Yaja - Human / Grave Cleric
Glib - Kenku / Arcane Trickster Rogue
Boljek - Hobgoblin / Samurai Fighter
Torrent - Tiefling / Tempest Cleric
Eld - Half-Elf / Archfey Warlock
Atavan - Human / Mastermind Rogue + Ollie III, IV
Arha - Half-Orc / Oath of Vengeance Paladin
Mittens - Tabaxi / Champion Fighter
Party Level: 5

Braving the scorching heat of the central desert, the group slogs through their third day of travel heading west toward the Howling Mountains, to investigate the strange sounds emanating from the dormant volcano at Haldur's Peak.  While driving their tireless ox, Geno, Torrent notices a strange circle of calcified shards of amber dotting the landscape.  Eld investigates it and surmises it to be very sharp, but brittle, like a hardened residue.  Snapping a few shards free, and setting up camp, the group discovers through some experimentation that the amber is EXTREMELY flammable.
  While on watch, Torrent and Arha notice something strange.  A quick wind steals their breath from them, and as Torrent reaches out a hand into the darkness...SNAP.  Something rushes by, snapping her wrist!  The party is awakened with her cries of pain, and Yaja uses her eyes of the grave to notice a shred of undeath just beyond her sight, somewhere in the dunes beyond.  Glib is surprised to find the silver thread of his Alarm spell cut, and dispelled...  Everyone becomes on edge, ready for a fight, but nothing comes their way.
  They continue forward cautiously, taking note of Haldur's Peak.  Arha recalls that, according to Dyren, giant clans used to rule these mountains, but none have seen giants for some time.  With Yaja pushing her divine senses forward, trying to track the entity, the group finds themselves at last (after 12 hours of travel)...back where they started?
  Indeed, a silver thread, making a circle around an encampment lays before them, but something feels...off.  They look back toward the mountain, and it is no closer.  However, the silver thread...is magical.  Crossing it engages the same Alarm spell in Glib's head.  Eld experiences an Eldritch Blast from himself, despite the others watching him shoot himself.  Weird stuff.  Meanwhile, Arha notices something moving in the center of the campground, and reaches out to discover a ghostly horse, that gallops into the dunes...  So she mounts her own horse, Raven, and rides toward the peak.

  As the others attempt to follow, and the sun begins to set again, Arha finally draws closer to the mountain...and Glib casts Longstrider, sprinting toward, like a road runner, to catch right up to Raven.  An eerie plain of sand and bones lay before them, more deposits of amber shards littering the landscape.  The ghostly horse drifts behind a stone further away...
  Meanwhile, the sand ahead of them, like a wave of knives, erupts toward them, claws slicing out from the sand, before burrowing beneath the earth...sending spikes of amber spearing out; angry, sharp bits of crystalline residue left behind wherever this thing dives.  A deadly battle begins.
As the team begins to gain the upper hand with the Wight...another appears near Eld, slicing into him.  Atavan, pleased with Ollie's contribution to the fight, investigates behind the rock.  There, amidst a cornucopia of amber blades, are three corpses.  Two adventurers and a horse, all sucked dry of their life-force, looking like melted wax.  
  With Eld losing rapidly to the second Wraith, the group dispatches the first, rushing back to him, but not before he is grappled and impaled (GASP) upon an amber spike.  And just as things grow dire for him, he is saved by an invisible champion, striking through the veil with flaming swords and carving the Wraith in two.  "I'm back, guys!  ...Who's that?"

The group is introduced to Mittens, a monster slayer that has been tracking the Wraiths for about three days.  Happy to have new friends, the group travels with her and she reveals that the day time in the desert tends to mess with creatures's orientations and memory, threads of errant magic manipulating time and experiences.  After a short introduction, summoning Ollie IV, and exchanging names, the group investigates the bodies impaled on the amber, discovering two magical items that were not affected by the wax: A Ring Of The Ram (given to ______), and a Blinkback Sandknife (given to _____).  As night draws closer, the sun setting upon the desert, Eld casts Magic Circle to protect the group.  While they rest, the group tenses as tendrils of ethereal smoke begin to emanate from the corpses.  The tendrils manifest and clarify into a beautiful, ghostly horse, and two riders, one mounting while the other runs alongside.  They nod to the group, grateful and free of the Wraith's hold on them, and ride into the night sky.  

Midnight strikes in the cold desert, the moon high in the sky, and the party stops abruptly as a loud and low sound rattles through the carriage: a howl.  And, as the sound settles, seemingly hundreds of softer howls answer it, all rallying around the shadow of the mountain.  As time crests around 3am, the group finds themselves in complete shadow, and approaches the enormous mouth of a cave at the base of Haldur's Peak.
  A growl stops them in their tracks, as dozens of yellow eyes bob toward them.  A massive winter wolf pads out, shocks of silver rolling down its back in cold shards, like ice.  Eld tosses an amber shard toward it, telling his allies to fire upon it (they are very explosive) if the wolves...  Nevermind, the big one pads up and takes the shard, bounding into the cave.  Meanwhile, four others stalk forward.  Convinced this is a fetch quest, Atavan hurls a mushroom...which one wolf eats...and flops over, very happy.  
  As the others mitigate the wolves approaching Mittens (who has perched on a rock), the group easily pacifies the pack with their remaining mushrooms.  Inside the cave, the mouth tapers to three tunnel paths: one slopes up, another down, and another straight.  Still injured and tired, they flip the cart and form a barricade of protection as they rest, Mittens taking watch.  The wolves return, many lazily moving as they recover from the mushrooms, and disappear down the two side paths.  One very large silver-back squeezes past the cart, its eyes glinting as it sees Mittens...but both hear a high whistle, just on the edge of their hearing.  Its ears turn, and it dashes down the central path, ignoring the group completely.

Mittens listens down the tunnel intently and hears someone speaking giant, seemingly to the wolf.  Then another sound - the padding of paws, this time with a little jingle.  With a growl, it deposits a heavy metal chain, then bounds back to its master. 
  The chain itself is only a few links long, and the edges appear to be melted.  With a shrug, Mittens throws it in her pack, while Atavan sends Ollie IV down the tunnel, discovering a dug out forge with live lava flows and a curious minotaur striking away at an anvil.  His features are strong, but recently scarred, and Atavan recognizes him as one that he and his fellows fought in the forest ruin.  As Ollie returns, the party plans; handle the wolves first?  Investigating the side paths illuminates them to the fact that one path leads to a den of 30 wolves...  The other to a den of the alphas.  They opt to instead block the pack with the cart, as a low howl sends both dens into a frenzy.   Glib and Ollie sprint ahead stealthily, and emerge into an empty forge, beckoning the party to follow.  Glib heads to the heavy door on the other side, as a set of barks and howls of sonic force rumble through; the thunder damage obliterates Ollie...
  The group rushes into the forge, grabs a few javelins, regrets leaving Geno by a pack of wolves, and heads toward the heavy door on the other side.  Mittens and Glib listen closely to hear a pleading minotaur, "I'm sorry, they haven't come back yet.  It's okay, I can take care of them.  ...I can take care of them."  A large roar, and the minotaur dissolves into pained anguish and tears as something massive growls nearby.  Angry primordial speech emanates through the cavern: "My brother is dead.  Long live the new king.  If my Other will not respond, then I will take the throne for my own.  Step aside, minion, and prepare for my Dominion."
  Heading down the corridor, Glib goes invisible and slinks into the base of the volcano to see 1) a gibbering, crying minotaur with a set of golden cleavers on its back and, 2) a gargantuan two-headed wolf with magma fur that grows out from its ruby-studded chest.  A tail of pure flame, impossibly long like a volcanic scorpion, looms threateningly overhead.  With wolves filling the tunnel behind them, Torrent draws first blood and this enormous primal creature sounds the attack.
  The minotaur stomps his foot, engaging Haste, and prepares his chained cleavers...and recognizes little Glib, who killed his brother, overcome by berserker rage.  Meanwhile, the primal creature unleashes magma breath up the hallway, laying waste to the hiding party.  Arha and Torrent tag team collapsing the back end of the tunnel to make short work of the wolves, and the party does their best to get OUT of magma breath formation.  Despite a rough start, Glib outmaneuvers the enraged minotaur, closing the loop.  Boljek and Mittens do their best to harry the creature while Eld discovers his true calling: Ray Of Frost.  In similar fashion to Ursano, with rubies crashing down, the group deals the final blow to the ancient being, its body turning to ash...and the volcano begins to erupt.

With rising fiery death, Mittens spies an alcove about 15 feet up that exits the volcano base, a stone peninsula jutting out.  On the pedestal, a small pack of wolves watch the party; two silver-backed dire wolves, a Hell Hound, and another giant wolf, seemingly covered in plant matter.  Judging that they have little choice, they rush to this exit.  The silver-backs and hound leave out the opening, but the one made of leaves...changes into a tall, alien form with long, toned limbs and dark, tight skin, the skull of a giant on its head.  It points to the exit; the party members say thank you in each their own way, but Eld in particular feels something strange about the creature.  
  With lava rolling behind them, they sprint out the other side of the volcano, the other wolves also darting free.  And as the volcano erupts, the party feels a howl in the distance, far to northeast in the frozen tundra.  The wolves listen and run that way into the scorched forest...

Session closed at: 1:05am
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Kurama - Half-Elf (no longer cursed) / Circle of the Moon Druid
Glib - Kenku / Arcane Trickster Rogue
Boljek - Hobgoblin / Samurai Fighter
Torrent - Tiefling / Tempest Cleric
Eld - Half-Elf / Archfey Warlock
Atavan - Human / Mastermind Rogue
Arha - Half-Orc / Oath of Vengeance Paladin
Party Level: 4

Coming ashore onto the white sands of Pulaka beach on the eastern side of Iliya, the group sets to work looking like merchants and scouts (as a ruse to lure whatever might be ambushing the scouting parties), a few picking up the curiously smooth rocks that litter the landscape.  Constructing a cart of empty boxes and barrels, Boljek begins hauling the wagon into the dense jungle, with Kurama pushing his senses out ahead.  
  After a few hours of travel, Kurama hears the distant bubbling and popping ahead.  Slinking ahead with Glib, the group discovers a bubbling purple river running between several batches of giant mushrooms.  While investigating them, Kurama takes notice of a pair of yellow-rimmed eyes staring at them in the bushes.  He summons an apple, and tosses it into the bushes, glimpsing the beak of a young owlbear as it flashes out and grabs the apple.  The druid communicates with the creature while the rest of the party catches up, and learns that the river of bubbling purple is dangerous to walk in, but creates these tasty mushrooms.  Clearly an adolescent, they learn that it was separated from its mother, who ran west further into the forest, where bones hang from the trees.
  While they talk, the creature, using its claws like a pair of shears, clips one of the mushroom tops from the mildly acidic water, chomping down on it...and feeling euphoric.  It then wanders to the east into a dense and dark sub-canopy.  After a little deliberation, the party follows it.

  The river spirals under the foliage ahead and the group passes under the dusk canopy, emerging into a sprawling, tight forest of gigantic mushrooms and fungus.  Arha hears something big fall in water ahead, and rushes toward the sound...only to find the Owlbear, still enjoying its high, rolling around in a small pool of crystal clear water.  While the others look for a way back out and around the river, Kurama and Eld notice the mushroom tops that loom overhead periodically exhale hallucinogenic spores...which Torrent promptly inhales, and joins the Owlbear in thoroughly enjoying life.
  All is not safe, however, as Glib notices movement in the dark, and he and Atavan sneak forward to discover a large Minotaur slinking through the stalks.  With a spray of smoke from its nostrils, its golden eyes settle on Atavan, and it begins ripping through the mushrooms and stalks, readying a net for the rogue.  Arha tries to communicate to the Minotaur that they mean no harm, but it seems bent on doing harm to Atavan.  The group, with Kurama using his broach of telepathy to confirm, ready themselves to avoid capture...while Torrent struggles with euphoria.
  The Minotaur did not realize what it was getting into, and even with its superior defenses, it is quickly overwhelmed, two arrows from Glib and Atavan transfixing its face, and its form falls limp into another pile of mushrooms.  And as the body falls, another puff of euphoric spores fall down from the canopy.  Boljek quickly loots the body, as the group realizes the longer they stay here, the harder it will be to resist the spores (Eld grabs some mushrooms on the way), so they make their way back out on the other side of the river.

Torrent, using her battleaxe to bushwhack, cuts through the brush and foliage to form a space for the group to set up camp and rest a bit.  A storm rolls overhead, and Kurama notices the sound of crunching leaves, like footsteps getting closer.  He addresses the figure, which hesitates and begins staking out the camp.  The fire flashes blue, then green, then goes out.  Kurama druid crafts the flames back and there, maybe 3 feet from him, is a figure.  
  Adorned in rags that obscure worn and rusted plate mail, twigs and leaves that stick out between the rivets, and a helm that totally obscures the face, this thing stands stoic in the center of the camp.  A wooden and steel shield is slung over one shoulder, with a great sword lazily sheathed over the other.  Kurama asks if they have trespassed on its territory, and in response, another heavy impact resounds behind the camp, deep within the woods; a fair of enormous yellow eyes glare out from the trees, a low growl shaking the ground.  "Trespass.  Judgement."  Bigger than any bear they've seen, the fires flicker once more and both are gone. 
Recovered, the group cuts their way to the minotaur camp, discovering numerous totems of bones, trappings, maps, axes, and several bodies nailed to trees (they resemble the soldiers in Gotha).  Also there, they discover, interrogate, then liberate the little Kobold servant named Scruff.  He explains that the THREE minotaurs serve a recent master named Ursano, and Boljek cites the reference as a primal spirit.  After capturing the mama Owlbear, Scruff sent the child away, which endears him to the group.
  With his help, he guides them toward Ursano's ruins, where the minotaurs will undoubtedly stop by.  As they approach, however, a cyclone of terrible wind and intense rain begins to sap their strength, and the sonic damage knocks out Scruff more than once.  Finally, they emerge upon the ruins; an ancient temple amidst a broken stone city.  And as they cross the threshold, time slows...

Lightning streaks in slow motion and the rain falls as if time were slowed to an inch.  And there, at the end of the cobblestone path, stands the Knight.  It demands a duel, single combat or dynamic together.  At first, Boljek offers himself, but the others quickly turn over to the idea that they are always stronger together.  The decision made, the Knight calls his TWO minotaurs, and lightning strikes the temple's peak behind him, calling forth an enormous bear, a wreath of emerald shards and hardened stone adorning its neck and shoulders.  The fight begins.
  One very tough fight later, the Knight is defeated, Glib takes out a minotaur himself, and Boljek attempts to go toe-to-toe with the primal spirit of Ursano himself...this was a poor choice, but with single targets falling, the group finally begins to out-maneuver the Knight and his warden.  The emerald pieces now free, and the spirit banished, the Knight is finally killed.  
  But at the peak of the temple, a sarcophagus sits, tendrils of incense floating lazily from within.  Tearing off the cover, the gang discovers the remains of something odd, twisted and layered into some sort of summoning ritual.  The remains are that of a young Wendigo, the group believes, and they finally destroy it.  
They retrieve the baby Owlbear, giving him a home on their boat, and dispose of its mother's remains, found in the stone circlet of Ursano.
  Just as they leave, though, Boljek spies a set of eyes watching them.  Across a deep lake beyond the ruined temple, perched on a slab of a grander ruin, sits a wolf adorned in matted leaves, a strange pair of antlers on its head.  Their eyes meet, and it bounds into the broken castles beyond...

Kurama - Ghostwise Halfling / Circle of the Moon Druid
Glib - Kenku / Arcane Trickster Rogue
Boljek - Hobgoblin / Samurai Fighter
Torrent - Tiefling / Tempest Cleric
Pedro Montoya - Human / Fighter, Rogue
Atavan - Human / Mastermind Rogue
Arha - Half-Orc / Oath of Vengeance Paladin
Party Level: 3

  Fifty years have passed since the Torkmund Battalion waged war upon the unsuspecting continent of Erena and the northern capitol of Frostburn was crushed.  Though the Knight Owls fought valiantly in the face of the armies, they were not enough to stop the cataclysmic end of the people there.   
The world has changed.  An age of pirates and corsairs, brigands and cannons, sea monsters and distant lands.  The Rooksmith remains an orbiting streak of ruined stone; shredded moonstones that scatter the skies above a tumultuous sea.  With the Owls still under scrutiny, eager cadets in the program fall in line behind Captain Straiga aboard the Crimson Butterfly.  A curious chronicler in their midst, a kindly young gnome named Dyren, they sail toward the port city of Gatha in the Wilderfall continent called Iliya.
  At the dawn of their arrival, the Butterfly is set upon by two pirate ships, eager to take hold of their cargo.  The young Owls and their ship dispatch the brigands easily, and finish their journey toward the city.

  The city of Gatha is marked first by a tall spire of encrusted bone, sinew, and desiccated muscle of various carcasses of sea creatures.  It is the first of many wards; like shamanic totems to instill fear into the hearts of those harboring ill will toward the iron port.  The totems telescope into the main arch of the dock, and as the cadets enter the city proper, they take note of the all-encompassing sharpened log fence that wraps the entire city.  Running up its scaffolding and parapets are discrete battlements; arbalest turrets, small cannons, archer slits.  It appears the city requires constant defense against the wicked vine blights that seek to breach the wall.
​Upon entering the city, the group discovers their main objective and draws up a contract.  They are, with Dyren as their guide, traverse the beginnings of the wild forests and explore an abandoned tomb once believed to be a Yuan-Ti temple.  Dyren shares her allowance of 150 gold pieces with the group to help them outfit what they can before heading out, and the group begins to pick up on her curious stutter and vast book knowledge of the island, and the arcane.  They attempt to gather materials at two local shops: Skinner's and Chopper's, but come up short for now, save for switching out a blade for an axe.  
  While getting ready to leave, they witness a stressful moment for the guards as they fight off a sudden surge of deadly vines trying to reach through one of the battlements, drawing scimitars and hacking away at the tendrils before spewing fire breath upon the insurgents.  Dyren explains that ever since Gatha was colonized, and it was literally carved into the land itself...the land has been fighting back...

Upon entering the Wilds, Dyren sets to work locating her trail.  After a few moments of getting turned around, the group and Dyren discover a set of stones that mark a very long pathway.  Each stone holds a simple abjuration rune built to ward away excessive plant growth; it keeps the vines from attacking.  She explains that her tribe put these here back when her brother tried to live here.  The group asks about her brother, and she explains that he was working as a scribe in the north...before a big monster (a giant turtle) stepped on him; crushed his library, and him with it.  She holds him in very high regard as a great wizard who knew what to do to keep others safe...and now that he's gone, it's up to her to do so.  
  After three hours of movement, Glib can't shake the feeling that the group is being watched...  They keep moving, while Dyren panics a little, and the group prepares for a fight.  Suddenly, with the snapping of a tree next to Glib, a bladed chain attached to a giant green troll carves into the kenku and a tense fight begins.  The group tries not to stray from the path, summoning flaming spheres and firebolts to keep the troll at bay, even as its claws clamp around Glib and drag him into the wilds.  But the group is not alone, as a brown Yeti is spotted on the other side of the path.  Boljek misjudges and attacks the creature, turning its intent upon the group...which proves to be a poor choice as the group splits in half and tears into the creature.  It, severely bloodied, quickly flees from the battle, dragging behind it a giant stone arm.  In just a few short rounds, the troll is also defeated, and the lingering flaming sphere keeps the vine blights at bay for Glib to return to the trail.

The next leg of the journey proves mostly uneventful.  With Dyren as their guide, the party follows her into a desert tundra called the Skeleton Harrows or, according to Dyren's map, "The Desiccated Graveyard."  The cadets are surrounded by the skeletal remains of massive creatures, long dead or more recently stripped clean, and an eerie wind is spiraling.  The wards keep it at bay, and in the center of a wider end of the path, the group rests and keeps watch.  Taking interest in the gnome's excellent map-making skills, Arha and Atavan notice the next forest after this leg of the journey, pointing out the curious bright pink illustration of a unicorn smiling in the forest, before the serpentine temple beyond.  Dyren explains that the temple was once believed to be a Yuan-Ti shrine, but she believes a presence of good has kept this at bay.
  A few notice the subtle and silent disappearance of some of the massive bones, and movement in the sands beyond.  The group tenses, and keeps their movements careful and swift...  Before recognizing a few of the wards have been destroyed before the next edge of grassland.  The party keeps Dyren from being eaten, but are left with a dangerous twenty feet to sprint across.  A found familiar grants a helpful sacrifice to get most of them across (a tiny owl named Ollie 2.0 is snatched in gargantuan jaws), but Torrent delays just a bit too long (and trips) and the enormous bulette clamps down upon her, threatening to drag her under the sand.  The group springs to action, dealing enough damage to it to let go, and the group finally arrives at the temple.

At the temple's onset, the group finds the remains of two Yuan-Ti abominations, covered by florid gardens, with puncture wounds through the torso.  Kurama learns from Dyren that her tribe are mostly made up of rogues and fighters, while only she and her brother had a talent for arcane study.  She helps them retrieve a masterwork kris and two silvered javelins from the bodies, before lighting them on fire.
  Meanwhile, Arha follows some curious hooved tracks into a forest canopy.  A rush of leaves brings the omniscient presence and questioning of a commanding voice.  At first dismissive, it informs Arha that it has kept dominion over this land, and has destroyed the abominations on its grounds.  "Don't be greedy.  Do what is right.  There was evil here.  I killed it.  Do not bring more."  Sharing this with an excited Dyren, the group wanders inside. 
  The temple is beset with winding stairways of great depth, red fluorescent moss, and a curious tapestry depicting a great mage wearing a red gem commanding an army of stone golems...before entering a complex room of pressure plates, arrows, and acid.  The group tinkers and tests, avoiding the obvious trap, and Glib and Kurama do their best to disarm the thing.  After that, they are blasted by columns of cold breath from mechanical dragon heads powered by sapphires.  They dismantle one of them, and step through its casing to find a long set of hallways with a progression of paintings each depicting a pair of hands cradling a red gem.  But something is wrong; each pair of hands gets progressively hairier, then transitions back to human, then back to furred, and back and forth, until the last iteration, which is a mess of slashed fabric and stained blood.  The corridor ends in another set of stairs.
  The group finds themself in a throne room surrounded by stone statues.  A voice from the shadows seems first amused by their presence, engaging with Kurama and Torrent, and mentions that he is a servant of the Elking.  His role as guardian of his liege's army, awaiting something called the Grand Hunt.  Discourse dissolves quickly as glowing eyes bring life to the 14 statues surrounding the throne room and the group begins to fight for their lives.  Thinking quickly, Arha spies there, floating above them, a wizard who matches the one depicted in the tapestry, and through a GREAT shot, knocks him to the ground, where the group tears into him.  With a roar, his form swells and bends, changing into a giant brown yeti...before Dyren casts grease and he falls prone.  Kurama changes into a brown bear and does his best to end the wizard while the others fight to keep the golems at bay, tearing the red amulet from his form and tossing it to Arha...  Who proceeds to overcome the tremendous strain upon her psyche to control or halt each residual golem.  Sensing his loss of control, the wizard destroys a few of them in an attempt to get away, but Kurama rips him to pieces.  Arha sends the other golems to return to their resting state, and the group takes some time to bandage themselves up.
  
Dyren identifies the amulet as an Amulet of Mass Golem Control and Mind Shielding (manufactured and combined item), and they use it to disarm the remaining traps in the temple, opening up the secondary path from the dragon's breath.   In the other room they find a rare set of bonsai-like trees: 2 in Ironwood (currently very rare), and 1 in Elderwood (currently extinct).  The trees are very heavy, and the group can only carry two out of the temple (Dyren senses that this is the right thing to do).  But before leaving, they drop the amulet into an exposed pit of acid...and watch the soul of the mage burn up inside.
  The group plants the Ironwood and Elderwood trees in the forest canopy, and the entity there appears to Arha and Dyren, allowing Dyren to hug the creature (a silver unicorn), before dispersing in a burst of starlight.  The trees take root quickly, the Elderwood depositing the first of many seeds into Atavan's hand.  The seed keeps the vines from attacking them on the trip back, and they implore the lord of Gatha to plant the seed in the city to keep the vines at bay and bring the Elderwood back to the land.

First contract completed.