The Grand Campaign

The Grand Campaign is a central campaign that takes place in Ardun.

The Aburugga Years
During the Aburugga Years, Kl!P raised Ethelbert to his youth in secrecy, while Sumu-La-El established himself as a pirate in the delta of Aburugga.

The Aburugga Years ended with Sumu's marriage to Armenia and seperation from Hepshut, the rise of Hepshut, Solara, Hepshut and Kl!P moving to Meshkenet.

The Rise of Bashu
Soon after moving to Meshkenet, the party began construction of a temple to Bashu, collected the necessary items to raise it, and raised the monster Bashu to serve Tiamat. This marked the departure of Kl!P from the party, as he left to become the High Priest of Bashu.

Tsunami
Solara and Hepshut spent five years administering Meshkenet, building their respective institutions there, before a tsunami struck the city. The pair went to find the source of the tsunami along with Ilyara, the Archdruied of the Great Cedar Forest outside of Meshkenet.

The tsunami was caused by a severe problem with the teleportation ring in Merrowash, which Serander was attempting to connect to the city of Reso in the Elemental Plane of Air. With the connection established, Serander attempted to teleport a Shard of the Living Gate that he had found through the teleportation ring, and displaced the ring itself as well as everything within 500 feet, initiating the landslide the led to the tsunami in Meshkenet.

The party found the Shard, entered it, and discovered Serender trapped within a memory there. When Hepshut attuned to the shard, the entire party was trapped in his worst memory; being mummified alive. With the help of a monk who was sent after the party, they were able to escape the memory and the shard.

Episode 1
Emerging from the geode sphere that contained the Shard of the Living Gate, the party spotted Pronik, a devilish incubus on the road below. They cautiously approached, and when they got close enough, Pronik attempted to convince Solara to hand over the crystal by appealing to the diabolical hierarchy, not realizing that Solara was not a devil. When this plan backfired and Pronik was caught flat-footed, he retreated and covered his retreat with a pair of chain devils and a pair of winged devils aided by scrolls of darkness.

The party returned to Reso and took a short rest in the company of Yfri deGarnay, their local contact. Once they were done their short rest, Pronik showed up again to try to secure a deal and have the shard handed over. Failing to charm the party, he was asked to wait in the main store area of the deGarnay shop while the party consulted about what to do. Hepshut used his herbalism kit, assisted by Ilyara's medicine skills to brew a memory erasing potion with some exotic herbs that Yfri had on hand. The plan was to restrain Pronik and force the potion on him, thereby erasing his memory of what the party looked like and where they were from. Yfri objected to attacking the powerful devil lord in the city of Reso, so the party instead decided to quietly slip away back to Merrowash through Yfri's private teleportation ring.

Upon arriving home, Solara began piecing together her knowledge of the devils in preparation for the pursuit of Pronik, while Ilyara used the heart crystals from the crystal beasts to create heart roots for shambling mounds in her forest. Hepshut set up the Shard in the form of an Obelisk with the intention of gaining power over the physical and psyonic locality, but the Shard was too powerful to be controlled. The Shard began a series of tiny earthquakes in the area, and rifts began forming in a 10 mile radius circle around it. The wind also began to blow in only one direction in a slow, steady pace, disrupting shipping. The Shard did give Hepshut the ability to cast Dream on the entire population of the city once per day, though he could only create a single dream that everyone would experience simultaneously.

Serander, having been rescued from the Shard by the persistent efforts of Yodrik, proposed a solution after the King of Aburugga turned up in Mishkenet to appeal for the return of the status-quo. He proposed that the disruptions were coming from the Shard's connection to the elemental Plane of Earth, and that a sufficiently strong counter-measure from the Plane of Air should get it under control. He send Yodrik on a mission to the Plane of Air to locate a suitable power source, which the monk did, and now proposed Hepshut et al go acquire it.

The proposed power source is a place in the Plane of Air called the Pull. It is a locus of great mythical power, but little else is known about it.

In preparation for their adventure, the party took two months to create a number of magic items. They traded in their cloaks of elemental fire for capelets of protection from the elements. They also built a flying carpet out of a mat of vegetation for Ilyara. They then set out on the Blessed Fars ship with Sumu, Solara's brother, to go to the Plane of Air and meet up with Yodrik.

Arriving at the Port of Minthalaj, the party enquired about a local guide, having forgotten all about Yorrik. The local djinn offered up a guide for a price, and the party left the port with little else in the way of exploration. The guide turned out to be a runaway slave, disguised as the wrong person so she could stow away on the ship. She was headed the right way, and knew how to get to Odaynget, if not the final goal of the Pull, but she promised that her elders knew about the Pull and could help the party.

The session ended with the party deciding to go with the girl to Odaynget, free her people from the local djinni overlords, and earn assistance for their mission to find the Pull.

Episode 2
Yodrik, having been left in Minthalaj, found a travelling Odaynuit narwhal rider at the dock, and asked him to help find his friends. The flying narwhal is much faster than the ship, so he caught up with them just as they emerged from a large fog bank at the end of the first day. The crew was also able to navigate around the iceburgs in the fog bank thanks to Ilyara using a wind wall to break up the fog so the iceburgs could be easily spotted.

The party decided to take half-rations as a precaution against running out of food, since they estimated their trip would take longer than the 5 days worth of rations they had available for 3 people (15 rations total), and because both Yodrik and the Odaynuit woman Taqlik were with them now. The ship's crew was unwilling to reduce their rations, saying that they would simply turn back to the Feywild if they ran out of food. By challenging their captain to a boxing match and winning, Yodrik was able to secure their commitment to half-rations for the duration of the trip.

The ship travels 2.5mph while under memory power alone, which it can only do for 12 hours per day if its captain can long rest (ie, eat normal rations), and sails at 6mph under favourable weather conditions, which are rare in the Plane of Air. The target is 260 miles away. After the first day under memory power alone, the ship only makes it 30 miles, then a further 12 miles under sail in the night shift. (12 rations left, 218 miles left)

The next day, the party encountered a flight of Aaracokra whalers that had to break off from a catch early because of an approaching blizzard. The Aaracokra invoked the right of safe weathering and hunkered down on the ship for the duration of the storm, leaving as soon as the storm had let up. The party did not take the opportunity to buy food from them, though they did notice the large amount of thick meat and blubber that the men carried. During the blizzard, Yodrik rallied the crew to stand around and protect Taqlik so she could continue to pilot the ship, but the blizzard slowed progress. They made it 15 miles by memory during the storm, then 12 by sail at night. (9 rations left, 191 miles left)

Next, the party encountered a mild day with a slight breeze. They spotted a large school of flying fish, but did not investigate or try to get food by fishing them. They were able to make it 42 miles by memory and sail, and then 24 miles at night. (6 rations left, 125 miles left)

The next day, as the party approached Odaynget, Hepshut fell asleep and lost all the power of his pact. Investigations found that the primordial power of Odaynget was disrupting his pact as well as the divine abilities of another crewman. They did not seem to be affecting the druid, monk or sorcerer, and Taqlik explained that Odaynget's primordial force protects the island from outside dangers. The party also encountered an enormous swarm of insects, common in the Plane of Air. Solara cast a dome of fire twice to protect the helm and the hatch to the crew quarters. (3 rations left, 83 miles left)

They finished the session with 3 rations remaining, and 80 miles to reach their destination.