# Part One ## The Setup ##### [[4. Campaign Four - The Awakening of the Primal Gods]] Four strangers — Parvir, Abel, K, and Abernathy — are drawn together by a secretive organization called the Preservationists, a group of mysterious sponsors who believe these four individuals have an unusual pull on fate itself, which they call Exigence. The Preservationists warn them to watch over one another, as their intertwined destinies will attract danger whether they like it or not. Abernathy is the skeptic of the group, included less as a chosen one and more as a liability — his actions have endangered the surrounding towns and the Preservationists want him where they can keep an eye on him. The party takes shelter at the Stoneshade Inn, where they're approached by two fire genasi sisters, Inaya (serious, scarred) and Laila (whimsical, carefree), whose seer guided them to find this specific group. The genasi ask the party to investigate a hidden crypt beneath the Church of Zallohse in the nearby town of Banesford, setting the adventure in motion. ## The Dungeon Beneath Banesford The party descends into the crypt and encounters a weeping angel statue holding a knife and a bag of bones, which assembles into enemies upon being disturbed. They defeat the creatures and press deeper, navigating magical wind tunnels and puzzle chambers. One chamber contains a heartless stone serpent — they eventually learn they need to find and restore her missing rib cage to progress. A crumpled note hidden beneath the serpent points them toward the answer: "The usurper of Banesford holds the serpent's beating bounty." ## Trouble in Town While the mystery of the dungeon simmers, the towns of Banesford and Stone Cairn Vale are quietly unraveling. A list of names — people supposedly killed in the two towns over the years — circulates and causes unrest. Kane Reeves, a local figure, goes missing, and suspicion falls on Abernathy. He's subjected to a Rite of Truth by the cold and calculating Leshanna Savriel, an enforcer tied to the Reeve's Academy. Abernathy passes but is forced to give up the names of his companions and Preservationist sponsors. More alarmingly, K — hiding invisibly in the cellar during the interrogation — witnesses a shadowy figure receive orders to assassinate the Preservationists and their families. That man is the blacksmith Branson Gaunt. The party races to warn their sponsors. Alongside this, Abel is grappling with personal demons. A bitter tiefling named Euron publicly humiliates him over abandoning his family, and Abel snaps, launching into a brawl that lands him in the stocks. His younger brother Reiky intervenes during the punishment, using a stolen orb to send Abel into a vivid vision of a warm, red-sanded land and a fatherly voice — glimpses of an origin Abel doesn't yet understand. ## The Crime at the Heart of It All The party turns their attention to a long-cold crime that seems to be the rot beneath everything. Andrea Cranston, a young woman from one of the local ranching families, disappeared years ago. The official story blamed gnolls, but the truth is darker. - The Bolivan and Cranston ranches both share a mysterious benefactor who technically owns their land. The loan came with a strange condition: repayment required recovering two crystal pendants from the crypt beneath town. Both gems went missing — one had been gifted to Andrea Cranston. - At the Bolivan farm, K is quietly led by the foreman Tarak to a barn and asked to spiritually read the space. She witnesses a vision of Andrea's murder — her throat slit, her body thrown to the pigs — at the order of Sandra Bolivan. - The party pieces together that Leshanna Savriel had orchestrated the blame falling on gnolls by having Heskan plant a necklace. She received that necklace from Sandra Bolivan. The murder itself appears to have been carried out by Branson Gaunt. When the party confronts Sandra, she transforms into something monstrous — a creature possessed by a spirit of hate bound within one of the cursed gems. A brutal battle follows, involving spectral pigs, spirits of guilt, and weapons turned against their own wielders. K and Abel wrench the gem from Sandra's arm and shatter it. As shards embed themselves in K's neck and chest, Andrea's spirit visits her, grateful and at peace, promising to help others see K's kindness rather than her fearsome appearance. Before they can process the victory, Agni Zedaar — the town's mayor — blasts in like a bolt of red lightning and kills Sandra on the spot, then vanishes. It becomes clear that Agni himself is under the influence of a cursed gem. ## The Gnoll Problem & The Illmoss Sisters Running parallel to the murder mystery is a supernatural threat from the South. A group of gnoll magic users called the Illmoss Sisters are operating out of caves near the Dustbelch Hills, running ley lines of corruption through the soil and animating the dead. One sister, Fleaga, has kidnapped Marigold Underbough — a golden-haired halfling and old friend of Abernathy — as leverage. The party storms the gnoll caves, sees through Fleaga's disguise, and fights a gnarly battle involving the shambling headless corpse of Kane Reeves. They take Fleaga down and interrogate her, but she drops a chilling hint: she believes she has some claim over Abernathy through dealings with his father. Abernathy kills her anyway, triggering her death curse — every corpse in the cave reanimates and the party has to fight their way out protecting an unconscious Marigold. Laila of the genasi arrives to help and reveals that the crystals are actually prisons for evil Djinn spirits, and the genasi have been trying to return them to their proper holding place in the crypts beneath town. ## Leshanna's Unraveling With Marigold safe, the party turns on Leshanna Savriel, catching her in the act of burning documents at the Reeve's Academy. They drag her to the truth chair in the Grain and Feed basement for a full interrogation. She reveals that Hektor discovered how to draw the cursed spirits out of their gem prisons and weaponize them — and that Agni Zedaar is fully under the control of the spirit within his gem. Before she can say more, her own imp poisons her and she dies in the chair. Abel, furious that his siblings have been taken aboard a skyship parked over the church, bolts into the square and is pulled up by a rope thrown down by Reiky. Meanwhile, the party discovers they've been declared wanted criminals, their portraits plastered across the town. ## Betrayal & Resolution The final blow comes from an unexpected source: Marigold Underbough is revealed to have been working against the party all along, orchestrating attempts on Abernathy's life out of jealousy and rage toward him and Heskan. She had engineered a situation designed to force Abernathy into a fatal sacrifice — but the bonds the party had forged proved stronger than her scheme, and she is undone. The party reunites, brings Agni Zedaar to justice, and returns the Serpent's Heart to the genasi as promised. In the closing moments, the party is summoned north to a funeral where Wanuath — the Preservationist who had failed to sponsor anyone — blesses Abernathy with a gift and a promise: should he uphold truth above all else, he may one day earn the title of Judge of Solenar. --- The campaign weaves together a murder mystery, cursed artifacts, a corrupt local power structure, and the slow revelation that each party member carries a destiny far larger than a couple of quiet farming towns. # Part Two ## The Setup The party — Parvir, Abel, K, and Abernathy — are tasked by the mayor of Stone Cairn Vale to unite the two towns by organizing a summer solstice fae festival at the Twin Tree Marketplace. To earn the right to host the event, they must first pass a test set by the marketplace's fae guardian Tomahlt, which they do — narrowly surviving an attack by a wicked giant hag with tendrils erupting from the earth. ## The Festival With the party named as official protectors, the festival comes alive. One tree blossoms with spring vitality while the other withers into a skeletal winter husk. Vendors, crowds, and fae delegates pour in, and the party mingles with some remarkable guests: a black-furred firbolg named Aine, the dryad Seena of Titania's court, a darkling crone named Belogra, and the enigmatic Duke Halicron, a winter fae lord of considerable power and mystery. The festival's deeper purpose becomes clear over two days of fae tradition — storytelling, challenges, and the ritual trading of gifts between summer and winter at a grand bonfire. Belogra tests the party with a battle against a giant sturgeon in a watery realm, then offers them shelter in her lands in exchange for watching over her daughter Breya and keeping the hags out of darkling territory. Abernathy claims the golden pearl from the fish. Duke Halicron tells a parable about a tailor who foolishly invited three earls into his home and lost his hands. He then challenges the party with a covered plate game. Parvir takes the heaviest plate — which holds Halicron's own severed hands — proving his innate goodness. Abel's plate is empty, showing his compassion. Halicron takes Parvir aside and drops a bombshell: Parvir's aberrant gift has been warping his perception, hiding the truth that his sister was abducted by hags nearly a year ago. At the bonfire's trading ceremony, meaningful exchanges take place. Abernathy trades Belogra's golden egg to Seena for her favor. K gives treasured personal items to Seena and receives a puzzle box containing history about herself. Abel trades a secret about his orb to Verda, Seena's guardian, who reveals in return that Duke Halicron is not truly of winter and that she herself hails from a distant land called Solaria. Belogra sacrifices herself in a traditional darkling end-of-life ritual. Abel's compassion earns him Seena's golden egg — a token of hospitality with her people. When the party wakes the next morning, the festival and all its fae folk are gone. They set out toward the Heartwood on their ambassador mission, tasked with finding the firbolg folk and obtaining a new key to the mill made of sung heartwood. ## Into the Heartwood The forest wastes no time testing them. They encounter a monstrous, electrified tree hung with humanoid corpses and do battle with it and its minions. Abel, attempting to free a hanging man, inadvertently causes the tree to devour him. The tree then attempts to lure Abel into taking the dead man's place, and nearly succeeds — until Abernathy snaps him out of it. Pressing deeper, the party finds a misty landscape with tombstones bearing the names of people they know. Suspecting a trap, most hang back — but Anaru quietly vanishes. Following his trail leads them to a ziggurat and a blood altar dedicated to Bahndur, God of Pain. They descend into its depths and battle a priest of Bahndur in a horrifying undercroft filled with a pool of liquefied human remains. K solves a painful riddle above — plunging her hand into acid to retrieve icons of Bahndur — while the rest fight below. They succeed, recover Anaru from inside the wall, and learn what they can from the priest before moving on. ## Maugleth's Web A green kobold named Web-Bait (real name Charlie) steals their rations and lures them into a spider-infested grove, explaining that the giant spider Maugleth forced him to do it by capturing his mate. The party springs a counter-ambush, battles ettercaps and phase spiders, and Charlie frees his mate from a cocoon — only for Maugleth herself to devour him. The party flees, but Parvir and Abernathy are captured. Abel and K, guided by the unicorn Tara'veyin in her protected grove, regroup and charge back in to rescue their companions. They reunite and press deeper into the caverns, where a deep gnome named Dwiven is revealed to be the true mastermind behind the spider infestation. With the help of a mysterious earth genasi named Beryl, the party goes after him. The battle with Dwiven is brutal. He fights from inside a mechanical suit and throws automata, electric fences, and explosives at the party. Parvir falls in combat. Abel, pushed to his limit, gives in to the rage of a Salamander spirit named Alivahk — and in doing so shatters the orb that held his family's memories. ## Death, Memory, and a Hag's Scheme The party carries Parvir's body to Tara'veyin and offers up the golden sturgeon egg from Belogra in exchange for his resurrection. The unicorn summons help — and Feladrin, the Threshing God of Memory, arrives in the grove in flowing robes and brings Parvir back. But the ritual is hijacked. The hag Treana cracks open the egg to reveal Stasis, the ring of Feladrin, and places it on a small girl she's brought with her — Sumi — into whom she then shepherds the spirit of the dead hag Fleaga. The party can only watch. While this unfolds, both Abel and Parvir are separately questioned by a Mirrored God who probes their deepest convictions — Abel about his ancestry, his siblings, and his capacity to let go; Parvir about fate, sacrifice, and what is still chasing him. Parvir is told plainly: "You cannot run and hide forever. Not even in death." ## Glydnow and the Firbolg Village After resting and celebrating Parvir's return, the party reaches the firbolg village of Glydnow. They are welcomed by a warrior named Senan and each party member is quietly pulled aside by different village elders. - Abel disappears with Ordran, the village elder, to the Ancestral Plateau and is not seen for the rest of the day. - Parvir and Euron go with Aine, who takes them to a cave where a blood ritual is performed. Euron gives Aine a piece of heartwood hidden in the wagon's frame and receives a lock of white hair in return. He then privately confesses to Parvir that he fears Parvir will be hurt by Abel the same way he was. - K and Beryl go with Eithne, who takes them through waking and dreaming visions of the wilds, speaking of the song of the forest and the thinning veil between realms in dreams. When the party reunites, Ordran tells them he cannot fulfill their request — he has been unable to sing since his son was lost to the tribe, and the sung heartwood key cannot be made without him. Beryl's staff is revealed to have been crafted by Ordran himself, given to a druid named Branwen who was supposed to carry a heartwood seedling to the Echo Forest — and apparently never arrived. Then things fall apart fast. The party pulls Anaru from the pool of the Life Giver — unconscious, clutching Abernathy's journal, with a single entry: a sketch of a rugged halfling man. Abernathy is missing. A sending spell goes unanswered. Aine seizes the moment and publicly challenges Ordran's leadership, using the heartwood piece Euron gave her as proof that he can no longer lead. She defeats him in ritual combat and, when on the verge of losing, uses a pin to turn him to ice. She tells the party to complete their task — eliminate the hags — and she will welcome back Ardgal to sing the key in Ordran's place. ## Into the Hag's Domain Armed with their mission, the party ventures back into the Heartwood. K learns from Aine that freeing Andrea Cranston's spirit — fused into her flesh after the shattering of the orb — requires two relics from the hag's lair: a Hag Eye and a hip bone flute. They pass through an amber forest of refracting light and tinkling sound, home to the darkling folk, where an elder named Dachic grants them passage to Breya — Belogra's daughter, who is being held under the influence of a tall, pale, handless elf called Tlaloc the Tailor. Parvir disguises himself as Belogra and nearly succeeds in breaking the Tailor's hold on Breya, but Tlaloc moves to kill her. The party cuts him down. They discover that the hags had resurrected Tlaloc using remains from Duke Halicron's catacombs. The party makes for those catacombs, stumbling across a grove of stone obelisks along the way. By pressing their hands into compartments in the stones — at the cost of psychic pain — they piece together a buried history: Duke Halicron betrayed his own Solarian people by making a pact with the dark god Vo-Ahn and was exiled to these lands. The memories also reveal that K, under her previous name Zelia, was the one who helped strip Halicron of his hands. ## The Catacombs — Where Things Stand The party descends into the Halicron Catacombs guided by Verda. They battle oozes drawn to lanterns in an acid river, solve riddles put forward by lingering ghosts, and defeat a corpse flower desecrating the crypt. In the darkness they find a disgruntled Redcap named Bog, who had tried to lead a coup against the hags and was fed to the corpse flower for his trouble. He leads them through a secret passage deeper into the catacombs — down into a chamber of draining altars above a dark ossuary. The party rests and waits. And then — a mysterious figure the redcap had warned them about, referred to only as "the Dr.", emerges from the darkness below. He claims to mean them no harm and helps them descend even further into the depths... The party descends into the Hag’s realm and defeats Treena in her home and makes it to Duke Halicron’s tomb only to discover they must now battle a mighty undead spirit. ## The Basilica At the deepest point of the catacombs, guided by the mysterious Dr. Zell, the party arrives in a vast final chamber bathed in an eerie green glow. A long aisle of dark stone stretches between soaring marble pillars that rise to meet a natural hewn ceiling. At the far end, the pillars scale the wall into sweeping arches — and at their base sits a massive urn wrapped in shimmering chains. Fifty feet above it hangs an enormous hourglass filled with black sand. An inscription warns that only one touched by death may open the urn of the Betrayer — and that doing so turns the dial of fate. Parvir, having died and returned, is the only one who can. He opens it. The basilica immediately begins to tear itself apart. The hourglass cracks, rotates down the face of the pillars, and locks itself upside down as black sand begins to pour. Gears grind and bang behind the marble walls. Then the arched windows explode outward — one belching magma, one spilling earth, one unleashing a torrent of water, and one howling with a vortex of wind. The party is swept out. ## The Return of Duke Halicron They are deposited outside the catacombs where Duke Halicron himself is waiting. He congratulates them on freeing Sumi and surviving the depths of his old stronghold. With his hands returned, his power is restored and his long-standing curse is finally broken. --- And that's where things stand — the catacombs collapsed behind them, Halicron whole again for the first time in ages, and the hags, Abernathy's disappearance, Parvir's sister, and the shadow of Vo-Ahn still waiting somewhere out in the Heartwood.