Recap: Sessions 1-5

Since we got started in late November, and the story has taken some interesting twists and turns since then I thought a recap might be in order.

The party meets in a bar in Zaimier, a dwarf city situated where the Great Forest of Tryn and the Mountains of Tryn meet. Hearing about a gladiatorial contest being put on in the town, they enter, and soundly defeat a team of Amazons. Due to some creative use of the locals in temporary inflating their party size, they are able to walk away from this contest with some serious money.

The contest was being put on by a dwarf aristocrat named Vondal Terisnock. He takes the party aside after their victory, and asks them to take on a quest (for more money of course). Years ago he was robbed for almost all he had. He'd like the party to track down the culprits and bring them back to face 'justice.' It won't be easy, seeing as all he knows about them is that they had this certain symbol on their clothing. The party considers for an evening, then accepts.

Inquries around Zaimier lead them to believe that the best place to start their search is in Elslein, an Eladrin city three days to the east. They make their way through the forest, but the trip nearly ends in tragedy. In the woods they are attacked by a band of ghouls, and Kava and Rougi are both killed. Kriv and Jaden are only saved when a dwarf cleric named Artin happens by and chases off the ghouls.

Artin shepherds them the rest of the way to Elslein, and when there, she resurrects Rougi and Kava. Once restored, the party searches through the city and finds a tavern with the symbol on the wall. Further detective work leads them to the grave of Qualion, who once owned the tavern. Artin is employed once again to Speak With Dead, and Qualion reveals that her old gang, Dayman, Erevan, Soveliss, and Maivera, are the party's quarry now. Qualion's living relatives tell them that Erevan and Soveliss moved to Summercrest, a human city two weeks to the south, many years before.

The party does battle with both fire beetles and goblins before leaving the city with the thanks of the clerics of Moradin (of which Artin was one) and heading for Summercrest. Their trip through the forest passes slowly and dully, until the ninth day, when, in search of some water, the party happens upon a gaggle of psuedo-dragons, which they fight and eventually capture. A tangle with an ochre jelly caught them off guard, but led them to discover that Soveliss is now dead, a victim of the jelly.

The party was growing very bored by the time they arrived at the human town of Joff near the edge of the forest. They found Joff a tense place, nervous about another attack from a nearby clan of kobolds. The party joined the town's guard to fight the clan, and after a signficant battle in the forest, Kava learned that this clan were worshippers of a legendary dragon named Tubaloth. A mysterious prophet had come to the clan some years before to announce Tubaloth's return, and now the clan muraduers for Tubaloth's glory. The humans, on learning this, decide the clan must be wiped out.