Half Measures

A party exploring the Nocthian Caldera in 251-252 AC. In person, Willamette Valley, Aug 2022 - Nov 2024.

Personnel

• Fiona ka'Anu. Silver dragonborn druid. Noble born, but distanced from her family. Native to the Caldera.
• Simalanthe Genlamin. Half-elf (sharp-ear) ranger. Born out of wedlock to a member of a noble House of the gwerin, fostered on a distantly-related merchanter family in Asai'ka.
• Telarendril Hawal. Gwerin noble, ranger. Looking for his lost company of scouts who fought in the last Winter War against the Hungering Frost.
• Kvychya. Halfling cleric of Kela Loran. Runaway from an arranged marriage. Looking for freedom at the bottom of a coinpurse.

Associated Personnel

• Zip of the Shrikenest. Goblin (barbegazi) wizard. Taken prisoner by the group, but has proven his worth.
• Daen Kydell. Human (wall-builder) warrior, rune-scarred. Currently on detached duty conducting negotiations with the Shrikenest.
• <monk>. Human (nights-child) monk and elementalist. Currently on detached duty conducting negotiations with the Shrikenest.

Adventures

• Into the Goblin Tunnels:
  • Gathered at the Frostbound Wall late summer 251 AC
  • Arrived at Medvyed after defeating some tunnel-worms for a bounty
  • Took up residence in a haunted house (haunted by the very tidy spirit of the former owner).
  • Ambushed the Shrikenest goblins coming up from a hidden tunnel and pretending to be Hornet Tribe.
  • Later, with Zip in tow as a hostage, delved into the tunnels. Fought Red Ice intruders as well as giant spiders.
  • Discovered evidence of the Deep Mind, as well as a vault with 3 keys. As part of this, they dispelled a portal to the Plane of Ice.
  • Found two of the keys secreted on dead bodies in the underground tunnel network.
  • Talked to a ghost who pointed them toward Old Wyrmhold and the crypts there.
• Wyrm King's Rest
  • Arrived in Old Wyrmhold, found they needed the sponsorship of a Registered Company to enter.
  • After talking with Imperial Legacy, a representative from Selan's Seekers (creepy), and a sage of Guardians of the Forgotten, they signed on with the latter. Promised to seal off the Nechrarchs' Quarters.
  • Heard rumors of an elven woman with the same scout insignia as Telarendril.
  • Delving into the catacombs, they bypassed the Demon Door with a map provided by GotF, entered the Nechrarchs' Quarters, defeating the undead there and sealing the place after retrieving some genealogies.
  • Further in, they encountered a fragment of Broken Order which was causing the undead to regenerate, along with a dragon-mashup hybrid entity. Laying both of those to rest, they uncovered a stash of documents and artifacts in the ancient king's tomb.
  • Those documents included
    • The original Wyrmhold Agreement giving the Dragonborn a place in the Nocthian Caldera. This was signed by the "Underking", the ruler of a yet unknown civilization.
    • One of the pieces of the wyrmhold royal regalia, the Ring of Night
    • A secondary treaty where a former ruler got help in exchange for promising to tell the ancient Nocthians it was safe to return.
    • Correspondence showing that the Wyrmholders had violated both treaties multiple ways.
    • Evidence that the current noble families (except the queen herself) are not actually descended from the original noble families.
  • They also discovered the third key, along with a stone that supposedly should have been used to signal the Nocthian return.
  • Simgen and Fiona were both touched by things found there--Simgen by what appears to be residual frost-aspected energies on a note left by Isskap, Fiona by the True Word at the heart of the fragment. The effects of these are as of yet unknown.
  • Returning to the surface, they found out that more time had passed than expected and the battle against the fragment of order was very flashy.
  • They officially joined Guardians of the Forgotten and are currently deciding what to do with the (explosive) documents discovered.
  • They returned the regalia (mostly) to the Queen of Wyrmhold and were rewarded. Telarendril left the party here.
• To New Nocthia
  • They traveled to New Nocthia via the Caldera route, stopping to clear a vault full of were/demon creatures.
  • They got involved in some shenanigans in the city, including hiring help and scaring the crap out of a fey.
  • They acquired a magic map that showed the locations of all the vaults and earpieces/cores.
• To Mt Nyx
  • They headed up NW, rounding up earpieces (acquiring a Knowledge one from a friendly mercenary group of giantkin).
  • They cleared out a vault, freeing a succubus prisoner and destroying the vampire resident. They've taken over this place, naming it the Halfway House.
  • They stopped by an ancient prison on the south flank, where the War core was hidden. They defeated the fey named Pain who ruled it, giving power to the local goblins in exchange for prisoners to torment.
  • Freed some people, including Nocthis's former husband and Ascendant. He's in hiding from her currently.
  • Headed up north to Nighthold.
  • Discovered that the city's ruins were inhabited by feral, degenerate goblins (barely able to use language).
  • The military HQ (where the remaining cores were placed) was inhabited by intelligent automatons:
    • The Duty are humanoid ones with strong fealty to the Deep Mind
    • The Pack is a distributed consciousness across many non-humanoid robots, mostly interested in playing. Sometimes playing rough.
    • The Archivists are 4 individual consciousnesses in the equipment of the Apocalypse Archive, a secure storage facility for dangerous artifacts gleaned by the nocthians throughout the ages.
  • The party allied with all of them
  • The party cleaned out the remnants of Broken Order which had coalesced inside Mount Nyx and driven out the goblins there, banishing it to the Abyss. Fiona's influence by Broken Order was ended after it was banished to the Abyss.
  • They recovered the remaining cores and re-assembled the Deep Mind with explicit commands to basically not do much and restricted access.
  • They also made a pass through Wyrmhold's holdings, recovering the other two cores and earpieces. Lady _____ came with them to the Halfway House as she was under threat from various nefarious forces.
    • Attacked by assassins, cut deal to stop the interference from Sorrow's Thorn in the succession dispute of the plane of ice.
• Recovering Fiona's Memories
  • To the Palace of Shimmering Waters, met the Morrigan. Cut a deal with Sorrow's Thorn to pull back in exchange for the party to ensure that none of the existing claimants to Ice's throne won.
  • To the Plane of Ice (Hall of Frozen Memory) to recover Fiona's memories. Made some enemies of various parties.
    • Also discovered that the influence of Isskap on Simgen was more than just a single memory--it's a literal fragment of her soul (specifically the parts devoted to the ongoing stability of the Plane of Ice). It desires to lay down its burden.
  • Helped the Wild Hunt against demons.
  • Found Fiona's child Illia ka'Anu
  • Danced with Terpsichore
• Heading North/Depot
  • North to the Scalefoot
  • Shenanigans with leadership, including murdering the warlord under pretense of a party in a Magnificent Mansion. Aided and abetted by others.
  • Met Sargoranyx, the adult white dragon who (lightly) rules there.
  • Headed to the Machinery Depot, got rudely rejected at the front gate. Heading in the top.
  • The Machinery Depot was occupied by insane, hyper-xenophobic outcasts from Sigani territory, who were using its technology to "ascend" to corporeal immortality by replacing their bodies progressively with mechanical parts.
  • After some incidents, they made a deal to teach the outcasts to encode their souls into objects as a (possibly more successful) alternative to their current path, in exchange for the earpieces present there and a promise not to interfere with the outside. They also (successfully?) sabotaged the training so that it would fail in a (hopefully) undetected manner.
  • From there, they headed into Sigani territory, where they met envoys and negotiated a trade deal, in exchange for favors and letting the Sigani have access to the Deep Mind.
  • They fought a mutated deep drake that had occupied the Sigani treasury, gaining favor.
• Into the Ice
  • After teleporting back to the Halfway House, they decided to deal with the issues around the Plane of Ice and the Glacierheart.
  • Decided to back Elphas as a surprise candidate.
  • Traveled to the Plane to begin politicking to gain their candidate a power base.
  • Did a favor and won a blessing/support from Fenrir
  • Entered Kek, dealt with/quieted Isskap's Fragmented Fear and Hate. Discovered the Disc of Remembrance, as well as the secrets to attuning to the Glacierheart.
  • Denied an alliance with the hags and evaded the waiting army.
  • Traveled into the ice and discovered the hiding place of the Glacierheart. Defeated monsters drawn by the process of uncovering it.
  • Entered the tomb of the heart and encountered the final guardian, a construct/golem shaped as Isskap herself in her prime. The Fragment of Self-Loathing animated this and fought the party with the aim of destroying everything to hide her shame. When brought to the point of destruction, it self-destructed violently. Elphas managed to shield them.
  • Retreated back home to Estokh via teleport to avoid the approaching army, where they kept the crowds calm until Elphas finished attunement.
  • Elphas collapsed Kek on itself, vowing to not live there.
• Return home/potential futures
  • After the winter of 252-253, the party mostly separated.
  • Fiona ka'Anu stayed behind, retired, raising her daughter.
  • Simalanthe Genlamin wandered east, eventually ending up in Tal Elamor for a while.
  • Kvychya headed back home, met a husband, who was later killed by the hags. The party gathered back together to kill them.