What You Missed - Voraniss Questing Tree Fiddy

 By Dan "N" Hudon. and Stephen "Laika" Sanford

Saturday:

Greetings mortals (and otherwise)! Here is my account of the events that transpired during our raid of Dame Gloriana's Spelltower.

Upon arriving at the teleport pad and stepping into Dame Gloriana's tower, we entered into a room with a number of animated brooms sweeping the area clean and destroying any dirt they came across, including our dirt from Stonewood that provided our emergency escape route. They had to be disenchanted to retrieve keys from them which could be inserted into a door. (There was also another door that exploded when opened as some sort of security mechanism). Most of the keys when used enacted various curses (releasing imps that mocked us, getting Elwin stuck in a time loop, turning people into animals, making a flesh blanket...) but eventually we found the right one and moved on.

We snuck through a garden courtyard with patrolling sentries that detected movement and vicious dogs sensitive to sound. At the end we killed the guard dog and used its key to enter the next room.

There was a control room of sorts manned by gnomes who had been there since Gloriana's time. They told us that the tower itself is a device for interplanar travel but had fallen into disrepair, and we needed to fix certain mechanisms in connected planes to be able to access the central chamber. The portal would send us to the planes in a random order, with the first being the Elemental Plane of Fire.

In the Fire Plane, the floor was insta-rending lava except for certain stony areas, and a path could be made by killing fire elementals, causing them to cool and turn into stepping stones. It was super slow going, especially for those trying to carry Sir Wilmot's casket, but there were periodically-placed water obelisks that when assembled would turn all the lava to stone for a short period of time, letting everyone move forward quickly before it turned back to lava again. On one of these times, I ran a bit too far before realizing the rest of the party was stuck behind me dealing with some more elementals that had appeared. Realizing that I was in the middle of nowhere with no stepping stones for when the floor heated up again, I found the nearest isolated fire elemental and killed it with a single, quick piercing blow to create a place for me to stand. I was stranded far behind the elementals' back line, but luckily no elementals noticed me. When the next obelisk was activated I started running again, since we were close to the end and someone called out to run as far as we could. But the end was further than we thought and some elementals appeared to stop the main party in their tracks, in an area with no stepping stones and time quickly running out. Apparently at this point the party had resigned themselves to death, with the healers in the back still on stones figuring out how to deal with the mass rending that would soon occur. But as the countdown for the floor becoming lava started - 10, 9, 8... - I, alone on the rapidly heating lava far ahead, suddenly saw another water obelisk near me, and rushed over to try to put it together as my (and the party's, though unbeknownst to me) only chance of survival. Using one hand (since my other hand was unusable due to a magic item power) I frantically assembled the obelisk's pieces - 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, "The floor is-"

Half a second before the word "lava", I put the final piece in place. ((I looked up at an npc nearby, asking if I got it in time. They called out to Renee (who was marshaling the countdown), saying that I had gotten it just *barely* in time, and she announced that the floor was still stone for now.)) The whole party was able to run forward and make it to the end, without any more casualties from the lava!

So, we reached another portal in the fire plane that lead us back to the tower, where there was a room with a furnace. A chimney sweep was trying to clean a poison monster out of the furnace but got eaten. So did J'ortsa, but we got him out. Anyways, eventually we figured out how to get rid of the monster and we started loading in coal that entered the room in the form of coalems (coal golems) when we pushed a button. Luckily there were pickaxes to deal with those.

With the furnace active, we went through another portal to the Fae Wilds. We had to deal with a bunch of goblins, a scarecrow, mushrooms, and a snake (which Bubbles bargained with for a cool hammer) to gather ingredients for hags who looked like gnomes due to a glamor spell. They led us to an alchemy workstation and taught people how to do some alchemy for the next part of repairing the tower. While that was happening (which went well), some of us talked about the memories we'd been seeing.

So, throughout the day there were these floating crystals that when touched would show people memories of things that happened in the tower. I didn't see all of them but heard about the ones I didn't see. They showed Gloriana's sister, Priscilla, getting killed by a mind flayer Aberration, and Gloriana burying herself in her research on teleportation to the point where gnomes had trouble getting her to eat (though James Swift was able to use divine aids to somehow make her eat the food, or at least make it so we could see the part where she does). The memory in the Fae Wilds was of Gloriana being asked to squire to the Knights of the Aberrant Gate by Sir Wilmot, with her agreeing when he said she could make sure what happened to Priscilla wouldn't happen to others.

After Fae, we went to the Abyss to get some abyssal rocks. The Abyss is a truly awful place where there's tons of demons with armor piercing pikes and such who only take damage from magic weapons. Not a fan of those! There were also some rending pits, and some entities that people made ill-advised deals with for cool daggers. Anyways, we got pretty much wiped and people had to make deals (including with an entity who was *totally* just a messenger and not Asmodeus himself, yup definitely) to get the demons to stop attacking and let us through. The portal out had a sensor that would only let humans through (the first of the "Speciesist Doors") but Rosetta was able to disable it temporarily with a Force of Will. Hopefully not too many demons got out.

We were then in a room with Abyssal rocks to mine while some more demons attacked (guess they didn't get the memo). Luckily, I had lugged the pickaxes from the furnace room all day and we had those to mine them quicker. Less luckily, the stones put a random curse on you when you broke them, but we were able to get the pieces of Abyssal Rock (and candy) inside.

As night fell, rhe next plane on the list was the Negative Energy Plane, where healing magic was useless but any dead were revived after a minute. There were all sorts of creatures of darkness attacking while we made our way through, and interestingly, there were some sort of memory apparitions of Gloriana and Priscilla lost in the darkness, who couldn't see or hear us but reacted to and followed our lights. We got them out and they disappeared, letting us get into a room with a compass we needed to fix.

In this room, when someone touched a memory crystal, this time it played for everyone present. We witnessed Gloriana's knighting by Sir Wilmot, with several of the other Knights (Dame Claudia and Sir Roman) present. Gloriana had just finished the teleportation research and would be heading to Lostpeak to join the other knights.

In this room, we had to act out true stories of the Realms in four categories - romance, tragedy, history, and adventure - in order to fill magic books that go on each point of the compass. With the joyous atmosphere and tales of the good old days, it almost felt more like a campfire than a room in an old wizard tower. I could take the time to recount the stories once more, but it would be better to hear them some time in a similar atmosphere of merriment.

Next was another Speciesist Door, except this one didn't just prevent non-humans from entering, but segregated us and teleported us into a cage! It was quite offensive. We were trapped while the humans (and a few others, like Laika and Rosetta - the sensor must have made a mistake) looted the central sanctum of the tower. While trapped, we noticed that behind another layer of magical barrier behind us were all sorts of terrible creatures! Suddenly the barrier in front of us broke down, letting us free along with a gnome and a mushroom. But then, the next layers of the barrier started going down, letting more and more creatures free and sealing the room until we dealt with them all.

There was a chimera, a mind flayer, a bat creature, a giant cyclops skeleton (like Hugo from the siege of Blackwood), a beholder, and a dracolich, and we had to fight them all at once! It was hard, but we succeeded! ((And yes, the big ones were all full giant monster rigs, and they were *amazing*!))

We finally killed them all and were able to leave the tower, our mission complete. People are hard at work transcribing the results of our raid, which will hopefully give us a leg up in our fight against Sir Edwyn Rainecourt.

-N

WYM: VQ Tree Fiddy Sunday

Divine Intervention

After a long day of exploring Gloriana’s tower we rested and were ready to go to Rathkele to fight Edwin’s forces. What we didn’t expect was we were teleported in our sleep and woke up in hell. Fortunately for my own wellbeing I woke up as a fighter as I was a 3 path the day previously with all the extra energy to pick up a 6’6” and fend off the demons we are now surrounded with. 

Inside hell we were presented with various wards in the form of Demons who were of various aspects where people needed to make a promise or do an action opposite of the aspect the Demon represented. 

These were the following trials:

Apologize to a friend for doing something against them

Swear to commit a crime within a year

Confess an atrocity that you have done and be judged by the crowd around you.

Do something evil to you. In Rosetta’s words– Do something that makes you icky. 

During the final room no magic worked with the exception of intervention and certain powers. We found a frail old man who claimed to have been asleep for a long time. Rosetta cast Identify and he got the answer “God”. This old man claimed to have a piece missing from himself and awoke in hell a year ago. I do have my suspicions on who this man is, I have no concrete evidence and for the sake of preventing misinformation I suspect they are a god that was locked away to prevent the end times.

The old man offered absolution to a demon and removed it of all sin, past and future. Several adventurers also took on the absolution, once the fifth adventurer took the absolution we were sent out of Hell. The old man has now escaped and we learned the absolution is a curse which will spread.  

Those that took his absolution are the following:

Tara, Jasper, Vesper, Jortsa, Wisteria, and a Demon 

Overall It was a great Sunday quest that was just long enough to give us a good work out and with enough suspense and mystery to keep us questioning. 

Thank you Tom, Matt and the VQ Team

-Stephen "Laika" Sanford

Why I Want To Go: Hartlepool's Sunken Picnic

Written by: Tim "James Swift" Suitor 

James Swift, in conversation:

“It has been a busy summer, and there is still much to do in the fall. While I’ve never been a paragon of self care, I think slotting in some time between meetings to enjoy a picnic would be fine. Plus, I haven't been to Hartlepool, it will be enjoyable to see a new place, the sights, the threats, the food, all of it. 

I enjoyed myself over the summer at some Blackwood’s Tournaments, so I may try my hands at them here, and if not, there will be a casino and plenty of other games and ways to spend my time and coin.

All and all, it seems like a lovely way to spend a Saturday. I’m just going to be picky about my boots and cloak, dress warm if you're going into a swamp.”

OOC:

Coming off of an active Summer and Fall I really think a 1 day picnic and tournament and lighter hearted event will be a great chance to breathe, unwind, maybe get in a couple of those conversations you’ve wanted to but monsters keep interrupting. 

For those who want it, in addition to the Casino, there is the Stacked Deck Poker Tournaments, and I think it will be one of the last scoring opportunities for that this year.

I think it’s going to be a lot of fun with tournaments, games, the Regionals look neat, and a kitchen working hard to provide snacks throughout the day!

There are still a few more events in the year, but this is a nice way to start easing off the ride that has been this year.

Guess That Realmsie!

Another in our continuing series! In the below picture there is a Realmsie-shaped black hole. Can you figure out who it is based only on the profile? Tell us on social media if you think you know who it is! The answer will be revealed later in the day.  

Meme Monday

 by the Meme Team

Rumors for October 1024

 

[Across the Realms]

Rumbles heard through messengers forewarn the more sword happy folk of the Realms to not be alarmed. A dragon, in a historically rare show of generosity, is opening their hoard to the Realms. Any who write and deposit a letter at Black and White will receive a response and mayhaps a gift. Letters are to contain what is asked for so that the dragon may choose gifts as appropriate. Gifts will then be dispersed by an ambassador at a later point. All exchanges are peace bound and in good faith.

[Ashenmark]

Temporary guard houses have been constructed on roads leading to Goldenhall, stopping any travelers from entering the city.  Alchemists around the nation have been conscripted into service to the throne in order to produce potions for an expedition back into the city to recover important items and retrieve any dead that remain after the city’s evacuation.

[Arken]

Scouts have returned from midrealm with reports of empty villages, a massing horde of wildfolk, and dark magics spilling out from a dark mirror like rock formation.

[Blackavar]

Blackavar Proper is abuzz with activity in anticipation of the fast-approaching festivities on the weekend of the 25th.

~~~

Local farmers are complaining about hoodlums moving their scarecrows in the night and ignoring the curfew, leaving patches of field open to pests.

~~~

One such local hoodlum when arrested was quoted saying "We didn't move any scarecrows! We were looking for Danny. He was crying and needed our help."

[Blackwood]

As the temperatures start to drop for the year, the murky fog has begun to settle. With more clarity, there have been reports of Grimalkin plunging down towards Hartlepool. ~~~

A peasant family reports that a friendly gnome who had been helping with their garden was fiercely slain by a dark-draped woman with a blackbird headdress.  The gnome begged to be spared but there was no mercy.

[Chimeron]

A traveler reports meeting a strangely-dressed scribe who wanted help writing a letter. As the traveler began to discuss this, a dark bird approached the scribe, who cowered and begged to be spared. The bird touched the frightened scribe, and immediately the scribe dissipated, moaning in despair.

~~~

In Chimeron City, several tavern rooms have been rented all at once by travelers claiming to be geologists, presumably for some sort of geology convention. Local geologists are upset that they weren't invited.

[Rhiassa]

A group of hunters say they were fighting off a very tall and very sharp-toothed mugwump when a dark bird, maybe a crow, landed on its shoulder and it suddenly faded away before their very eyes.

What You Missed - Tournaments of the Blue Rose 1024

Written by: Arthur "Aiden" Granger

After a short but familiar trip, I found myself back in the Shadowlands. Missing the activities of Friday, my arrival on Saturday was with the intention of making up for lost time. After setting up at the tourney field, I began poking around for what I could find. 

Word had traveled that in the surrounding wilds, various animal bones had been discovered and I had wished to see for myself. Any excuse for a morning walk, really.  Reports of mushrooms had been made as well but I chose to avoid those as several adventurers had been showing interest in those already. 

Meanwhile, announcements had begun for the Blademaster tournament. Myself, alongside many in Invictus, had been working hard to hone their skills for this, so no one was taking things lightly in the slightest. I personally took part in several tournament activities while also performing my normal activities and hearing words from everyone present about the activities that took place the night prior. After what seemed like a normal day of tournaments had begun, things picked up with activity pretty quickly. 

Tours had been announced to the Church of Shadow. Several relics I had remembered from my earlier days in the realm were curated for the viewing of the newer generations to learn about.  I did not manage the tour myself but had heard of the contents due to an earlier visit while looking around for bone pieces. Queen Kharma understood my earlier error but in this situation it seems another party had other ideas. Some form of guardian attacked everyone at the tourney field looking for stolen goods, particularly keys. As this attracted more attention, other parties took up the search. In the meantime, a questionable gentleman starts moving about offering information about the location of a lockbox nearby for a price. One loan from Anton and I was on my way to this box with the accompaniment of Kiddo and Omri. After a surprise attack, I had to run back for weapons and aid as the others held off attacks to allow the escape to happen. 

At this point, things had settled into a more relaxed point in the day. Those not interested in tournaments were dispatched on a mining expedition. Meanwhile, I stayed close to the tournament field. When not fighting in tournaments, several of us worked on picking the lockbox, and I had amassed ample “rose gold" from participating in the pickpocketing tournament. With a lot of guidance and assistance from Liselle, we had amassed several mystery boxes that yielded impressive finds. Leather goods, bags of gold -some of which being very rare gold- bones pieces and more. Most of the previously listed items were divided up so as many people as possible shared the spoils. After some time, tournaments would wind down and we would turn to the feasthall for food and court. 

What's to say? It's always a good time sitting down to good food and to hear the announcements of the day. Blackwood won some stuff, Invictus won some stuff, and in a surprise twist I was presented with a magic wishbone. Now this may seem an odd detail to mention but anyone that has spent more than five minutes with me knows I haven't shut up most of the year about making one thing: a magic anvil. At this point I was off to the races again smithing all the things. Fun fact- in my younger years I always saw the other adventures with their crazy weapons of power but I was never that guy, so having the means to make my own swords of Light for the night quest was fairly exciting. 

Don't ask me what happened in the night quest. There was a candle, people did some stuff, and I was occupied with several others contending with a damn cat. It paid off in the end but if you're looking for detailed accounts of facts… well, the cat dropped a ton of gold. Returning back and dividing the bag from the cat between us, there were copious amounts of gold, and a key which was returned to the Church of Shadow. In return, Ryu was bestowed a magic dagger and it was finally time to wind down. Tulli and I from here took to the fire pit, telling stories and singing songs for those still left awake until late hours. 

Now we are going into Sunday and it was about as abnormal as you could ask for. Usually everyone is headed for the caravans to head out by morning but this time was much different. Another round of unarmored tournaments took place but I was far too distracted to participate as much as the day before. It was time to see what work I could really do and with some aid calling to Shadow, Vesper and I discovered I could utilize the anvil to turn normal gold into the special rose gold we needed. I am going to own the fact that this got about as out of hand as you would expect. In our defense… I have no defense. We wanted to help Hedda complete a collection of mini figurines which were stuck in mystery boxes and were pretty set on opening boxes till we found them all. Anyone that knows Vesper and myself should expect no less, given the situation. Overall I would call this excursion to the Shadowlands a success for many. Until we meet again!

Editor's note: Casey Lemay has been working towards throwing this event for literal years. As a crafting friend, I have cheered her on as she made so freaking much stuff for this weekend. I cannot understate the time and planning that went into this event. At times I had to end phone calls and conversations in order to avoid hearing anything to do with the event details, wanting to experience it from the player's end of things. Thank you again to the entire staff. 

Why I Want to Go - Voraniss Questing Tree Fiddy

Written by Zack "Anthony Warder" Emmert

Voraniss Questing has always been one of my favorite questing series in the game. The series has always has a skilled and dedicated team of event staff. The lore and the worldbuilding is truly above and beyond, and it's been brought to life by an incredibly talented cast of NPCs and top-notch prop construction.

Because of the lore-heavy nature of this plot, I'd also like to take a moment to give prospective players a run-down of where the plot currently stands, and what all has happened so far (there's a lot):

Hundreds of years in the past and far to the west, the Knights of the Aberrant Gate defended the Realms from the Aberrant Gate and the beings on the other side, who were attempting to invade and destroy the Realms. During the Battle of Lostpeak, all the knights save for Knight Commander Sir Willmot D'Aubert and Sir Edwyn Rainecourt abandoned the fight and fled. Sir Willmot and Sir Edwyn were able to destroy the gate, but Sir Willmot was killed and many of the aberrations escaped, some of which killed Sir Edwyn's entire family. This was the event that turned Sir Edwyn evil.

Later, Sir Edwyn hosted Sir Willmot's wake, with the rest of the knightly order: Sir Roman De'Maris, Dame Claudia LeRoux, Sir Wolfram Elliston, Dame Gloriana Stanwode, Sir Athalos Fairclough, Sir Lorin Stirling, Sir Selwyn Fowler, and Dame Mirield Castillon. He then proceeded to poison the other knights of the order, and reanimate them as his undead generals. He placed a piece of his soul into each of them, becoming a lich and making each of his generals into one of his soul containers. Our seers have determined that in order to kill Sir Edwyn, each of his generals must first be killed in the correct order, and while we have not yet determined the order, we know that our first target is Dame Gloriana Stanwode, the order's wizard and scribe.

Following the turning of the knights, a war broke out between Sir Edwyn's corrupted court, and four of the order's own squires: Squires Lawrence, Willoughby, Elmwatcher, and McHale. The squires succeeded in trapping and incapacitating Sir Edwyn in a crypt in what is now the town of Caelkirk, by channeling the power of five different gods: Aurora, Solarus, Gaia, Rexan, and Dionin.

Fast forward to present day-ish.

As a result of Rexan's death during the war in Darkvale, the magic imprisoning him weakened enough that undead began leaking out of the crypt, and adventurers came to investigate. We entered the crypt, and in doing so broke the magic entirely and freed Sir Edwyn and one of his general, Sir Roman De'Maris. We were narrowly able to defend the town from Sir Edwyn's forces.

The following spring, we came to Voraniss to seek out the favor of Gaia, who has protected Voraniss from undead incursions since long before the country's founding. We were able to earn this favor and were given her staff, an item of extremely potent healing magic. We then discovered that Blackwood was under attack, and traveled through the Voranian spirit world to successfully defend them from Sir Edwyn's forces. During this time, we discovered that Sir Edwyn had made contact with and reanimated Dame Claudia LeRoux, once the order's healer and now a dangerous blood mage going by the moniker Dame Carrion.

Our next encounter with Sir Edwyn's corrupted court was during the Seige of Necron. Both Sir Edwyn's forces and our own were racing through the city-state kingdom, seeking artifacts that would be very powerful in Sir Edwyn's hands. Our goal was to destroy them, his was to claim them for his own use. By and large, we did not succeed in our goal, although several artifacts were successfully destroyed. Around this time is when we believe Sir Edwyn reactivated Dame Gloriana Stanwode.

The forces of the Realms most recently encountered Sir Edwyn when we ventured to the site of the Battle of Lostpeak, in search of weapons we could use to defeat the corrupted court. The weapons we sought out were the blades wielded by the four squires who originally defeated Sir Edwyn, as well as the blade of Knight Commander Sir Willmot D'Aubert. To earn the squire's blades, we had to pass trials set by the spirits of the squires themselves. Those chosen became responsible for rebuilding the Knights of the Aberrant Gate and reaffirming their tenets. Myself, Fern Eberhardt, Ser Gordon Lightfoot, and Ser Vesper were chosen to be the squires to the new order. We voted Fern into the position of Knight Commander, and Sir Pilpus Jainrose took up their squirely blade. It is at approximately this time that we believe Sir Edwyn located and reactivated Sir Wolfram Elliston.

This weekend, we'll be visiting a wizard tower that was once the property of Dame Gloriana Stanwode, accessed by a teleportation pad located on an island north of Voraniss Proper. We are hoping to find more information about the members of the corrupted court, and continue to build the arsenal with which we will defeat them.

I hope to see you all there!