Episode 2 The Road to Ruin
In the month of October, it is known that the veil that separates the magical realms is at it’s thinnest. This allows spirits and other creatures from the beyond to more easily pass into the material realm of Mordavia. Luckily, some have celebratory traditions and rituals to help fend off intrusion from the beyond. One of the greatest of such events is known as Orctoberfest. It is an ancient Half-Orc tradition that celebrates the fruits of hard training, the fighting spirit, and competition of sport. The Half-Orcs of Morgrim recognized the Heroic Souls efforts to bring the ancient tradition to the frontier and so they sent Baron Oakenfist, who is the son of Morgrim himself. With Oakenfists knowledge of Orktoberfest and the Anceitn Shamnan ways, he was able to host Orctoberfest for the Heroic Souls. He had them assemble into tribes who would participate in a series of challenging competitions against the other tribes. The events would take place the entire weekend with the winners being announced at the end of the festival. The competition was for sport and entertainment with various rewards, the most important of which is Honor.
With an Epic entrance from a leyline rift that was in town Mr. Moni Baggz, the Golden Merchant Created, emerged in the frontier town once again. Apparently he had spent the last months inside of the leylines and studying the Core of Mechanis, the magical machine city. However, he ended up being trapped inside and had to wait until a rift was opened. This rift happened to be in the frontier town, which was convenient because Moni Baggz had some business. Specifically he was interested in a strange creature known as a Carbuncle. These small creatures that are similar to rabbits but embedded with gems and powerful magic. Indeed, the Carbuncles had hatched from their eggs using a hatching ritual that was taught to the Heroic Souls. Mr. Moni Baggz was ecstatic to be able to start breeding these magical creatures. He was also apparently very interested in using them and the help of the Heroic Souls to start up an abandoned factory he had located nearby in the frontier that he wanted to get back and operational.
Ezreal, an Elf turned Vampire who is the second in command of the Inquisition. A group of secretive Order members who were exiled for using forbidden magic and practices that the very enemy they fought against.
Ezeral helped fight the four heralds of the apocalypse who had been summoned by the witches. He almost lost his life to the Herald Death, but ended up only losing his shield which Death then used against Ezreal. He made a focused effort to keep the other Healers alive and eventually the Heroic Souls were able to win the fight. Several Heroic Souls attempted to thank Ezreal, but he merely explained it was the grace of Gebelises not his that saved them. He also gave advice on how to potentially deal with the Witches and Lillith, by pointing out in a notebook that was stolen from the Witches that they were the Worshipers of something called the Mother of Monsters.
Several of the Elven Heroic Souls went to Ezreal before he left to plead for his help in removing the Sirens Stone from an unmentioned individual. He agreed to help them by letting them take potentially helpful items from an abandoned reliquary if they would also help him retrieve a book about groves of power from the reliquary as well.
The Heroic Souls encountered a scout who is a member of the Goblin Defense Core of Yamavaros, the lost city of goblin kind. This goblin’s name is Gobjorno. He encountered them as they just defeated a group of primitive goblins. He asked why they did this and what their intentions were. They parted ways in hopes of eventually using this new found corporation to retrieve intel for Yamavoros.
A Farmer whose wife was kidnapped by a group of goblins who were trained by the Gob Family(a renegade family of goblins in Yamavoros)to use tactics to extort people into gaining gold. This farmer (Danson Mayfarm) then went to the frontier town to seek aid from the heroic souls to rescue his wife. The players tracked down the goblins and slaughtered them. This proved more difficult than they expected due to the goblins using tactics and abilities they had never seen before. The players discovered banners and currency of Yamawvoros with apparent plans for the city to explore the new world of Mordavia. Unfortunately, the players also discovered that Danson’s wife was killed. Upon seeing his dead wife, Danson swore that he would dedicate his life to ridding the world of the goblin menace. Danson left to bury his wife but he is now assembling a group of goblin exterminators to rid the world of what he considers vermin.
Captain Warforged appeared at the noble meeting to ensure that the nobility were funding the town guard. After he saw they were drafting a resolution to give a percentage of the noble income to fund the guard he commented that it should be at least 50%, but that 10 to 20 would be an adequate start. He also gifted the town guard with 1,000 kopeks and a Life Potion so they would have a jump start on their coffers.
After his duties were finished, Warforged was ordered to take some time off of duty by the Prince since things were going well for Sargon. Warforged used this opportunity to accomplish the most important goal of the Royal Military, to reinstate a King of Mordavia. Warforged has been researching dusty tomes from old Royal libraries for the past year. The heroic souls recently informed him of valuable information that there is a chance the Royal Bloodline still remains. Warforged states that he can feel this is true and creates a plan to discover the lineage of the King which is assumed to be with the hidden Royal tomb.
To begin this journey, he gathered a band of soldiers that he had fought with before. They would journey past the South Bridge to the Sunken road. There he said that there was a secret temple that the Royal military once used as an outpost. He claimed that the outpost had the first map piece to find the tomb of the Late King Alcyon.Traveling in the night and in the rain allowed them to stealthily pass the south bridge without any encounters.
As they journeyed into the outpost the water got deeper. As they went down winding thin corridors a Swamp Beast began to paralyze the Heroic Souls then it would swim off with them to his lair where he stored them to eat later. As 4 members of the group were taken, the party began to become very scared and worried they would all die. After being neck deep in water, they finally found some dry ground. The captain gave them his gear and dove into the water to try and rescue the captured heroic souls, who were lucky to still be alive due to their own special skills. They then went to the lowest chamber and got the piece of a map that will lead them further on their quest to find the Tomb of King Alcyon and hopefully the Kings surviving bloodline.
They made it back to town, looking like they all nearly drowned, just in time to see the exciting end of the drinking competition of Orctoberfest. Drawl Oakfist, a relative of Brawl Oakenfist who had been killed while defending against Katalium, was present to host the Orctoberfest competitions. This included 1v1 gladiator style fights and the most entertaining of all the Drinking Competition. WIth each contestant consuming the most powerful and magical of all brews. The last one standing was the winner, but really, everyone was a winner. At least everyone considered themselves a winner as they drank away the memories of their fallen brethren and the trial and tribulations that must still be made for their struggles to not be in vein.