Nitawahsi is a homebrew world based on a simple, powerful premise:
What would North America look like if there had been powerful native magic to counter the greater technology and disease brought by the Europeans when they arrived in 1000 and late 1400s?
The campaign is set in the late 1500s and Europeans have established cities all along the east coast but it is only in conjunction with the First Nation peoples of the area. In addition there is a small and growing Asian presence on the Pacific North West. Cities with blended populations of native & European races have been established in many areas across all parts of Nitawahsi (the local name for North America) but there is no defined Canada or America as countries. There are only different regions within the continent linked by the great rivers running mostly east/west and trade routes running north/south.
The great central plains are home to many First Nations that refuse to settle in cities and follow the herds of bison and other game. And set up temporary camps that change with the seasons, occasionally warring with the various cities that have been established in the mid-west and western lands.
First Nation races are mostly human tribes but can also be goblin, gnoll and minotaur. (Bison People)
Elves are isolated on what we know as 'Vancouver Island' and are not player characters.
Dwarves are rare from Europe and originate in northern Great Britain.
Most of France is orcish, a delicate, bejeweled and somewhat foppish race.
In Nitawahsi, the half-orc 'Metis' serve as voyageurs, transporting trade goods from the northern and western lands to eastern ports.
Halflings are an enslaved race known as 'hobbimen' and are bred for color or unique physical attributes by many Europeans. Escaped hobbimen have found homes amongst the first nations and western cities.
Prairie gnomes are found underground throughout the great plains and trade with all in isolated areas.
Asian races are human and hobgoblin and led by a secret council of Oni who are reputed to have specific designs on much of the continent starting on the west coast.
This night the town of Tatiniwaw was raided by a goblin tribe, There was quite a few small little skirmishes and when the morning dawned but they realized that 6 kids had been targeted and 5 taken. The 6th, Rubinovar -Ruby-and her family had fought off the goblin attackers.
Olga, Minkus and Salazhar had been staying at Olga’s parent’s house just outside of town and had seen the goblins head into town then later they saw a bunch of goblins heading back into the Woods. Crom and Corn had come up from the city with supplies to help the town when they heard about the attack.
A message was sent to the town Elders that their specific grandchildren had been taken and if 100gp was not paid for each missing child, they would be killed. John Martel-14, Catherine Mason-13, Maria Mason-12, Toppin Purwiggle-8 and Tippin Purwiggle-10 were all missing. The affected elders had set off the next day with Rander the local war chief but had not returned by the 20th.
Thus the last newest elder, Malaki Apanii asks the PCs to find out what happened withthe elders and gives the PCs a copy of a map the elders had received from the goblins. Jonas a local cleric of Demeter will join them to help out.
So when they first left the village they immediately came across a battle with 6 goblins and an asian female fighter. Once she was rescued she recognized Jonas she decided to travel with you too and the looted the six goblin bodies. StrikeDeep was a battle trainer for the community.
They later discovered 3 more goblin bodies that had been chewed on by giant rats when they drove the rats away we found a letter detailing the location of the elders houses and the specific grandkids that were to be taken it was signed by the letter R so they immediately suspected Rander the local warchief who had gone with the elders.
That evening they came across the 'tipi of welcoming' filled with beds and a warm fire and many different kinds of turnip meals. The tipi was surrounded by Golden finches. They were very suspicious but eventually settled in and had a good sleep, however, late in the night, four zombies appeared out of the woods and attacked –formerly the 3 elders and a stranger who the characters figured out worked for warchief Rander.
Each zombie had a fake gold bar tied around it’s neck, showing that the goblins had found out the trick and were not impressed.
After they left the clearing that tipi disappeared which weirded them out but they kept going and eventually came across 2 spider-folk ripping apart a sprite. After fighting and killing the 2 spider-folk the rescued, damaged sprite Manze took them into her Grand Hall (a clearing in the forest about the 8’ long and 4’ high, 4’ wide) and told them the history of the area including:
this was once a great religious city called the Gate of the Sun
Two hundred years ago there was some huge battle with demons and most of the spirit totem holy places were destroyed
the goblins have been using the graveyard- the sprite did not know why
her role as one of the protectors of the forest is to keep forest inhabitants safe from being exploited or enslaved or killed
she gave them some healing splashes (six in total 1-4hp applied to unconscious PCs’ skin) two valuable pipes and some treasure coins
The sprite, now unable to fly, used a portal and teleported the characters into the graveyard area where they found goblin guards leaning up against the crypt. Corn pretended to be one of the guards and surprised them. After they dispatched those and went into the crypt they discovered 3 sarcophagus and in the third one -actually opened up into stairs going down. As they are planning what they are going to do, the lid opens and…..
The team surprised a group of goblins- including one-eyed Velma as they were coming out of the crypt. After a quick battle two goblins surrendered. They discovered the teenage boy John just inside but he had attacked the goblins and been fatally wounded and died.
As they explored the first half of the crypt they came across bats, rats and zombies and skeletons. They met up with a scrawny goblin named WolfLord who had run off with Maria the 11 year old and was protecting her. They escorted the two of them back up to where DeepStrike & Olga's mother waited.
They heard about Amaranth from both WolfLord and the other goblins they captured she is the tribal witch doctor and they all love her.
They discovered the crypt of a famous chieftain Lome, Ksiskstaki his wife and his Chief Scout and they found Lome's Spear (+1 - Minkus) and Frostbite, a peacepipe tomahawk that delivers hand axe damage + 1d6 cold damage (Corn)
They have holed up in the rat chamber for a long rest. Corn has been sent to return Maria and the others to the village.
The PCs awoke to go find the last three children and get back to Tatiniwaw. They located the youngest two, the Purwiggles in shock inside a casket and revived them with healing. They said 'the ‘mom’ goblin had stopped the mean old grandpa goblin from cutting their eyes out!'
They discovered the resting place of several of the former elders and war chiefs who worshipped FeathersWoman and learned that the holy grounds of each of the native deities had been destroyed when the access to the gods was ended.
In the battle with more goblins they heard more about Amaranth the goblin witchdoctor the goblins seem to adore. They also discovered a secret treasure room filled with 12,000 copper pieces which they intend on returning to.
They also accidentally discovered the secret door to an ancient library deep inside the crypt though this crypt was filled with 20 zombies of former clerics. They managed to lead the zombies off to the former centipede room with the deep pit and managed to trick 15 of them to fall into the pit and were able to fight off the remaining five.
Inside the library they learned that the access to their gods ended when the ‘Sun Stream’ had been blocked though they do not know what that means. They DO know that ‘OldMan Sun’ and ‘EarthMother’ are the two greater deities of their world.
They fought two more of the Spider Folk who poisoned and felled Minkus before finally coming across Catherine who had been killed and risen as a ghast. After a brief fierce battle, Salazhar managed to resist her stench to grapple her and capture her. They bound her tightly and intend to take her back to the village and figure out a way to cure her.
ADV001 The Greatest Treasure: 1589/09/27 - 1589/10/03
The PCs looked at each other, the ghast was tightly bound, immobilized by the brave but fool-hardy tackle by the Paladin and they had managed to capture the undead girl with the idea of returning her to her parents and hopefully finding a way out of restoring her to true life.
On their way out of the forest and back home they came across 3 spider-folk attacking a young family. The father had already been poisoned, unconscious and was being wrapped up in webbing and the young woman was fighting to rescue her 2 children. The PCS assisted in driving off and killing the spider folk and the young woman turned out to be a dryad. The paladin cured the young father of his poisoned bite and in return Magdalena the dryad invited them to her home inside the tree gave them a huge vegetarian breakfast .
She talked about how many more spider folk being here now compared to just a couple of years ago and how they congregated around the old ancient destroyed city with its warm swampy water. She needs something done about that but thanks the PCs for their help.
The PCs meet up with Corn and his new half orc voyageur sorcerer buddy, Zaran who knows Pinot the local clay maker’s son and has a contract to ship both clay and ‘canmore stoves’ into Toskwanik.
The PCs head to Malakai’s farm to talk with him, the last surviving Elder and his wife the half orc, ButterCup. He is at a loss about what to do until they talk about reviving the undead ghastgirl and he sends his German friend Shroeder, who is part of the Die Wachturn and a white neuromancer to talk to them about reviving the girl. Shroeder brings along his wife Brunhilde who is a zombie but dressed as a clown so to not scare anyone. He talks about the process needed to bring the girl back and gets very excited hearing about the coffin they had discovered so agrees to help them if they can get the coffin, So they head back to get the coffin and their 12,000 ancient copper pieces and fight off a few surviving zombies to return to town.
They also are empowered by Malakai to arrest Rander the local War Chief to take him to the city for questioning given his involvement in seeming to help the goblins find the Elders. They get into his home at the edge of town, 2-3 of his Scouts surrender and then they confront Amaranth the beautiful goblin shaman involved in a bedroom with the young woman Deep Strike and a half orc guard called ‘Le Donkey’… It all comes out that Deep Strike is Rander’s adopted daughter but didn’t know anything about her father’s plans, he himself didn’t know the kids would be taken and goblin beauty Amaranth has been working with the goblin tribe Chieftain Tukluk but using him for her own ends. She knew about the elders blinding the goblin 25 yrs ago so understood his plans for revenge but she didn’t know the kids would be taken. She led the goblins to instruct the party to the crypt to unknowingly help her get rid of the zombies so she can continue her plan to reconnect the native totem spirits with the natives. She needs to explore the library that the zombies were blocking.
Eventually the paladin can’t take the teasing by the goblin priestess and attacks her, discovering she is an illusion (priestess of a trickster god after all) and they then chase and catch up with Rander who has escaped his home and is broken and running away carrying a handful of platinum pieces. They capture him and agree to take him to Toskwanik with the two now naturally dead children to get them revived if possible. They will meet up with the Chief Scout.
ADV002 The trip to Toskwanik: 1589/10/03 - 1589/10/11
The PCs drag Rander back to the village and keep him on ice for a few days while Corn trains under the tutelage of Feefer- the @greenratbreed hobbimen tavern owner. While Corn is learning how to be a proper thief, Salazhar sees the kindness of Feefer makes a decision and pledges to his god an Oath of Conquest in his grim determination to rid the world of enslavement. While Salazhar is making this life-changing decision, Grom is playing with his furry balls. Grom discovers that the fur balls inside the rust colored bag they found produces a different animal each time one is picked, from rat to grizzly.
Once the PCs have been properly celebrated and wined and dined by the townspeople they head onto Zaran's clay schooner, for the two day trip to Toskwanik. Tesserik Zaan, the Canmore Clay Company owner and friend of the Purwiggles offers the PCs a ride back to the city in his private 'dollhouse' aboard the clay schooner as a thanks for what they did in helping his friends' kids. The players enjoy the comforts of the two story inn bottled inside the 'dollhouse' with warm baths, excellent food and grooming offered by the staff inside the dollhouse. The only event on the river cruise over the two days is an attack by goblins on the boat itself which Corn manages to fight off with the help from Grom's giant boar from his bag. (It was during this distracting fight that Amaranth and her two goblin henchmen managed to slip aboard the boat invisibly and ride into town, see below.)
They pass under the eyes of the watchmen stationed in Kapasiwin, the island fortress half a day west of Toskwanik and are dropped at the commercial docks near Grom's mother's inn, the Mug and the Hook. Pinot and Zaran continue downstream to meet with the prairie gnomes with their fine clay shipment. They drop Jonah at his temple of Demeter with the gold required to raise the two children, John and Catherine from the village. Jonah will take them home October 17 or so once they are fully recovered.
On their way leading Rander to the Justice Lodge, the PCs are jumped by a pretty bard and her gang. They are out-numbered by manage to kill the bard and two of her men before the other two knock them out.... They awaken bound to chairs, stripped of their possessions, as they are greeted by Polyphemous the Cyclops, a one-eyed @fightingpitbreed hobbiman and several of his gang in their secret warehouse hideout in Toskwanik. Called the 'House of the Midnight Sun' they have been ordered to find and capture the PCs as well to get rid of Rander before he can be interrogated in the TruthSaying Circle at the Justice Lodge. Polyphemous demonstrates his power by slitting Rander's throat and leaving him to wetly gasp out his life at the feet of the PCs. They then are hauled off to meet their 'interviewer' Agel and are taken up to a torture room and left there.
When Agel and his two assistants arrive Salazhar uses his newfound oath powers to scare off the assistants. This Agel resists and turns out to be Amaranth magically disguised. She is tight on time, tosses the PCs three swords, a shield and some lock picks. She and her goblins disappear and the PCs set out to find their stuff and escape the Midnight Sun. They encounter several prisoners that have been tortured or operated on and end up freeing all of them, a lizardman, a badly hurt bison-man, a young ogre, two French orcs, three elves, a yellow goblin, a townguardsman. They attack and defeat the torturer and his three guards, leaving one tied and unconscious in the morgue room.
The large rescue party confronted three more guards and an Envoy of the BlackSun Order. He managed to fend off many of them for a round or two but fled after falling for a Command by Salazhar. He has disappeared the area, for now.
The party discovered an escape route on the roof of the warehouse and managed to avoid the second and first floor of the warehouse, The Guard has been called and they are now all gathered hiding behind a next door building deciding how to proceed.
Minkus BloodHoof and his new friend Guy Lazard, the half-orc monk from the Grand Chief city of Kistahpinanih, help the town of Tatawanik fend off an attack by goblins, the tribe of the Emerald Eye. After a night of celebration and gambling with 'Coyote Bones' at the Verdant Vermin, Minkus and Guy were awoken to warning horns as an army of goblins was spotted coming in from the north. After conferring with ButterCup and Malakai, the two each led two squads of town militia sword & bow to the dig in at the north end of town and delay the goblin army to give time for the citizens to flee to the safety of the War Chief's solid stone RookLodge.
However, in the end, the goblins were conflicted with their leadership lacking as their morale broke in the face of Guy's devastating Fists of the Four Winds, the barrage of arrows from the militia and the sight of the raging bison minotaur bellowing as he charged forward, heedless of goblin arrows that sprouted from his arms and chest, trampling and chopping down goblins two at a time. Combined, the remaining militia and the two heroes drove the goblins back and the town was saved with minimal loss of life. Schroeder revived one of the fallen militia, a young widow by the name of Alsoomse.
PCs immediately re-entered the warehouse, caught Aldei going through stuff and fought him to death. They recovered all their personal items as well as a dollshouse prison -two of them- and the death finch lantern of revealing known as the Calar'Te.
They spent the day shopping and getting some custom work done, sold some things and wandered the town while they waited to speak with War Chief and Chief Scout.
Minkus got his horns refitted with silver/steel alloy that now does 1-10 Dam.
They traded one of the dollhouse prisons to the cleric to get Byron SongMauler fully healed and revived and ready to serve with Minkus for now. Byron knows Minkus is the son of the chief.
When they visited HBC, Corn got a fancy +1 Dagger named Fang and Minkus bought two war dogs, mastiffs to help.
They then went to the Lodge of Justice and met with the War Chief 'Nuku' and then the Chief Scout 'Seka' and agreed to become Scouts, receiving a dagger with her initial W on it. They also received a sending stone to send and receive messages. They have a safehouse to stay in when they need it.
They had to decide whether to head to Farukan's Hook or lead the attack on the goblins and decided instead to head to Hook. Byron was captured there and knows it has been taken over by some evil people.
Players were sent by the Chief Scout to check out the windship port Farukhan's Hook, which is where Byron SongMauler says he was captured as a guard. They were worried because this is their main point of contact for the elves on the west coast.
The players arrived at Kapasawin, the island fortress outpost in the river west of Toskawnik which was the closest settlement to the Hook and prepared to head west half a day. However, they were initially shooed off because of some sort of disease scare. However the DockMaster was a fraud and one of the members of the Midnight Sun and he called one of his allies, a huge hill giant down to help him defeat the players when they insisted on landing anyway.
Kapasawin had been taken over by the goblins and their giant and worg allies so the PCs had to fight off a large contingent of goblins. Strangely, many of the goblins wore a single green glass lens over one eye (called themselves the Emerald Eye tribe)
The townspeople have fled or been taken prisoner though they discovered one woman Kella, hiding in the ruined inn on her way to visit her father stationed at the Hook. There are also four Toskwanik towns guard still in the castle of the outpost commander.
They sent word to Toskwanik and a contingent of soldiers had arrived a half day later to help clear out the rest of the outpost and set to work repairing the bridge and roofs of the buildings and the riverbank-side drawbridge which had all been damaged or destroyed by the giants' boulders.
Grom and Minkus (and Byron) headed out from Kapasawin to rescue the villagers. Along the way they were attacked by some sort of strange huge swamp creature from the marsh along the side of the road. They managed to defeat it and continued to head out towards Farukon's Hook when they noticed that the large set of tracks of goblins and the captured villagers branched off to the south off the road.
They decided to follow the tracks and soon came across a troop Black Sun hobgoblin soldiers in black plate mail led by the Envoy, the monk they had met at the Midnight Sun warehouse. They also discovered that the girl Kella who they had 'rescued' from the ruined inn at Kapasawin and had been escorting to 'meet her father at the Hook' was actually a much more competent undercover member of the Midnight Sun Trading Company. They defeated the soldiers but the Envoy and Kella escaped into the woods. However they learned that the Midnight Sun is effectively a front for the Black Sun Order. In conversation with the Envoy, they also discovered they have been capturing people to ship west to 'rejuvenate the Masters and allow them to live forever in majesty.'
They also discovered a windship schedule but it was written in Nakoda-Stoney so they were unable to read it right away.
Being unable to capture the monk and the female agent, they continued following the tracks to the where the Emerald Eye goblins had set up an encampment and were holding the villagers. Using robes looted from the BlackSun corpses, they managed to trick their way past the first couple of sets of guards but were discovered by the sub chief (who knew the BlackSun did not hire either dwarves nor Bison-People) in the midst of the encampment and had to beat a hasty retreat… what they called a 'Reverse Flanking Maneuver' into the woods.
Selflessly, Grom volunteered to lead the goblins away and took off into the forest making a racket to draw the goblins away. They used that chance to head to the goblin camp and after some planning, had the sorcerer light one of the goblin's tents on fire using magic to create a distraction as the rest killed the guards and freed the villagers to lead them into the forest.
The took the time to feed all the prisoners into their 'dollhouse' and took off back to Kapasawin, camping in the forest overnight to avoid detection. In the morning, they were chased by worg riders from the goblin encampment and managed, after a harrowing outdoor pursuit to dive into the cold cold Mahkban (river) and avoid detection. Then bison minotaurs were seperated from the rest of the group in the rough water but they all managed to meet up on the river bank and brought the villagers back to Kapasawin. There was a huge party that night and the PCs were re-stocked with arrows and basic weapons, sold some things to the general merchant. Zaran was able to comprehend the windship schedule and they figured they had approximately two days before the next windship arrived.
They set off the next day to head directly now to Farukon's Hook. On the way they were attacked by some harpies who tried to carry off Corn and others. After the harpies were defeated they discovered some coins, jeweled daggers and a harpy egg!
They then rescued Ongneechet a thin dark skinned female dwarf fighter who was using her twin bullroarers to try and fend off four Spider-Folk. They defeated the ettercaps and Ongneechet made Zaran and Minkus a bullroarer in gratitude. They discovered a potion of fire resistance and some plain treasure then in an hour or so arrived at the open plain before Ha Ling Peak. Far above they can make out the towerport of Farukon's Hook.
Grom, Corn and Ongneechet headed off to the Nakoda village outside the TowerPort but walked by the shipbuilding and didnt stop in the village. They walked up to the second level and met with Akra the tiefling who they cured from some sort of mind blanking spell in the tavern of the second story inn. Mayev the bartender/manager was drunk.There were two gnomes, the tiefling and a couple of male humans in the Tower Tavern. They bought a Windship Schedule from Mayev and learned how the whole process worked.
They eventually took a room and then Corn crawled out the outside to the top where they saw the HookMaster and his crew working -badly- on the keel of the Large Victory. They snuck past the crew and explored the Pomlock and discovered it had been attacked and ransacked and was currently empty. They then explored the the Large Victory and saw that it was still unransacked and currently empty.
Heading down one set of floors on the shipping level they met up with Polyphemus and eventually killed him as well as the HookMaster who turned out to be a doppleganger. In another room of webbing, once they killed the phase spider, they disovered the body of the real HookMaster and all of the true HookCrew, all half-even Nakoda natives.
The Pomlock crew had also been killed/captured (three survivors Karl, Robin and Robina) and replaced by Midnight Sun operatives but the Large Victory crew were simply delayed and restless as their captain Xerrin was being 'persuaded' to fly the Victory to the elvish port. She was imprisoned and beaten but had resisted the charm spells.Once the PCs freed her she ordered her crew to help them take out the rest of the Midnight Sun Trading Company and they attacked en masse.
Once the Midnight Sun had been defeated, they discovered a note written in Japanese between the Midnight Sun and the Blacksun Order that they will get translated. The Pomlock survivors will head to the village to get new orders and consider which new family member will join them. Robina will nominated for Captain. And the Nakoda village will celebrate the PCs victory with 50% off passage and inns for the next year.
Getting the full note translated, they discovered that one of the agents of Black Sun/Midnight Sun had been placed in a position of power and had captured a large shipment of humans, Frostfur (bugbear) tribesmen, 2 forest giants (Sakaw Mistapew) etc had been captured and were on their way back. Lo Buckley, a heavy set Asian merchant has asked the characters to take a shipment of silver weapons to Arun, his ally in Wiqowin in the North West Towns to help him fight off some wererats.
The crew took off for Dawson Creek on the Leafdancer, experiencing the rolls and bounding decks of a rolling windship in full flight. They headed to Dawson Creek which took approximately three days and while on board met up with Belgar going to visit his brother in Yellowknife. They also met two other fellow passengers, Lady Dier and King Cole. Dier was sullen and kept seperate but Cole was happy to hang out with the players and aid in battles. After some high-flight fights and some rough weather they docked in Dawson Creek and spent three days there gathering supplies and being trained for new levels and skills.
At the Port inn of The Ugly Dwarf, they met Irmik, an ancient gnomish alchemist from outside Missoula who traveled in a horizo-parambulator, an mobile eight legged chair and kept a white rabbit named Koko on his lap and talked to absent-mindedly. Irmik was eager to buy any manticore spines they had and offered to build them a horizo-parambulator, of their own for 10 spines. They need only show up in the gnomish settlement of Fluxrivet.
They also met up with the WindPort manager and innkeeper, a frogsmouth hobbemen female named Cecelia who took a shine to corn and a young woman travelling from Wiqowin to Nahanni to see Brother Leslie Love, a famous bard who is performing at the Three Jesters in Nahanni. The next ship, the Broken Talon is booked solid because of the concert and they manage to squeeze on only because they have their 'Travellin' Shack' dollhouse which could be set into the hold.
Once they land in Nahinni they will decide whether to fly to Mammoth or to book passage on a sakaw mistapew ocapanaskos (forest giant sled) directly to Wiqowin to deliver the weapons.
ADV004 Northern flight to Wiqowin: 1589/10/31-1589/11/02
'Landing' in Nahanni is accomplished by being caught by the friendly, intelligent giant ape 'McGillicuddy' in a swooping process known as the 'McGiillicuddle.' Once the PCs climbed off the boat they realized there were still 1000 ft in the air on a cloud giant castle -Nahanni's Tooth- owned by Nahanni herself, a cloud giant. Nahanni has lived a very long time and is a powerful wizard but has been struck with a powerful form of mental insanity and can not remember what has happened to her the previous day so writes everything down and then wakes up each morning wiith a note pinned to her chest "Read Journal (currently #14441) near your bedside table, which starts with 'Your name is Nahanni, you are a cloud giant and wizard and were born Dec 12 232 AD, jump to the end of the writing. Review book 2321 for recent people you have met..." This need to review things in great detail means any question they ask of her will take all day to answer and if it takes longer than a day then they are out of luck as her memory resets at midnight. Her friend the ape helps out as best he can but it takes her a couple of hours every day to remember to trust him.
The port inn is the Armored Owl and fills the main floor of the castle with rows of bunks that circle the walls rising up 25 levels with the tavern area on the main floor in the middle of the single great room. Salazhar the paladin detected good/evil and found a deva named 'Soomse' high up on a bunk in row 17. Soomse is a servant of the god, MorningStar and travels with and plays for Brother Love and helps out when she can. Salazhar was instantly in deep, passionate love with her and she in return is ...polite.
After the PCs got settled in and prepared to explore the city, they and everyone around them were attacked by spider-folk riding giant Aeros sky-spiders. It took Nahanni six rounds of reading her journals to determine that these were enemies while the ape and the PCs and the deva and others fought off the spider attack. Once she did she called a giant storm to sweep the spiders from the air and end the attack.
That night there was a huge, highly anticipated concert at the Temple of the Three Fools, a huge auditorium space that was filled to capacity and Brother Leslie Love -a high level teifling bard- performed with his troupe of wizards, bards and clerics providing the light show and music. The climax of the show was Brother Love calling on the totems of all the native races in the audience to dance in the air above their heads, glowing and swirling and then surge down to raise six of the dead killed during the spider attack earlier in the day. The crowd went wild!
The next morning, in the calm after the huge concert, they decided to travel by forest giant sled instead of taking the next flight of a windship. They had to buy three turkeys and a bunch of pies for the payment of the sled ride to Wiqowin. The forest giant driver of the sled asked for a name because he doesn't use one normally and they picked "Hefty". He was very excited to get going because he loves 'going fast'.
The sled is huge and pulled by a string of wild Snowbeaks. It travels 25 plus D20 miles per day depending on the road conditions. they had one very cold day but spent most of it inside the dollhouse.
They met an artic elf Sol on his eagle at the small outpost of Nalv and spent the night there. He confirmed that there were troubles in Wiqowin with the frostfur priestess called the Ice Queen but he lives far to the north and doesn’t know much beyond that. He had blue eyes, pale skin and long white hair.
They ran into a young man at one of the way stations who was fighting with a wererat -who turned out to be his young girlfriend who had been bitten in town. They had fled to avoid the problems but she had turned unexpectedly. When the party found out he had been bitten, Minkus killed him immediately though that was very distressing to the half-orc and Byron.
Arriving in Wiqowin, they saw the town was being attacked by the frostfurs but they managed to both defend the town and found and killed the Ice Queen.
The next day, they discovered that their town contact Arun has been murdered by the wererats but they killed Slim the wererat and captured Michi the half orc who they had caught standing over the body. Michi was picked up by a town official (Vaelish) and two guards but the players discovered later that they never made it to the jail.
They continued to investigate the murder and tracked down another wererat in a nearby apartment-got a list of clerics the wererats were planning on getting rid of so their infection of the townspeople could not be stopped.
Eventually, they enlisted the help I'm the captain of the guard bye performing a peace pipe ceremony and convincing the captain they were official. She arranged to get the chief to come meet them to talk about the problems but when the chief arrived she was in the company of the same town official as the party had met earlier in the day on the street. That official, Vaelish Gant revealed himself to be a wererat Lord and called 2 of the guards that he had already infected to fight the party along with the chief and the capital of the guard. He also sent a call throughout the town to trigger any infected townspeople into turning into full-blooded and order them to come to the council chambers to help.
In the protracted battle that followed, one of the still loyal uninfected guards had a very lucky hit and killed Vaelish before he could escape. The players are now in conference with the captain of the guard and the chief about what they should do next.
The PCs and the Captain of the Guard decided they had to get the Chief out of town along with the young FrostFur sub-chieftain so that the chief could ask the FrostFur Chief for help in defeating the wererats and negotiate a peace treaty. Then they could work together to stop the slavers from kidnapping both townspeople and FrostFur tribesmen.
They made a careful run for the Northgate, organizing guards they encountered, rescuing bystanders and defeating/knocking out wererats they met who had newly changed because of Vaelish's call but were confused and standing around. Once they defeated the wererat they bound its wounds so it would not die and bound it tightly so it couldn't escape until they were able to cast a Remove Curse on it.
It took a couple of hours for them to carefully make it to the gate. Salazar agreed to accompany the Chief and the Captain to go meet the FrostFur Tribe Chieftain and they headed out.
PCs had just seen the chief, her captain of the guard, the FrostFur subchief and Salazar off through the North gate to go talk to the FrostFur tribe. They decided two now round up the remaining clerics, a paladin and a wizard all of whom could cast Remove Curse and so had been targeted by the wererats according to that list they found.One of the Guards they had saved was a Guard Sergeant by the name of Pedro Rodriguez who had lived in Wiqowin for 20 yrs and knew the town very well. He agreed to help them find the remaining clerics so they made their way slowly back into the center of town confronting/defeating/capturing random new wererats who had transformed.
They had found several of the clerics no problem but the wizard Toka was arrogant and racist and refused to have anything to do with the non-human group unless he was paid very well. The paladin eagerly offered to help but was quite drunk.They worked out a strategy with Pedro to head back to the Chief's Palace because the council chamber's basement holding cells were overrun by wererats who had been called there by Vaelish before his death. However, when they got to the Palace, Alvin a young guard informed them that the Chief was there and she had given express orders that Pedro was not to be allowed back in because he had been transformed into wererat.
Corn snuck away and turned himself into the image of Doriqa the chief's daughter and tried to convince the guards to let her and her 'friends' in, they refused but did call the Chief down to talk to her 'daughter.' Corn managed to charm the Chief and she agreed to let everyone into the palace to talk. She then revealed to her daughter that they needed to take over the town in order to get more slaves sent to the West coast. The wizard was paid to cast Dispel Magic on the chief and revealed her to be a Wererat Lord. This sight shocked and confused the guards which allowed the PCs to attack both the 'Chief' and another Wererat Lord who was appearing as the Captain of the Guard. This Lord was hit pretty badly by Minkus and Byron so he tried to flee by turning into mist but Grom noticed this and had Toka cast Fly on himself and Grom and they took off after the mist and captured it. Grom then dropped onto and killed that Wererat Lord and combat was over at the Palace.
But they could not rest while the wererats were out biting and infecting more townspeople.
The party members had Pedro remain behind at the Palace in charge of getting all of the wererat victims healed and eventually have their curse lifted by the clerics/paladin and wizard. And they took off to find the final two clerics. They came across Mara at the Green Scroll Inn where she was holding off 6 wererats and Grom fell in love with this powerful beautiful dwarven cleric of Freya.
They headed into the town center and rescued the final cleric Shtoka who was near death and bitten. Healed by Mara, she agreed to help them defeat the wererats. Corn set up on one of the market carts in the market square, put on his kilt and pulled out his bagpipes and made a lot of noise. Because of the sensitive hearing of wererats and the universal power of the bagpipes to annoy in the hands of an unskilled player (Corn) the tortured squawking drew the twenty-one wererats and three Wererat Lords who had been gathered in the Council Chambers into the main square for an epic final battle. Fireballs and Ice Storm spells were met with Blade Barriers from Mara and the whirling blades of Grom and the minotaurs as they mowed down the infected wererat/townspeople.
Once this was complete and most of the townspeople saved, they noticed that one of the wererats was the chief's daughter and they managed to save her, though Corn didn't like the idea of saving the wererats who had tried to kill him. A calm settles over the market square as several of the carts burned and cautious but curious townspeople trickled back into the square and the PCs & clerics saved and bound the wererat/victims they could.
Once the calm had settled on the crowd gathering the square, the team headed to the home of Dunavon, the owner of the Midnight Sun Trading Company. He was not home but they discovered a goldenskinned hobbeman bard kept caged in his study. GooGal had been kept there since birth and had spent her time talking with Dunavon (they had been raised together and were both 50 though he was human) reading and performing for him. They spent the night there at her invitation and, once they freed her, somewhat unwillingly and they had french toast made for them by the servants, the Guard Sargent Pedro asked the PCs to head to the FrostFur village to collect the Chief and her Guard Captain as the Frostfur's help was no longer needed.
They set off for the village which was a day's ride north. In the meantime, Salazhar had previously followed the Chief and her party and -watching from a distance- seen the Chief and her party and several Frostfur bugbears tied up and led into the glacier. Not sure what was going on he used the sending stone to message the other members and when they arrived, led them into the crevasse. After they passed through they came to a ledge overlooking the far valley that was free of ice with a large pool of steaming water filled by hot springs. One of the bugbear shamans, a Frostfur they didn't recognize was leading another group in a strange chant and ceremony.
Corn snuck into a nearby hut which was empty except for a strange shrine with a horned bear skull (demon?) After seeing they decided to act and interrupted the ceremony and attacked the shaman -who turned out to be far more powerful than they expected- and his followers. During the attack they saw two bugbears disappear into the pool and not surface again so Grom leaped in after them. He was swept into an underground passage that ended in a waterfall/pool and two large caverns under the glacier.
After turning invisible using the powder he had, in the second cavern he found the Chief, Duvessa, the Captain and another guard tied to stalagmites along with three Frostfur white bugbears including the young subchief who had first brokered the deal for peace, the Frostfur Chief Jotund and his chief shaman. A fourth bugbear was lying in the arms of a small human native girl and -as Grom watched- she seemed to suck the life essence out of the bugbear, shriveling it. She then noticed Grom and turned in the air and began to float towards him, her eyes black.
Up on the surface, the PCs finally defeated the shaman who had channeled powerful healing spells to heal several of his allies at once. When the fight was finally over they all headed into the pool and found 'BearChild' a supposed messenger of MotherBear totem confronting Grom. As Bearchild turned she transformed into several minor characters the PCs had met over the last few adventures finally turning to his final form as Master Cloud. He initially tried to tempt them, then capture them as he was anxious to feed off the long lived dwarf and half elves. He realized almost too late that he had underestimated their powers and attacked earnestly before having to turn into mist and flee from the cavern.
Nitawahsi is a homebrew world based on a simple, powerful premise:
What would North America look like if there had been powerful native magic to counter the greater technology and disease brought by the Europeans when they arrived in 1000 and late 1400s?
The campaign is set in the late 1500s and Europeans have established cities all along the east coast but it is only in conjunction with the First Nation peoples of the area. In addition there is a small and growing Asian presence on the Pacific North West. Cities with blended populations of native & European races have been established in many areas across all parts of Nitawahsi (the local name for North America) but there is no defined Canada or America as countries. There are only different regions within the continent linked by the great rivers running mostly east/west and trade routes running north/south.
Nitawahsi Lands by KCork is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
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ADV001 The Greatest Treasure: 1589/09/17
This night the town of Tatiniwaw was raided by a goblin tribe, There was quite a few small little skirmishes and when the morning dawned but they realized that 6 kids had been targeted and 5 taken. The 6th, Rubinovar -Ruby-and her family had fought off the goblin attackers.
Olga, Minkus and Salazhar had been staying at Olga’s parent’s house just outside of town and had seen the goblins head into town then later they saw a bunch of goblins heading back into the Woods. Crom and Corn had come up from the city with supplies to help the town when they heard about the attack.
A message was sent to the town Elders that their specific grandchildren had been taken and if 100gp was not paid for each missing child, they would be killed. John Martel-14, Catherine Mason-13, Maria Mason-12, Toppin Purwiggle-8 and Tippin Purwiggle-10 were all missing. The affected elders had set off the next day with Rander the local war chief but had not returned by the 20th.
Thus the last newest elder, Malaki Apanii asks the PCs to find out what happened withthe elders and gives the PCs a copy of a map the elders had received from the goblins. Jonas a local cleric of Demeter will join them to help out.
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ADV001 The Greatest Treasure: 1589/09/20-22nd
So when they first left the village they immediately came across a battle with 6 goblins and an asian female fighter. Once she was rescued she recognized Jonas she decided to travel with you too and the looted the six goblin bodies. StrikeDeep was a battle trainer for the community.
They later discovered 3 more goblin bodies that had been chewed on by giant rats when they drove the rats away we found a letter detailing the location of the elders houses and the specific grandkids that were to be taken it was signed by the letter R so they immediately suspected Rander the local warchief who had gone with the elders.
That evening they came across the 'tipi of welcoming' filled with beds and a warm fire and many different kinds of turnip meals. The tipi was surrounded by Golden finches. They were very suspicious but eventually settled in and had a good sleep, however, late in the night, four zombies appeared out of the woods and attacked –formerly the 3 elders and a stranger who the characters figured out worked for warchief Rander.
Each zombie had a fake gold bar tied around it’s neck, showing that the goblins had found out the trick and were not impressed.
After they left the clearing that tipi disappeared which weirded them out but they kept going and eventually came across 2 spider-folk ripping apart a sprite. After fighting and killing the 2 spider-folk the rescued, damaged sprite Manze took them into her Grand Hall (a clearing in the forest about the 8’ long and 4’ high, 4’ wide) and told them the history of the area including:
The sprite, now unable to fly, used a portal and teleported the characters into the graveyard area where they found goblin guards leaning up against the crypt. Corn pretended to be one of the guards and surprised them. After they dispatched those and went into the crypt they discovered 3 sarcophagus and in the third one -actually opened up into stairs going down. As they are planning what they are going to do, the lid opens and…..
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ADV001 The Greatest Treasure: 1589/09/23
The team surprised a group of goblins- including one-eyed Velma as they were coming out of the crypt. After a quick battle two goblins surrendered. They discovered the teenage boy John just inside but he had attacked the goblins and been fatally wounded and died.
As they explored the first half of the crypt they came across bats, rats and zombies and skeletons. They met up with a scrawny goblin named WolfLord who had run off with Maria the 11 year old and was protecting her. They escorted the two of them back up to where DeepStrike & Olga's mother waited.
They heard about Amaranth from both WolfLord and the other goblins they captured she is the tribal witch doctor and they all love her.
They discovered the crypt of a famous chieftain Lome, Ksiskstaki his wife and his Chief Scout and they found Lome's Spear (+1 - Minkus) and Frostbite, a peacepipe tomahawk that delivers hand axe damage + 1d6 cold damage (Corn)
They have holed up in the rat chamber for a long rest. Corn has been sent to return Maria and the others to the village.
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ADV001 The Greatest Treasure: 1589/09/24-26
The PCs awoke to go find the last three children and get back to Tatiniwaw. They located the youngest two, the Purwiggles in shock inside a casket and revived them with healing. They said 'the ‘mom’ goblin had stopped the mean old grandpa goblin from cutting their eyes out!'
They discovered the resting place of several of the former elders and war chiefs who worshipped FeathersWoman and learned that the holy grounds of each of the native deities had been destroyed when the access to the gods was ended.
In the battle with more goblins they heard more about Amaranth the goblin witchdoctor the goblins seem to adore. They also discovered a secret treasure room filled with 12,000 copper pieces which they intend on returning to.
They also accidentally discovered the secret door to an ancient library deep inside the crypt though this crypt was filled with 20 zombies of former clerics. They managed to lead the zombies off to the former centipede room with the deep pit and managed to trick 15 of them to fall into the pit and were able to fight off the remaining five.
Inside the library they learned that the access to their gods ended when the ‘Sun Stream’ had been blocked though they do not know what that means. They DO know that ‘OldMan Sun’ and ‘EarthMother’ are the two greater deities of their world.
They fought two more of the Spider Folk who poisoned and felled Minkus before finally coming across Catherine who had been killed and risen as a ghast. After a brief fierce battle, Salazhar managed to resist her stench to grapple her and capture her. They bound her tightly and intend to take her back to the village and figure out a way to cure her.
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ADV001 The Greatest Treasure: 1589/09/27 - 1589/10/03
The PCs looked at each other, the ghast was tightly bound, immobilized by the brave but fool-hardy tackle by the Paladin and they had managed to capture the undead girl with the idea of returning her to her parents and hopefully finding a way out of restoring her to true life.
On their way out of the forest and back home they came across 3 spider-folk attacking a young family. The father had already been poisoned, unconscious and was being wrapped up in webbing and the young woman was fighting to rescue her 2 children. The PCS assisted in driving off and killing the spider folk and the young woman turned out to be a dryad. The paladin cured the young father of his poisoned bite and in return Magdalena the dryad invited them to her home inside the tree gave them a huge vegetarian breakfast .
She talked about how many more spider folk being here now compared to just a couple of years ago and how they congregated around the old ancient destroyed city with its warm swampy water. She needs something done about that but thanks the PCs for their help.
The PCs meet up with Corn and his new half orc voyageur sorcerer buddy, Zaran who knows Pinot the local clay maker’s son and has a contract to ship both clay and ‘canmore stoves’ into Toskwanik.
The PCs head to Malakai’s farm to talk with him, the last surviving Elder and his wife the half orc, ButterCup. He is at a loss about what to do until they talk about reviving the undead ghastgirl and he sends his German friend Shroeder, who is part of the Die Wachturn and a white neuromancer to talk to them about reviving the girl. Shroeder brings along his wife Brunhilde who is a zombie but dressed as a clown so to not scare anyone. He talks about the process needed to bring the girl back and gets very excited hearing about the coffin they had discovered so agrees to help them if they can get the coffin, So they head back to get the coffin and their 12,000 ancient copper pieces and fight off a few surviving zombies to return to town.
They also are empowered by Malakai to arrest Rander the local War Chief to take him to the city for questioning given his involvement in seeming to help the goblins find the Elders. They get into his home at the edge of town, 2-3 of his Scouts surrender and then they confront Amaranth the beautiful goblin shaman involved in a bedroom with the young woman Deep Strike and a half orc guard called ‘Le Donkey’… It all comes out that Deep Strike is Rander’s adopted daughter but didn’t know anything about her father’s plans, he himself didn’t know the kids would be taken and goblin beauty Amaranth has been working with the goblin tribe Chieftain Tukluk but using him for her own ends. She knew about the elders blinding the goblin 25 yrs ago so understood his plans for revenge but she didn’t know the kids would be taken. She led the goblins to instruct the party to the crypt to unknowingly help her get rid of the zombies so she can continue her plan to reconnect the native totem spirits with the natives. She needs to explore the library that the zombies were blocking.
Eventually the paladin can’t take the teasing by the goblin priestess and attacks her, discovering she is an illusion (priestess of a trickster god after all) and they then chase and catch up with Rander who has escaped his home and is broken and running away carrying a handful of platinum pieces. They capture him and agree to take him to Toskwanik with the two now naturally dead children to get them revived if possible. They will meet up with the Chief Scout.
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ADV002 The trip to Toskwanik: 1589/10/03 - 1589/10/11
The PCs drag Rander back to the village and keep him on ice for a few days while Corn trains under the tutelage of Feefer- the @greenratbreed hobbimen tavern owner. While Corn is learning how to be a proper thief, Salazhar sees the kindness of Feefer makes a decision and pledges to his god an Oath of Conquest in his grim determination to rid the world of enslavement. While Salazhar is making this life-changing decision, Grom is playing with his furry balls. Grom discovers that the fur balls inside the rust colored bag they found produces a different animal each time one is picked, from rat to grizzly.
Once the PCs have been properly celebrated and wined and dined by the townspeople they head onto Zaran's clay schooner, for the two day trip to Toskwanik. Tesserik Zaan, the Canmore Clay Company owner and friend of the Purwiggles offers the PCs a ride back to the city in his private 'dollhouse' aboard the clay schooner as a thanks for what they did in helping his friends' kids. The players enjoy the comforts of the two story inn bottled inside the 'dollhouse' with warm baths, excellent food and grooming offered by the staff inside the dollhouse. The only event on the river cruise over the two days is an attack by goblins on the boat itself which Corn manages to fight off with the help from Grom's giant boar from his bag. (It was during this distracting fight that Amaranth and her two goblin henchmen managed to slip aboard the boat invisibly and ride into town, see below.)
They pass under the eyes of the watchmen stationed in Kapasiwin, the island fortress half a day west of Toskwanik and are dropped at the commercial docks near Grom's mother's inn, the Mug and the Hook. Pinot and Zaran continue downstream to meet with the prairie gnomes with their fine clay shipment. They drop Jonah at his temple of Demeter with the gold required to raise the two children, John and Catherine from the village. Jonah will take them home October 17 or so once they are fully recovered.
On their way leading Rander to the Justice Lodge, the PCs are jumped by a pretty bard and her gang. They are out-numbered by manage to kill the bard and two of her men before the other two knock them out.... They awaken bound to chairs, stripped of their possessions, as they are greeted by Polyphemous the Cyclops, a one-eyed @fightingpitbreed hobbiman and several of his gang in their secret warehouse hideout in Toskwanik. Called the 'House of the Midnight Sun' they have been ordered to find and capture the PCs as well to get rid of Rander before he can be interrogated in the TruthSaying Circle at the Justice Lodge. Polyphemous demonstrates his power by slitting Rander's throat and leaving him to wetly gasp out his life at the feet of the PCs. They then are hauled off to meet their 'interviewer' Agel and are taken up to a torture room and left there.
When Agel and his two assistants arrive Salazhar uses his newfound oath powers to scare off the assistants. This Agel resists and turns out to be Amaranth magically disguised. She is tight on time, tosses the PCs three swords, a shield and some lock picks. She and her goblins disappear and the PCs set out to find their stuff and escape the Midnight Sun. They encounter several prisoners that have been tortured or operated on and end up freeing all of them, a lizardman, a badly hurt bison-man, a young ogre, two French orcs, three elves, a yellow goblin, a townguardsman. They attack and defeat the torturer and his three guards, leaving one tied and unconscious in the morgue room.
The large rescue party confronted three more guards and an Envoy of the BlackSun Order. He managed to fend off many of them for a round or two but fled after falling for a Command by Salazhar. He has disappeared the area, for now.
The party discovered an escape route on the roof of the warehouse and managed to avoid the second and first floor of the warehouse, The Guard has been called and they are now all gathered hiding behind a next door building deciding how to proceed.
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ADV002a The attack on Tatawanik: 1589/10/11
Minkus BloodHoof and his new friend Guy Lazard, the half-orc monk from the Grand Chief city of Kistahpinanih, help the town of Tatawanik fend off an attack by goblins, the tribe of the Emerald Eye. After a night of celebration and gambling with 'Coyote Bones' at the Verdant Vermin, Minkus and Guy were awoken to warning horns as an army of goblins was spotted coming in from the north. After conferring with ButterCup and Malakai, the two each led two squads of town militia sword & bow to the dig in at the north end of town and delay the goblin army to give time for the citizens to flee to the safety of the War Chief's solid stone RookLodge.
However, in the end, the goblins were conflicted with their leadership lacking as their morale broke in the face of Guy's devastating Fists of the Four Winds, the barrage of arrows from the militia and the sight of the raging bison minotaur bellowing as he charged forward, heedless of goblin arrows that sprouted from his arms and chest, trampling and chopping down goblins two at a time. Combined, the remaining militia and the two heroes drove the goblins back and the town was saved with minimal loss of life. Schroeder revived one of the fallen militia, a young widow by the name of Alsoomse.
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ADV002b The trip to Toskwanik: 1589/10/12
PCs immediately re-entered the warehouse, caught Aldei going through stuff and fought him to death. They recovered all their personal items as well as a dollshouse prison -two of them- and the death finch lantern of revealing known as the Calar'Te.
They spent the day shopping and getting some custom work done, sold some things and wandered the town while they waited to speak with War Chief and Chief Scout.
They then went to the Lodge of Justice and met with the War Chief 'Nuku' and then the Chief Scout 'Seka' and agreed to become Scouts, receiving a dagger with her initial W on it. They also received a sending stone to send and receive messages. They have a safehouse to stay in when they need it.
They had to decide whether to head to Farukan's Hook or lead the attack on the goblins and decided instead to head to Hook. Byron was captured there and knows it has been taken over by some evil people.
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ADV003 Farukan's Hook: 1589/10/13-14
Players were sent by the Chief Scout to check out the windship port Farukhan's Hook, which is where Byron SongMauler says he was captured as a guard. They were worried because this is their main point of contact for the elves on the west coast.
The players arrived at Kapasawin, the island fortress outpost in the river west of Toskawnik which was the closest settlement to the Hook and prepared to head west half a day. However, they were initially shooed off because of some sort of disease scare. However the DockMaster was a fraud and one of the members of the Midnight Sun and he called one of his allies, a huge hill giant down to help him defeat the players when they insisted on landing anyway.
Kapasawin had been taken over by the goblins and their giant and worg allies so the PCs had to fight off a large contingent of goblins. Strangely, many of the goblins wore a single green glass lens over one eye (called themselves the Emerald Eye tribe)
The townspeople have fled or been taken prisoner though they discovered one woman Kella, hiding in the ruined inn on her way to visit her father stationed at the Hook. There are also four Toskwanik towns guard still in the castle of the outpost commander.
They sent word to Toskwanik and a contingent of soldiers had arrived a half day later to help clear out the rest of the outpost and set to work repairing the bridge and roofs of the buildings and the riverbank-side drawbridge which had all been damaged or destroyed by the giants' boulders.
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ADV003 Farukan's Hook: 1589/10/15,16
Grom and Minkus (and Byron) headed out from Kapasawin to rescue the villagers. Along the way they were attacked by some sort of strange huge swamp creature from the marsh along the side of the road. They managed to defeat it and continued to head out towards Farukon's Hook when they noticed that the large set of tracks of goblins and the captured villagers branched off to the south off the road.
They decided to follow the tracks and soon came across a troop Black Sun hobgoblin soldiers in black plate mail led by the Envoy, the monk they had met at the Midnight Sun warehouse. They also discovered that the girl Kella who they had 'rescued' from the ruined inn at Kapasawin and had been escorting to 'meet her father at the Hook' was actually a much more competent undercover member of the Midnight Sun Trading Company. They defeated the soldiers but the Envoy and Kella escaped into the woods. However they learned that the Midnight Sun is effectively a front for the Black Sun Order. In conversation with the Envoy, they also discovered they have been capturing people to ship west to 'rejuvenate the Masters and allow them to live forever in majesty.'
They also discovered a windship schedule but it was written in Nakoda-Stoney so they were unable to read it right away.
Being unable to capture the monk and the female agent, they continued following the tracks to the where the Emerald Eye goblins had set up an encampment and were holding the villagers. Using robes looted from the BlackSun corpses, they managed to trick their way past the first couple of sets of guards but were discovered by the sub chief (who knew the BlackSun did not hire either dwarves nor Bison-People) in the midst of the encampment and had to beat a hasty retreat… what they called a 'Reverse Flanking Maneuver' into the woods.
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ADV003 Farukan's Hook: 1589/10/17-20
Selflessly, Grom volunteered to lead the goblins away and took off into the forest making a racket to draw the goblins away. They used that chance to head to the goblin camp and after some planning, had the sorcerer light one of the goblin's tents on fire using magic to create a distraction as the rest killed the guards and freed the villagers to lead them into the forest.
The took the time to feed all the prisoners into their 'dollhouse' and took off back to Kapasawin, camping in the forest overnight to avoid detection. In the morning, they were chased by worg riders from the goblin encampment and managed, after a harrowing outdoor pursuit to dive into the cold cold Mahkban (river) and avoid detection. Then bison minotaurs were seperated from the rest of the group in the rough water but they all managed to meet up on the river bank and brought the villagers back to Kapasawin. There was a huge party that night and the PCs were re-stocked with arrows and basic weapons, sold some things to the general merchant. Zaran was able to comprehend the windship schedule and they figured they had approximately two days before the next windship arrived.
They set off the next day to head directly now to Farukon's Hook. On the way they were attacked by some harpies who tried to carry off Corn and others. After the harpies were defeated they discovered some coins, jeweled daggers and a harpy egg!
They then rescued Ongneechet a thin dark skinned female dwarf fighter who was using her twin bullroarers to try and fend off four Spider-Folk. They defeated the ettercaps and Ongneechet made Zaran and Minkus a bullroarer in gratitude. They discovered a potion of fire resistance and some plain treasure then in an hour or so arrived at the open plain before Ha Ling Peak. Far above they can make out the towerport of Farukon's Hook.
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ADV003 Farukan's Hook: 1589/10/21-22
Grom, Corn and Ongneechet headed off to the Nakoda village outside the TowerPort but walked by the shipbuilding and didnt stop in the village. They walked up to the second level and met with Akra the tiefling who they cured from some sort of mind blanking spell in the tavern of the second story inn. Mayev the bartender/manager was drunk.There were two gnomes, the tiefling and a couple of male humans in the Tower Tavern. They bought a Windship Schedule from Mayev and learned how the whole process worked.
They eventually took a room and then Corn crawled out the outside to the top where they saw the HookMaster and his crew working -badly- on the keel of the Large Victory. They snuck past the crew and explored the Pomlock and discovered it had been attacked and ransacked and was currently empty. They then explored the the Large Victory and saw that it was still unransacked and currently empty.
Heading down one set of floors on the shipping level they met up with Polyphemus and eventually killed him as well as the HookMaster who turned out to be a doppleganger. In another room of webbing, once they killed the phase spider, they disovered the body of the real HookMaster and all of the true HookCrew, all half-even Nakoda natives.
The Pomlock crew had also been killed/captured (three survivors Karl, Robin and Robina) and replaced by Midnight Sun operatives but the Large Victory crew were simply delayed and restless as their captain Xerrin was being 'persuaded' to fly the Victory to the elvish port. She was imprisoned and beaten but had resisted the charm spells.Once the PCs freed her she ordered her crew to help them take out the rest of the Midnight Sun Trading Company and they attacked en masse.
Once the Midnight Sun had been defeated, they discovered a note written in Japanese between the Midnight Sun and the Blacksun Order that they will get translated. The Pomlock survivors will head to the village to get new orders and consider which new family member will join them. Robina will nominated for Captain. And the Nakoda village will celebrate the PCs victory with 50% off passage and inns for the next year.
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ADV004 Northern flight to Wiqowin: 1589/10/23-30
Getting the full note translated, they discovered that one of the agents of Black Sun/Midnight Sun had been placed in a position of power and had captured a large shipment of humans, Frostfur (bugbear) tribesmen, 2 forest giants (Sakaw Mistapew) etc had been captured and were on their way back. Lo Buckley, a heavy set Asian merchant has asked the characters to take a shipment of silver weapons to Arun, his ally in Wiqowin in the North West Towns to help him fight off some wererats.
The crew took off for Dawson Creek on the Leafdancer, experiencing the rolls and bounding decks of a rolling windship in full flight. They headed to Dawson Creek which took approximately three days and while on board met up with Belgar going to visit his brother in Yellowknife. They also met two other fellow passengers, Lady Dier and King Cole. Dier was sullen and kept seperate but Cole was happy to hang out with the players and aid in battles. After some high-flight fights and some rough weather they docked in Dawson Creek and spent three days there gathering supplies and being trained for new levels and skills.
At the Port inn of The Ugly Dwarf, they met Irmik, an ancient gnomish alchemist from outside Missoula who traveled in a horizo-parambulator, an mobile eight legged chair and kept a white rabbit named Koko on his lap and talked to absent-mindedly. Irmik was eager to buy any manticore spines they had and offered to build them a horizo-parambulator, of their own for 10 spines. They need only show up in the gnomish settlement of Fluxrivet.
They also met up with the WindPort manager and innkeeper, a frogsmouth hobbemen female named Cecelia who took a shine to corn and a young woman travelling from Wiqowin to Nahanni to see Brother Leslie Love, a famous bard who is performing at the Three Jesters in Nahanni. The next ship, the Broken Talon is booked solid because of the concert and they manage to squeeze on only because they have their 'Travellin' Shack' dollhouse which could be set into the hold.
Once they land in Nahinni they will decide whether to fly to Mammoth or to book passage on a sakaw mistapew ocapanaskos (forest giant sled) directly to Wiqowin to deliver the weapons.
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ADV004 Northern flight to Wiqowin: 1589/10/31-1589/11/02
'Landing' in Nahanni is accomplished by being caught by the friendly, intelligent giant ape 'McGillicuddy' in a swooping process known as the 'McGiillicuddle.' Once the PCs climbed off the boat they realized there were still 1000 ft in the air on a cloud giant castle -Nahanni's Tooth- owned by Nahanni herself, a cloud giant. Nahanni has lived a very long time and is a powerful wizard but has been struck with a powerful form of mental insanity and can not remember what has happened to her the previous day so writes everything down and then wakes up each morning wiith a note pinned to her chest "Read Journal (currently #14441) near your bedside table, which starts with 'Your name is Nahanni, you are a cloud giant and wizard and were born Dec 12 232 AD, jump to the end of the writing. Review book 2321 for recent people you have met..." This need to review things in great detail means any question they ask of her will take all day to answer and if it takes longer than a day then they are out of luck as her memory resets at midnight. Her friend the ape helps out as best he can but it takes her a couple of hours every day to remember to trust him.
The port inn is the Armored Owl and fills the main floor of the castle with rows of bunks that circle the walls rising up 25 levels with the tavern area on the main floor in the middle of the single great room. Salazhar the paladin detected good/evil and found a deva named 'Soomse' high up on a bunk in row 17. Soomse is a servant of the god, MorningStar and travels with and plays for Brother Love and helps out when she can. Salazhar was instantly in deep, passionate love with her and she in return is ...polite.
After the PCs got settled in and prepared to explore the city, they and everyone around them were attacked by spider-folk riding giant Aeros sky-spiders. It took Nahanni six rounds of reading her journals to determine that these were enemies while the ape and the PCs and the deva and others fought off the spider attack. Once she did she called a giant storm to sweep the spiders from the air and end the attack.
That night there was a huge, highly anticipated concert at the Temple of the Three Fools, a huge auditorium space that was filled to capacity and Brother Leslie Love -a high level teifling bard- performed with his troupe of wizards, bards and clerics providing the light show and music. The climax of the show was Brother Love calling on the totems of all the native races in the audience to dance in the air above their heads, glowing and swirling and then surge down to raise six of the dead killed during the spider attack earlier in the day. The crowd went wild!
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ADV004 Northern flight to Wiqowin: 1589/11/03
The next morning, in the calm after the huge concert, they decided to travel by forest giant sled instead of taking the next flight of a windship. They had to buy three turkeys and a bunch of pies for the payment of the sled ride to Wiqowin. The forest giant driver of the sled asked for a name because he doesn't use one normally and they picked "Hefty". He was very excited to get going because he loves 'going fast'.
The sled is huge and pulled by a string of wild Snowbeaks. It travels 25 plus D20 miles per day depending on the road conditions. they had one very cold day but spent most of it inside the dollhouse.
They met an artic elf Sol on his eagle at the small outpost of Nalv and spent the night there. He confirmed that there were troubles in Wiqowin with the frostfur priestess called the Ice Queen but he lives far to the north and doesn’t know much beyond that. He had blue eyes, pale skin and long white hair.
They ran into a young man at one of the way stations who was fighting with a wererat -who turned out to be his young girlfriend who had been bitten in town. They had fled to avoid the problems but she had turned unexpectedly. When the party found out he had been bitten, Minkus killed him immediately though that was very distressing to the half-orc and Byron.
Arriving in Wiqowin, they saw the town was being attacked by the frostfurs but they managed to both defend the town and found and killed the Ice Queen.
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ADV004 Northern Flight to Wiqowin: 1589/11/04
The next day, they discovered that their town contact Arun has been murdered by the wererats but they killed Slim the wererat and captured Michi the half orc who they had caught standing over the body. Michi was picked up by a town official (Vaelish) and two guards but the players discovered later that they never made it to the jail.
They continued to investigate the murder and tracked down another wererat in a nearby apartment-got a list of clerics the wererats were planning on getting rid of so their infection of the townspeople could not be stopped.
Eventually, they enlisted the help I'm the captain of the guard bye performing a peace pipe ceremony and convincing the captain they were official. She arranged to get the chief to come meet them to talk about the problems but when the chief arrived she was in the company of the same town official as the party had met earlier in the day on the street. That official, Vaelish Gant revealed himself to be a wererat Lord and called 2 of the guards that he had already infected to fight the party along with the chief and the capital of the guard. He also sent a call throughout the town to trigger any infected townspeople into turning into full-blooded and order them to come to the council chambers to help.
In the protracted battle that followed, one of the still loyal uninfected guards had a very lucky hit and killed Vaelish before he could escape. The players are now in conference with the captain of the guard and the chief about what they should do next.
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ADV004 Northern Flight to Wiqowin: 1589/11/04
The PCs and the Captain of the Guard decided they had to get the Chief out of town along with the young FrostFur sub-chieftain so that the chief could ask the FrostFur Chief for help in defeating the wererats and negotiate a peace treaty. Then they could work together to stop the slavers from kidnapping both townspeople and FrostFur tribesmen.
They made a careful run for the Northgate, organizing guards they encountered, rescuing bystanders and defeating/knocking out wererats they met who had newly changed because of Vaelish's call but were confused and standing around. Once they defeated the wererat they bound its wounds so it would not die and bound it tightly so it couldn't escape until they were able to cast a Remove Curse on it.
It took a couple of hours for them to carefully make it to the gate. Salazar agreed to accompany the Chief and the Captain to go meet the FrostFur Tribe Chieftain and they headed out.
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ADV004 Wiqowin vs Wererats: 1589/11/04
PCs had just seen the chief, her captain of the guard, the FrostFur subchief and Salazar off through the North gate to go talk to the FrostFur tribe. They decided two now round up the remaining clerics, a paladin and a wizard all of whom could cast Remove Curse and so had been targeted by the wererats according to that list they found. One of the Guards they had saved was a Guard Sergeant by the name of Pedro Rodriguez who had lived in Wiqowin for 20 yrs and knew the town very well. He agreed to help them find the remaining clerics so they made their way slowly back into the center of town confronting/defeating/capturing random new wererats who had transformed.
They had found several of the clerics no problem but the wizard Toka was arrogant and racist and refused to have anything to do with the non-human group unless he was paid very well. The paladin eagerly offered to help but was quite drunk. They worked out a strategy with Pedro to head back to the Chief's Palace because the council chamber's basement holding cells were overrun by wererats who had been called there by Vaelish before his death. However, when they got to the Palace, Alvin a young guard informed them that the Chief was there and she had given express orders that Pedro was not to be allowed back in because he had been transformed into wererat.
Corn snuck away and turned himself into the image of Doriqa the chief's daughter and tried to convince the guards to let her and her 'friends' in, they refused but did call the Chief down to talk to her 'daughter.' Corn managed to charm the Chief and she agreed to let everyone into the palace to talk. She then revealed to her daughter that they needed to take over the town in order to get more slaves sent to the West coast. The wizard was paid to cast Dispel Magic on the chief and revealed her to be a Wererat Lord. This sight shocked and confused the guards which allowed the PCs to attack both the 'Chief' and another Wererat Lord who was appearing as the Captain of the Guard. This Lord was hit pretty badly by Minkus and Byron so he tried to flee by turning into mist but Grom noticed this and had Toka cast Fly on himself and Grom and they took off after the mist and captured it. Grom then dropped onto and killed that Wererat Lord and combat was over at the Palace.
But they could not rest while the wererats were out biting and infecting more townspeople.
The party members had Pedro remain behind at the Palace in charge of getting all of the wererat victims healed and eventually have their curse lifted by the clerics/paladin and wizard. And they took off to find the final two clerics. They came across Mara at the Green Scroll Inn where she was holding off 6 wererats and Grom fell in love with this powerful beautiful dwarven cleric of Freya.
They headed into the town center and rescued the final cleric Shtoka who was near death and bitten. Healed by Mara, she agreed to help them defeat the wererats. Corn set up on one of the market carts in the market square, put on his kilt and pulled out his bagpipes and made a lot of noise. Because of the sensitive hearing of wererats and the universal power of the bagpipes to annoy in the hands of an unskilled player (Corn) the tortured squawking drew the twenty-one wererats and three Wererat Lords who had been gathered in the Council Chambers into the main square for an epic final battle. Fireballs and Ice Storm spells were met with Blade Barriers from Mara and the whirling blades of Grom and the minotaurs as they mowed down the infected wererat/townspeople.
Once this was complete and most of the townspeople saved, they noticed that one of the wererats was the chief's daughter and they managed to save her, though Corn didn't like the idea of saving the wererats who had tried to kill him. A calm settles over the market square as several of the carts burned and cautious but curious townspeople trickled back into the square and the PCs & clerics saved and bound the wererat/victims they could.
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ADV004 Wiqowin vs Wererats: 1589/11/05
Once the calm had settled on the crowd gathering the square, the team headed to the home of Dunavon, the owner of the Midnight Sun Trading Company. He was not home but they discovered a goldenskinned hobbeman bard kept caged in his study. GooGal had been kept there since birth and had spent her time talking with Dunavon (they had been raised together and were both 50 though he was human) reading and performing for him. They spent the night there at her invitation and, once they freed her, somewhat unwillingly and they had french toast made for them by the servants, the Guard Sargent Pedro asked the PCs to head to the FrostFur village to collect the Chief and her Guard Captain as the Frostfur's help was no longer needed.
They set off for the village which was a day's ride north. In the meantime, Salazhar had previously followed the Chief and her party and -watching from a distance- seen the Chief and her party and several Frostfur bugbears tied up and led into the glacier. Not sure what was going on he used the sending stone to message the other members and when they arrived, led them into the crevasse. After they passed through they came to a ledge overlooking the far valley that was free of ice with a large pool of steaming water filled by hot springs. One of the bugbear shamans, a Frostfur they didn't recognize was leading another group in a strange chant and ceremony.
Corn snuck into a nearby hut which was empty except for a strange shrine with a horned bear skull (demon?) After seeing they decided to act and interrupted the ceremony and attacked the shaman -who turned out to be far more powerful than they expected- and his followers. During the attack they saw two bugbears disappear into the pool and not surface again so Grom leaped in after them. He was swept into an underground passage that ended in a waterfall/pool and two large caverns under the glacier.
After turning invisible using the powder he had, in the second cavern he found the Chief, Duvessa, the Captain and another guard tied to stalagmites along with three Frostfur white bugbears including the young subchief who had first brokered the deal for peace, the Frostfur Chief Jotund and his chief shaman. A fourth bugbear was lying in the arms of a small human native girl and -as Grom watched- she seemed to suck the life essence out of the bugbear, shriveling it. She then noticed Grom and turned in the air and began to float towards him, her eyes black.
Up on the surface, the PCs finally defeated the shaman who had channeled powerful healing spells to heal several of his allies at once. When the fight was finally over they all headed into the pool and found 'BearChild' a supposed messenger of MotherBear totem confronting Grom. As Bearchild turned she transformed into several minor characters the PCs had met over the last few adventures finally turning to his final form as Master Cloud. He initially tried to tempt them, then capture them as he was anxious to feed off the long lived dwarf and half elves. He realized almost too late that he had underestimated their powers and attacked earnestly before having to turn into mist and flee from the cavern.
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