Here’s the TLDR version: A lot of variety, compelling lore, fun challenges, sticky weather, great event!
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I went to Knights of the Sable Dragon Questing this past weekend. The event was thrown by Patrick Bobell, Nate Carr, and John Rescigno, obviously with a lot of help from a good cast of volunteers. They chose to tap into the lore of the Knights of the Sable Dragon, which proved to be fertile ground for telling a story. Two stories, really, because at the same time the story of the PCs in the long abandoned land of Blackavar was unfolding, we were learning the story of the original knights who founded the order.
IC: Gray Erikkson’s observations
Questing off Friday night with a motley collection of adventurers, a mixture of seasoned veterans and green newbies, who had arrived to help escort noncombatant scholars and surveyors into Blackavar, but we all soon found ourselves fending off repeated attacks by Aspis who seemed intent on dragging of Kovaks away. Tracking the Aspis to where they were coming from led to a hole in the ground next to a rather insulting note that, when read aloud, triggered Death Wish spells on a couple of adventurers, which caused some awkwardness, but was eventually settled out. The hole was sealed up with some ritual shenanigans led by Rosetta.
The adventurers then went to the sight of the battle with Rexan for some soul searching and speculation on the possibility of resurrecting Sir Chan Ottokar, whose sacrifice saved a lot of lives from utter obliteration. Margaret seemed very driven to make this happen. What kind of omen the explosion that followed should be considered is open to individual interpretation.
Saturday opened with some modest escort duties, but soon lead to some complicated challenges. The first of which was some manner of forge or foundry, where red hot cores were spewed forth from a volcanic vent. The cores had to be picked up without using one’s hands and deposited in various buckets in and around the structure. The cores hitting the floor triggered tremors and the spawning of hostile fire and smoke elementals. Omri did good work juggling those little suckers to where they needed to be, and numerous adventurers including Jericho and Laika (and myself to some small extent) fended off the elementals as they appeared. Finishing this task powered up some long dormant apparatus, which later proved crucial to our efforts. It also produced an enchanted anvil that was very helpful in fixing things throughout the weekend.
Further encounters included a mailman being pursued by a werewolf who was not hostile, but played a little rough. The mailman delivered a number puzzles and a letter to Jean Baptiste from one Grotesque Gourmand detailing a recipe for dragon egg omelets. How I wound up with this letter is not strictly relevant, but reading the recipe aloud - or more specifically the word “dragon” - triggered more Death Wish spells. Once again, Omri did some good work decoding the runes the mailman delivered.
After some more escorting of Jerry the Surveyor (and scrap metal merchant apparently), which led to evicting a coven of vampires from the structure they’d taken up residence in, Sam the Dragonologist solicited our help saving dragon eggs from being eaten by invasive lizard creatures. Turned out the apparatus we’d activated earlier restored power to a dragon egg repository, where damaged caretaking golems were struggling to protect dragon eggs of various sizes, from as small as chicken eggs to ones too large for me to wrap my arms all the way around. Not only did we have to fight off the lizard creatures, but the eggs had to be carefully handled and returned to safety because they couldn’t be allowed to hatch, but they also couldn’t be allowed to be destroyed, due to the terms of an ancient treaty signed by the original Knights of the Sable Dragon. Failure to abide by the terms of the treaty would result in the awakening of the Brood Mother, a dire threat to all the civilizations of the Realms.
This was an all hands on deck situation, made more complicated by a Mind Flayer wandering around trying to cast Death Wish on adventurers. Rosetta had visions of more Mind Flayers awakening the Brood Mother, which at least explained where all the Death Wish spells were coming from. After a not inconsiderable amount of effort, the dragon eggs were returned to safety, and I turned around just in time to see Sam the Dragonologist running off with one of them.
We really probably should have seen that coming.
After persuading Sam to return the dragon egg with a combination of appeals to reason and threats of violence, things settled down enough for us to rest, wring some sweat out of our garments, and have a meal. Also, our surveyors provided us with a trove of magical scrolls to help us with our evening efforts. They saw fit to provide, among other things, scrolls of Soul Snare.
I’m sure there was no reason to be concerned about why they thought we might need those.
After the sun set, we traveled to the tomb of the original Knights of the Sable Dragon, whose shades were wandering around restlessly. Margaret and DelHammer worked on sorting out how to return them to rest while the rest of us fended off attacking…to be honest, I wasn’t quite sure what they were, only that they were attacking us. Undead of some variety probably. It was a tomb.
There was also a living warrior who seemed very driven to fight and kill, but he seemed to be able to restrain the impulse by leaning on his sense of honor. He accepted one-on-one combats and I believe Jericho finally defeated him and won the dagger the warrior said was driving his need to kill. That probably bears keeping an eye on, but we soon had other problems.
After figuring out which knights should be in which graves, we were able to return the shades of the knights to their rest and we left the tomb in time to see a coven of Mind Flayers enact a ritual that summoned the Brood Mother Dragon. The Mind Flayers were expecting to take control of the Brood Mother, but the mighty dragon turned the table on those creatures, and her passage caused earthquakes and rockslides. We were forced to flee until the tremors stopped causing rockslides, and only about half of us made it to the Brood Mother’s lair. Margaret’s call for Divine Aid eventually brought the rest of our compatriots to us.
The Brood Mother was too mighty a dragon for us to defeat directly. We were obliged to attack her by stopping up steam vents with boulders, resulting in a buildup of pressure that would fling the boulders into the air, and not doing much good for anything they landed on. This was not what you’d call an exact science and took a lot of doing, even with the Giant Strength scrolls our surveyors saw fit to make for us, and even this method of attack only knocked the Brood Mother senseless. Margaret and I pacified the creature by singing the Dragon Egg lullabye we’d used in the dragon egg repository earlier. With the Brood Mother returned to her slumber, we adventurers finally were able to wring some more sweat out of our clothes and likewise catch some sleep.
Sunday dawned on a lack of dire threats to the Realms, so after negotiating an agreement between a cheesemonger, a cat, and a man that could charitably be referred to as uncomplicated, we assisted an architect in exploring a tower that had belong to the Sable Dragon Knights. The first level involved stacking boulders and dealing with golems. Unfortunately, the golems were not the friendly dragon egg protecting kind, and we were fresh out of those Giant Strength scrolls and had to move the boulders the hard way. Resolving this level allowed us access to the next, where statues of the Sable Dragon Knights would animate to do honorable combat with any who challenged them. Defeating all five of the statues granted us access to a third level, which I missed out on entirely because Mistral and I were called to test our valor and worthiness by the Blackavarian Spirit of the Arcane. In accepting the challenge and prevailing, we proved that spellcasters could rise to the examples of honor and worthiness set by the Sable Dragon Knights. We also had a little funsie sorcerous duel between the two of us, where Mistral prevailed.
By the time we got back to the group, Margaret was taking possession of some kind of blue orb fountain thing. Coming back out of the tower, we found some goblins had set up a carnival game, but apparently goblins don’t like getting wet, because it started to rain and they scattered.
Honestly, I don’t see how the rain could have made us any wetter than our own sweat was already making us, but the powers that be decided we’d done enough for one weekend. Certainly, the surveyors and academics gathered enough information to keep them busy for quite a while.
Gray Erikkson
Petitioner to Chimeron
9/11/1023
OOC:
As you can see, Knights of the Sable Dragon Questing was a plot-heavy event with a variety of challenges and encounters. The event holders did a good job pacing the event and setting up plot elements that paid off later, such as the Death Wish spells foreshadowing the involvement of Mind Flayers, powering up the foundry activating the caretaker golems in the dragon egg repository, and the Dragon Egg Lullabye being instrumental in pacifying the Brood Mother Dragon. The NPC staff did yeoman’s work scaling the difficulty of the fighting to both support the thematic needs of the scenes and ensure that the PCs had a good time. There was a good mix of serious and light scenes, and the variety of challenges kept everyone engaged that I saw. I certainly enjoyed myself with everything I interacted with and all the players I roleplayed with, both PCs and NPCs.
The weather didn’t 100% cooperate. The humidity on Saturday and Sunday was so thick it was like adventuring in a bowl of soup, and the event ended a little early on Sunday due to rain, but everyone took it in stride and looked out for each other.
Though the event ended with the Brood Mother Dragon returned to her slumber, she is not dead and remains a possible danger to the Realms. Also, I’ve got a dollar says there’s a behind-the-scenes manipulator who has yet to fully reveal themselves. There was even a vampire from that aforementioned coven that got away, so although there was a satisfying conclusion to the main plot, there are certainly plot threads that could be used to lead into future stories in Blackavar. I certainly hope the team will pull on some of those threads. I’d love to attend more events exploring Blackavar and the lore of the Knights of the Sable Dragon.