. (Metagame: what he is describing is the 9th level spell Imprisonment). But there is added complexity, that Delios cannot explain now, and requires further research, saying that it will take one or two weeks to get a full answer.

Second, they trade the two spellbooks (the Arcane Grimoire from Grimbaskal’s hoard, and Cassian’s chalyte spellbook), for information about the shattered jade pieces of Rai’s hand, and information about Rai and Apollyon and how Apollyon was imprisoned.

Delios gives the party information about the jade forest, west of Chardon, for free. This is a forest of kelp, and living stone coral, maybe 600 or 700 miles due west of Chardon, about a 100 miles off the coast of the peninsula. It is apparently tended by Merfolk and other denizens of the oceans. And, he says, the guild will do their best to find information that could lead to the location of the final fragment, that fell in the rainforest, but he cannot promise anything, and this will take considerable time.

Delios also speaks briefly of Apollyon’s imprisonment. He says that Apollyon kept his soul, his life essence, safely stored outside his body; unless that phylactery (soul jar) is destroyed, Apollyon cannot truly be destroyed. Delios says the guild suspects that the imprisonment that Cha’mutte constructed, and Rai maintained, had something to do with manipulating the connection between Apollyon and his phylactery, keeping him trapped in Drankor and slowly losing his power. He thinks, but is not certain, that Rai somehow held this prison together with his hand, perhaps gripping the phylactery itself and keeping Apollyon from accessing it. But, he says, the true nature of this imprisonment, and its connection to Rai, will need to be verified and studied before he can say more for sure.

Finally, Seeker asks after his brother, Frankar, trading the Floating Disc Coin for information about whether he is alive, and if so where he is, and how he got there. Delios says that the guild is aware he is alive, but further time will be necessary before he can say for sure where Frankar might be now.

After this conversation, the party departs the guildhall, and returns to the ship to be ready to host Melindir and Elwis for dinner. Elwis is a painter from Orenlas, and is in town to learn more about the magic inks used in tattoos here, after traveling around Green Sea for the past several years. She speaks with Delwath about Orenlas, talking of the beauty of the forest, the grandeur of the ancient city of Erelion, and the ancient feeling as if it were still the days of creation when Aldanor walked the earth.

The next morning, Faldrak Bronzehammer arrives, ready to leave. He has traded for information about the Edge of Echoes from the Ancient and Honorable Guild of Philosophers. He has learned that is in central Cymea, on the Freccilia (FREH-chee-lah) River, just upstream from its confluence with the Ampogio (ahm-POH-joh) River. Now, it is claimed by the locals simply to be a haunted cave system, but long ago it was a Drankorian forge, where the power of the elemental planes that leaks through here was harnessed to create magic. Faldrak, armed with this information, has packed his stuff already, assuming that the party will set out immediately.

Although the party is not quite ready to leave right away, they agree to go to the Edge of Echoes, and to share 1/16 of the treasure they find there with Faldrak, in exchange for work on Seeker’s Glove of Crystalized Magic and on Vindristjarna. Faldrak, for example, suggests some kind of fire-shooting cannon, and demostrates what he means by picking up his cane and releasing a blast of fire from it, saying, “like that, but bigger!”

We end that afternoon, as Faldrak contacts a furniture maker friend he knows to get nice beds for Vindristjarna, and the rest of the party disperses to the final tasks in Tollen before departing.