Hiram’s Histories
The trade caravan had been glad of the extra guard, and the
pay (25 gp) would give me a little extra to enjoy while in Baldur’s gate. The
caravan master had promised introductions to the Duke’s quartermaster, a stroke
of greatest luck. Not only can I try to get new business for the clan, but I
can see how the famous city protects itself and how everyone from different
lands manage to live together in one city.
(many dull entries about the progress of the caravan and
some drawings of interesting rock forms)
We’ll be in the city tomorrow. Everyone is smelly and short
tempered, but beginning to smile as the journey is near the end. I had early
watch this evening, so will get a decent night’s sleep and have lots planned,
but mostly I can’t wait to see the city!
So much for the caravan and the city. Adona, the most
powerful cleric of Avriel in Nu’in, was seeing visions of a future that had
dragons (yes dragons!) returning to Nu’in. She was haunted by these visions
and eventually died a gaunt shadow of her former self. Dorus, her husband and
arguably the most powerful archmage, attempted to summon mighty heroes to fight
the looming threat posed by the return of dragons to the land. But got us
instead. His mistake? error? bad pronunciation? seems to have caused his
death. His daughter (Crystalline, soon to be arch-mage) and son (Ursa,
impressive fighter, or perhaps a druid of some sort, but mostly a black smith),
were in shock at their father’s death and could not provide much coherent
information.
Five of us were summoned by Dorus, and we are connected by a
sigil magically infused into the palm of our right (left) hands. The
sigil is the same for each of us, different only in color. It looks a little like
a fancy scrip A and D entwined together. It seems almost ironically simple for
something that will change the lives of 5 people…actually many 100’s if not
1000’s before all the ripples in the pond of time smooth out. Gah…thinking
about visions of the future and how that affects the now gives me a headache
and makes me want a beer.
Us
Hiram
(me, heh) – a young dwarf less than a hundred
years old, trained as a fighter but currently out in the world trying to extend
the clan’s merchant empire by developing new contracts for weapons, armor, and
machines. My older brothers (Horgar and Mundril) are still vying to take over
dad’s spot and hoping that gran’da dies soon so they have a shot at the Clan
Chief spot in the future.
After weeks on the road, my red beard needs
some work (and now has some singed spots, more on that later), and the armor is
a bit dinged and besmirched. If Myrilla could see me now she would say my blue
eyes see deeper than they did when we last met. She’d also laugh at me and
remind me that I couldn’t have picked a group of people that could teach me
more new customs and ideas than the four I’m paired with now.
The sigil now on my left palm is grey.
Scars (player note: times Hiram taken to 0
hit points)
1. Sword
slash, back. Lvl 1. Dragon cultist during defense of Greenest battle.
2. Spear
stab, right leg. Lvl 2. Langdedrosa Cyanwrath. Half-dragon during duel.
3. Sword
cut, right shoulder, Lvl 3. Dragon cult elite soldier, investigation of dragon
egg hatchery.
4. Middle
section of his beard burnt away, coming back in white, Lvl 3. Langdedrosa
Cyanwrath. Half-dragon during battle at the dragon hatchery. (Actual death #1)
Falke
Tall. That's the first thing you notice. She's tall, even
for a human. And she's still young, late teens. She may grow even taller.
She's about 5'11" with a lean muscular build. But she doesn't look quite
like she's of the local human folk. She has olive tone skin with long, medium
brown hair with honey highlights and green eyes. She has exotic facial details
with high cheekbones and almond shaped eyes. You also notice that her hair has
several braids, some with raven feathers woven in; and done in a way to keep
her hair away from her face. There is a simple knotted tattoo with a stylized
raven on her right bicep.
Although you notice the leather armor, long bow, and long
sword; your gaze is drawn to a dagger prominently in her belt with an engraved
raven on the hilt. You also get the sense that while she's an obvious fighter,
she's not lacking in the intelligence department.
Her sigil is bright green.
Darielle
Darielle of the Halfling family Frogger is a 35-year-old
female with long, messy blonde braids and chocolate brown eyes. She’s 39 pounds
and 3 feet tall—average for a Halfling. She wears mismatched leather armor and
a hunter green cloak embroidered with the letter A.
Darielle can wield the crossbow, dagger, and foil that she
carries with great dexterity and cleverness, but she’s not particularly strong
or hardy. Although she can be sneaky and likes to blend in, when she warms up a
bit she can be quite chatty, and she loves to perform. She also loves beautiful
sounds and has the slightly annoying habit of imitating sounds that appeal to
her (which can make her a bit distracted when she’s on watch or walking in
front, as we’ve already seen). She’s good at spells, but sometimes has trouble
remembering how spoken things are relayed to her, so she’s not the best person
to rely on when reporting word-for-word conversation. She’s a good singer who
known how to capture her audience with her charisma, and can play the wooden
flute and the lute she carries well—but the instrument that she enjoys playing
the most and that means the most to her is her harp, which was carved by her
father.
She grew up in a small Halfling village, raised by her
woodcarver father, Dar, after her mother, Liriel, died giving birth to her.
Recently Darielle’s village was razed by Cultists. She saw her father killed
and the rest of the villagers killed or scattered, and when she rummaged
through the rubble to find armor and weapons, she found a cloak belonging to
her closest friend Anka, who was 10 years older and like a big sister to her.
Because of the cloak, she assumes Anka was dead like her father.
Darielle’s ideal is to make and find beautiful music. Like
many Halflings, she’s not easily frightened, has a bit of luck in battle, and
is naturally stealthy, when she’s not talking your ear off or singing to
herself. Now that she has no village to tie her down, the wandering side of her
personality has taken over, and she’s happy to see the world and sing to it.
She’s not particularly aggressive, but has a strong protective streak that
kicks in when she sees people being threatened or hurt, especially by those
damned Cultists.
Cornelius
Cornelius is a middle-aged human male of average height, but
quite gaunt and wiry, with some remnants of a guild apprentice’s tattoo on the right
side of his neck. One look at his scarred face and hands tells you immediately
that he has endured some serious beatings or possibly even torture at some
point in his life. Although he moves elegantly enough, there is something about
his body and the way he stands that does not quite look put together right. He
also exhibits a bit of a rasp in his breathing at times. Cornelius travels
light, wearing just your basic leather armor and a backpack, with a few unusual
daggers strapped to his person.
His sigil is colored a dark orange.
Nipiger
Nipiger is a Gnome on the late end young adulthood. He is
average height(about 3 and half feet) and weight. He looks a bit like a Rock
Gnome, but seems very at home in the forest (based on our adventure so far). He
clearly has been part of a community where he was educated, and taken care of,
but shows a general mistrust of others especially authority. His eyes are very
alert. Nipiger is either wearing leather armor, or a simple outfit of trousers,
shirt and vest of browns and greens.
His sigil is blue.
_________________________________________________________________________
Where’s the caravan? Where’s the ground!
Five of us appeared in a room together, some of us handling
the transition better than the others. Needless to say, confusion reigned for
a long time, especially since the high magus that did the summoning seems to
have been killed in the process. DMs Note: (He
was actually instantly mummified! Ew!) Darielle was very very sick,
and for a while it looked like Cornelius was going to lash out at Crystalline,
accusing her of being responsible. We were finally able to get things under
control, learning that the mage’s wife(Adona) was the highest cleric of Avriel.
Crystalline was a mage, taking after her father, and her brother Ursa seemed to
be a black smith, though a war priest or a druid wouldn’t be strange for this
family. Our hosts had some food and drink set out for us, and we started to
learn that about each other. There might be groups more random in the wide
world, but not by much.
The gnome ruined some quite good beer with salt, though I
had quaffed nearly my entire mug before he spoilt it. What Nipiger has against
a good beer, I will never understand. It’s no wonder people say ‘mad as a
gnome’.
We learned that once we’d touched the others, we had a very
vague sense of the others, including knowing when they were hurt…and that when
they were far away, the magic caused all the others that had touched that
person experienced extreme pain. This fact caused a bit of paranoia, notably
in Falke and Cornelius. Darielle and I both found the idea quite fascinating.
Cornelius found a way to transport himself to the ground and all of us immediately
decided that was a bad idea. Like it or not, we are going to be together for a
while until we can figure out how to break the geas that binds us.
We also learned that we were in a floating castle! A
floating castle, just like all those bed time stories my ma used to tell me.
And yet, in the confusion and turmoil of having our lives re-routed by powers
beyond our purview, small miracles like floating castles were only of momentary
import. I wonder if it was a device that kept that massive structure aloft or
some other means keeps it afloat. It’s like making a mountain float! I can’t
imagine how one would defend from a castle hundreds of feet above in the sky.
And trying to take it by siege!? Pffft!
Uncertain future
Talks with Crystalline and Ursa didn’t really yield a lot of
information on how to deal with the sigil, but we did find out that the
motivation behind the summoning was that Adona was having visions of the future,
visions with dragons returning in force to Nu’in. None of Dorus’ family had
much of an idea of how to break the geas of the sigil, but suggested we travel
to Baldur’s Gate to talk with a powerful cleric named Marchel to see if he
would be able to break the spell. They had some gifts for us, apparently a
chest of their father’s that they’d never seen unlocked had opened, and it
contained items for us. DM Note:(It is not that
the chest had never been unlocked before but that they as children of their
parents had never seen it happen. The chest is full of items that had a
particular aura around them that both Dorus and Adona found compelling. The
chest only seems to open when someone who resonates with an item within is in
it’s vicinity. Adona was sure these items were the work of the gods and Dorus
was certain the aura was magically formed. It was a curious rivalry between the
two. Each of you were drawn to one particular item and retrieved it yourselves
from the chest. Crystalline and Ursa did not touch them.)
I received the hilt of an ancient sword, quite ornate and
likely ceremonial. Crystalline gave Darielle a godly artifact that proved to
be able to cure people from a distance and from the chest she took a bottle of
some strange gelatinous stuff that no one could identify. DM’s Note: (Avriel’s Finger was actually a gift to Darielle
from Crystalline, not from the chest. Quite a gift at that too as it was a gift
from her mother to her to keep her safe.) Cornelius received some
wicked looking daggers: one from the chest and one as a gift from Crystalline,
as well as a scroll that appears to be a deed to property, though the location
is magically hidden. Falke received a golden rimmed monocle without a lens. Nipiger
received something small and square. DM’s Note:
(None of the gifts seems to be overtly magical, but Crystalline seemed quite certain
they were important.)
Ursa gave me battle axe of excellent quality and a shoulder
sheathe for it, and some coin to cover my wages from the caravan guard work.
100 gp will buy a lot of beer, as long as I can keep the gnome away from it. We
were all provided with travel packs, and while they couldn’t fly the castle to
Baldur’s gate, at least we didn’t have to climb ropes or something to the
ground. We were teleported to the blacksmith’s shop in a village called
Greenest. And with somewhat mixed feelings the five of us started on a journey
that is likely to be strange beyond a gnome’s daydream. Things are always
strange when wizards meddle.
