Old World» Group One

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Contents

Iraklis, Nika, Omri, Dorc.

Player characters

Player characters associated with Group One.

Companions, henchmen, followers, etc.

Nika’s basilisks

Nika has a trio of tame basilisks (Nibblesf, Kibblesf, and Bitsm). They are trained for guarding.

Omri’s followers

Omri has a few followers—local youths in DusthillG9, who look up to Omri and take any opportunity to spend time with him (whenever their other obligations permit), follow him around, hang on his every word, etc. (All are 1st-level: three commoners, one aristocrat, one warrior.)

Hired mercenaries

Omri has a number of mercenaries in his employ (former soldiers in the king’s troops, hired in Caledas). All are currently serving as deputies to the sheriff of DusthillG9, where they focus on protecting the town, and the all-important trade route between Dusthill and Drylake, from raids by bandits and goblins.

Quick reference

(:template first:)

 HDCharismaPerceptionSense MotiveSurvivalLanguagesVisionFortRefWill

(:template each:)

{=$Titlespaced}?{=$:Level}{=$:Charisma}{=$:Perception}{=$:Sense_Motive}{=$:Survival}{=$:Languages}{=$:Vision}{=$:Fortitude}{=$:Reflex}{=$:Will}

 HDCharismaPerceptionSense MotiveSurvivalLanguagesVisionFortRefWill
Dorctor5+2+3+3+3Common, Orcdarkvision, tremorsense 30 ft.+5+1+7
Iraklis7+3+11+8+9Common, Orc +7+3+6
Mouse6+0+10+6+10Common, Infernaldarkvision+7+3+5
Nika7+4−1−1−1Common, Infernaldarkvision+3 [+5]+4 [+6]+4 [+6]
Omri7+2+9+12−1Common, Draconic, Goblin, Infernal, Orc, Ignan, Auran, Terran, Celestialdarkvision+4+8+4

Procedures

Standard operating procedures.

Watch order

(See Timekeeping and Rest.)

Watches in a typical travel/adventuring day:

If party is Dorc, Iraklis, Nika, Omri:

  1. Travel/exploration/adventuring
  2. Travel/exploration/adventuring
  3. Foraging/downtime
  4. Foraging/downtime
  5. Rest
    • Dorc on watch; others asleep
  6. Rest
    • Iraklis on watch; others asleep

If party is Iraklis, Nika, Omri:

  1. Travel/exploration/adventuring
  2. Travel/exploration/adventuring
  3. Foraging/downtime
  4. Rest
    • Iraklis on watch; others asleep
  5. Rest
    • Iraklis on watch; others asleep
  6. Rest
    • Nika and Omri on watch; Iraklis asleep

Marching order

(Left is forward)

If party is Dorc, Iraklis, Nika, Omri:

Single-file (narrow passages): 

I D O N m

Double-wide (wider passages / outdoors): 

D N m
I O

If party is Iraklis, Nika, Omri:

Single-file (narrow passages): 

I O N m

Double-wide (wider passages / outdoors): 

O m
I N

Acquaintances

Characters that have been encountered by Group One.

Travelogue

Locations that have been visited by Group One.

Dusthill Old guard tower Cool grotto Goblin warrens Outcast cave-village Strange crystal cave Lower Caverns Strange canyon oasis Ominous cave entrance Box canyon with ruins Wayside shrine Basilisk lair Drylake St. Aurantius Castle Stone circle Sunset Heights Ruined outpost Mad barbarian’s cave Metalstorm hills Korrulan’s home Planar anomaly Plain of death

Item catalog

Special items that have been found by Group One.

Bestiary

Creatures that have been encountered by Group One.

  • Achaierai Massive, intelligent, evil flightless birds from the Lower Planes.
  • Ashen husk Risen corpse of a humanoid that died of thirst in the wastes.
  • Assassin vine Semi-mobile plant that grabs and crushes creatures that come within its reach.
  • Basilisk Eight-legged lizards with a petrifying gaze.
  • Bats Nocturnal flying animals that can “see” by emitting high-pitched sounds.
  • Carrion crawler Segmented bug-like monster with paralyzing tentacles.
  • Cat Felines, big and small.
  • Cockroaches Ubiquitous, multitudinous, and hard to kill.
  • Coyote Wild canines, scavengers and opportunistic hunters.
  • Fungus Predatory subterranean mushrooms of all sorts.
  • Ghouls Savage undead creatures that eat the flesh of the living.
  • Gnolls Hyena-headed humanoids, savage and evil.
  • Goblins Small, barely civilized, and mostly evil humanoids.
  • Grick Worm-like subterranean monster with suckered tentacles and a tough, rubbery hide.
  • Intellect devourer Strange, brain-eating creatures of unknown origin.
  • Ironthorn Carnivorous plant with deadly, thorn-covered, grasping vines.
  • Lizards Carnivorous reptiles the size of horses, with a venomous bite.
  • Phantom fungus Naturally invisible, cave-dwelling, carnivorous fungal monster.
  • Phase spider Giant spider that can shift in and out of material existence.
  • Ravenous ghoul Undead creatures that live to eat, and have a powerful bite attack.
  • Shocker lizard Small lizards that can strike at enemies with an electrical attack.
  • Skeleton The animated bones of the dead—mindless automatons that obey the orders of their evil masters.
  • Snakes Deadly serpents, either venomous or constrictors.
  • Spiders Spiders of unusual size.
  • Stirge Bat-like creatures that feed on blood.
  • Treant Intelligent trees that act as protectors of their forests.
  • Vulture Large, carrion-eating birds.
  • Wight Corpses that rise from their crypts with hatred of the living.
  • Wood woad Vaguely humanoid tree creatures that serve dryads and treants as guardians.
  • Worg Intelligent, evil wolf-like creatures that often associate with goblins.
  • Yellow musk creeper Climbing plant whose scent entrances living creatures, which are then turned into controlled zombies or consumed.

Party inventory

Party Currency: 2,124 gp, 29 sp

Monthly Income & Expenses

Income

Expenses

Net

Plot Loot

Gems

Loot to be Vendored

(none)

Loot to be ID’d

Alchemical Components

Common Equipment

Loot to be Distributed

Already Distributed Loot

Adventure log

2024-08-10

2024-09-07

2024-09-28

2024-09-28 (addendum)

Instructions for traversing the Lower CavernsJ3 to the Master’s domainJ3 (received from Andoras and the other outcasts):

When you find the entrance, descend; out of the caverns nearest the entrance lead two paths—take the left-hand path. Make your way deeper, always descending; you should soon find a large vaulted cavern with water flowing through it. Swim upstream to the first branching; then take the other branch downstream until you come to a narrow beach at the bottom of a canyon.

From this beach there is a steep ascent, and you may climb up to the canyon top. Take the second of two passages, and follow it until a great void opens before you. This is the hardest part. There are paths across, but they are treacherous; watch your footing here, as it is a long way down, and a fall means death. Look for an opening level with that which you came through.

Having crossed the void, follow the passage until you come to the top of a cliff; descend and once again take the left-most path. Soon you will emerge into a large cavern, and at the far side will rise another cliff. Now be wary, as at the top of that cliff is the guarded passage to our people’s realm; you will certainly be seen before you’ve reached the foot of the cliff, and you’ll be challenged if you approach.

2024-10-19

2024-11-02

2024-12-07

2024-12-28

2025-02-01

2025-02-01 (addendum)

Meanwhile, it takes you a bit under two weeks to build your house (which is located about half a mile east of the town center). (Usually such a project would take longer, but magic helps, as does the fact that a heavy rain starts the day after you get back to town.)

The house is one-story, about 25 feet square (which should be enough space for rooms for each of you plus a couple of other rooms—common room? loot storage room?… well, you can decide how you’d like to arrange it, of course), plus an enclosure for your mules. (Naturally you can expand it if you want; materials are plentiful, the only real limitations are time and architectural constraints.)

Not much happens during this time, but there are a couple of minor events:

A couple of days after you get back, on a day when JohnnyG9 and Omri are supposed to perform at the tavern, you find Johnny in one of his depressed moods; he mutters something about being “no good, man, just no good…”; it’s clear he’s been drinking; and continues to do so for the next day (which is not, in itself, unusual for him). That day, Omri feels a sense of contentment and satisfaction from his shroom companion. Johnny seems back in good spirits in another day.

About a week later, Nika once again spends the night tormented by nightmares of failure and incompetence, and wakes up with a step of Charisma damage (easily enough cured by a lesser restoration spell from Dorc, of course).

On one of your trips into town, you’re stopped by MarieG9, who (in gratitude for you taking care of those goblins that were pursuing her son) gives you some homemade alchemical concoctions, of minor but unusual effect.

I’ll post a detailed description later, but one of them is a sort of edible plant preserve which lets you go a day without having to drink (or eat anything else), while another is a cream which treats burns and poisons. (Nothing too consequential, really, but it’s the thought that counts.)

Finally (for now), the fact that you returned from a trip out into the wastes not only alive (itself notable) but also laden with all manner of loot, has not gone unnoticed; people are talking about you, and speculating on what you might’ve found out there; a couple of the townsfolk try to engage you in conversation on the subject, though they don’t pry too hard (people do mostly mind their own business around here).

Anyhow… as far as talking to Marie about getting the recipes for those concoctions… well, she’s a little reluctant since they’re secret recipes… but she likes you, so she agrees, on two conditions: first, that you don’t give away or sell the recipes to anyone else… and second, that (whenever you next head out into the wastes) you bring back a bunch of some special ingredients (certain desert plants) needed for said recipes (she’ll reimburse you by using some of that to make you more of the stuff).

2025-02-16

2025-02-23

2025-03-01

2025-03-01 (addendum)

As the party approached the stone tower, all (excepting Mouse, of course) had a flashback, remembering a dream they’d all had (but had all forgotten quickly after waking—as normal for most dreams—and had ascribed no significance to) about a month previously:

You are on a mountain. Or, to be precise, you are at the foot of a mountain. Yet you feel certain, you are convinced, that you were—not too long ago—climbing this mountain, and that you had managed to get pretty high up. But—looking up, from the plain on which you lie, fallen—you can’t imagine how you could possibly have climbed up there. Even the lowest part of the mountain, which you see before you, is a sheer cliff—a rock face with no ledges or footholds; and further up, above the plateau to which that first rise leads, are climbs even more impossible than the first one…

But you look again, and you see now that there are paths that lead up from the plain to the various parts of the mountain; the paths are narrow and winding, with sheer drops to either side; you are not sure whether they’re natural paths, or causeways that someone has built; but either way, you can see that the paths are treacherous and crumbling. It would be very easy to fall from one of these paths; and you are quite certain that a fall would mean death.

Many of the paths are very far away, and you cannot see them clearly. There is one path which is not too far off; its distant end leads to a very high part of the mountain, so high that it’s lost in the clouds; at the base of this path is a structure, whose details you can’t make out, but which seems familiar, somehow…

But there is also one path which is quite close. It leads to the top of the first plateau; and the base of this path is guarded by a tower; and you see that it is the tower which stands before you.

2025-04-12

2025-05-04

2025-05-10

2025-05-17

Walther Bronzehlm

St. Aurantius Castle

2025-05-31

2025-06-07

2025-06-15

2025-07-19

2025-08-09

2025-08-16

2025-08-30

2025-10-19

2025-10-26

Iraklis:

I sent some of my people to the place you showed me. Mushrooms are gone. Faint echo can be heard; the place is otherwise empty of life.

—K

2025-11-15

2025-11-30

2025-11-30 (addendum)

As you’ve been traveling, Nona has taken the opportunity to tell you about her former home - the Master’s domain (or, as the people there call it, simply “the community”).

There are, it seems, four “levels”, rougly speaking, to that part of these caverns which the Master and his people dwell in…

The largest is the main cavern: where the great majority of their people live. This is a great vaulted space, densely filled with habitation structures, public spaces, communal facilities for the preparation of food and taking of meals, workshops, administration offices… here as well is a plateau called the Warriors’ Rise, which houses barracks and training grounds for the protectors, and the Acolytes’ Rise, where the priestesses of the Goddess reside.

A series of large side caverns off this main vault house communal baths, mushroom farms, care chambers for the injured and ill, and miscellaneous other facilities.

Beneath this main cavern is a lower level, devoted primarily to aquatic farms, a warren of multitudinous storehouses, and series of great compost heaps.

Lower still is a cave dominated by a large lake (perhaps a thousand feet across).

Finally, a passage from the Acolytes’ Rise leads to the topmost level of the Master’s domain: the Upper Caverns, also known as the Halls of the Goddess. The Master himself resides there, as does the high priestess; there are also meditation and instruction halls for the acolytes, a public instruction hall for lessons in the civic doctrines of the community… and, of course, the Chamber of the Goddess herself.

The secret passage with which Nona is familiar—but which may well be impassable, blocked by a closed metal door (as you hope to learn, one way or the other, soon enough)—leads to an old, unused storehouse, beneath a workshop not far from the Acolytes’ Rise. If you are able to make use of this passage, it’ll place you pretty close to your goal.

Failing that, the other possibility is Nona’s theory that a cavern outside of the Master’s domain must be connected by a waterway to the lake. If this turns out to be true, you’ll have to make your way across most of the community, from the lake level, up through the farm/storehouse level, through the main cavern…

Nona explains that unlike on the surface, since there’s no day/night cycle down here, there’s also no single period when most of the community is asleep; people sleep and wake in shifts that aren’t connected to any consistent time of day—so there’s no possibility of waiting until night and trying to sneak through then. Rather, she explains that the time when there’ll be fewest eyes to avoid, to speak, would be meal times—when most of those who’re awake at the time gather to take communal meals together.

(Of course, that’s assuming that you can get in at all!)

As Nona talks about her people’s society, you notice some things…

She often uses words that you’re unfamiliar with, for one thing, or uses common words in somewhat odd ways. You can generally make sense of what she’s saying, but it’s clear that the Master’s people have ways of doing things—and, in particular, *things* that the use in their daily lives—which you have no experience of.

Some of these things have to do with living life underground, in an ecology which is quite different from the surface environments that you’re used to… many others, however, have to do with objects, materials, devices, techniques (of farming or cooking, for example), which are totally unfamiliar to you.

It’s clear to you that the things you’ve seen among the outcasts - the shade cloaks, “unbreakable string”, the odd materials that their clothing is made from, the unfamiliar metal of the blade of Andoras’s spear—are just a small part of a very different way of life, based on a “material culture” that little resembles what you’ve always taken to be ordinary and universal.

Nevertheless, the essential pattern of life that Nona describes is not fundamentally different from the one you’ve encountered basically everywhere you’ve been: a substantial part of the population devoted to farming (even if the farming practices have almost nothing in common with anything you’ve seen); most of the rest engaged in labor of various sorts (from preparing food to maintaining public infrastructure to simply keeping the caverns and dwellings clean—a lot of effort goes into that, it sounds like); a class of warriors; a class of priests (or priestesses, rather)…

Category: Adventuring Parties