RPG Campaigns

Giraine Summaries

In the withered, shadowed forest, sounds closed in around you. There was the rustling of leaves and furtive movements; the air chilled. You pushed forward and found that a group of sinister beings had encircled you: wraiths of people that had died from nasty plant root infections that ate their bodies like voracious maggots. Cyroosta recognized them as former members of her household: soldiers of Lord Darilios Shaven that had been lost in the Tarinwood (i.e. killed by elves or worse). Their claws and roots rended you from the inside, and dealt terrible injuries to Boamund and Cyroosta that kept Inyana busy healing. Maugis prayed for your salvation and was rewarded with a magical shimmering that protected you all-it seemed there was some inner power you could release on this quest? But Inyana tried it later and it did not seem to work, so something mysterious was up. Regardless, with your enchanted weapons and some spellcasting you soon fought them off, yet at a bitter cost of magical energy from repeated healings. You began to wonder if you would have rest on this trip to recover-the Court of Silence and the quest's climax still seemed far off…

You left the forest and found that the road led onto a somber plain strewn with bone fragments. It was silent and still; few dead lingered or wandered here. But then, traversing the slightly rolling landscape, you came upon seven dead Giranois- freshly dead, you learned. They'd been maimed and chewed and were in a hapless state, begging for water and food (which just fell through their mangled bodies anyway when you gave it; the Captain provided his waterskin). They explained that “ze horses” were to blame for their recent deaths; apparently the zombie horse-things that the earthquake had unleashed, but you did wonder if Ethilrist's Diokos demon horses or the dead Inquisition mounted knights had anything to do with this. Indeed, they said that they'd seen something like mounted knights, matching Rokari descriptions… The Captain grew eager to confront them. After pondering whether they should “go to meet Granno” (i.e. remain dead) or not, they pleaded for you to lead them out of the Underworld and you agreed. Cyroosta had grown soft on them, and Maugis too was beginning to overcome his biases toward these heretical scoundrels. You asked them to bring good word to their elders of your actions and to help preserve the peace between colonists and Giranois; they said they would try if you could bring them home again.

The plains road then led inside a giant dragon's skeleton, through the titanic fanged mouth. Inside, it was grim and eerie, with flitting shadows and murmurs: unsettling echoes of draconic powers that once were dominant (in the pre-Dawn) even in Seshnela/Pithdaros. This clearly was a foreign frontier in the Underworld that you must pass through: the prior regions were just lands where the freshly dead traversed to come to their respective religions' afterlives, or where lost souls wandered eternally. This was a bad place for Malkioni. “Krjalk” (monster/non-human) magics would be stronger here. And soon you met some non-humans: burly, confidently sneering, mace and maul-hefting trolls (Uz) crept out of the shadows within the dragon skeleton pathway and blocked your path. They chuckled to each other in their faint Darktongue and you knew a challenge was at hand!

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