Where We Are

Everything here is what the party itself knows, so it is safe to share with the whole group. Current as of the session of 2026-09-08.

The world, briefly

The Empire that founded this frontier is far to the southwest and stopped answering letters a century ago. Innsbrun, a walled city on Lake Meer, is the last real civilization in the Marches. High Lord Protector Bellis rules it strictly through his enforcers, the Gray Hands, and his High Mage, Simeon.

The land belongs to the Greenlords: eight enormous nature spirits (a boar, a stonefish, a turtle, a stag, a spider, a serpent, a sky lord, and a tree) bound by a pact called the Accord. They do not talk to people and nobody knows their goals. Innsbrun exists because the Boar, Gromar, allows it.

Shards are crystals of wild magic that grant fickle boons or curses and drive many holders mad. Bellis has outlawed them, which means there is a thriving black market. The Hearts are the largest shards, on the scale of a Greenlord's own power.

The Tree Greenlord, Veritnautus, has gone bad. His corruption is called the Blight. Beastmen and gnoll warbands march west by night, whole goblin clans have vanished, and the giants have broken an old oath. Far to the east lies Crouden Fields, where the Empire fought a witch-king 150 years ago and left a permanent magical storm where the dead still walk. Bellis keeps a camp there to watch it. A wall of stone has lately started growing around the island of Crouden.

Who we are

• Coren Thalos (Alex): elf wizard and scholar from the mainland city of Silverbranch, with a cleric dedication. Control spells, secondary healing, and a bonded compass. Wrote a book about corruption at Tilcarres Keep that got him noticed by Simeon, who has since sniffed him and said "your magic is different."
• Rori Anvilfist (Matt): dwarf warpriest of Trudd from a mining clan near Innsbrun. Cousin of Drunley. His father Baermott was corrupted by shards, and a shard splinter once spoke to Rori in his father's voice. Two natural 20s at the shrine, one of which shattered a Greenlord's claw.
• Bartek (Josh): goblin kineticist and witch of the Silverfoot Throng. His familiar Clatterclank is a clockwork monkey built by his patron, Khurahad, in some timeline or other. He has gills from the sea lord's blessing, cannot read, and is currently mute and burping up fish after sitting in a Greenlord's chair.
• Rai-venn (Wayne): tengu bard and minor celebrity, with a shamisen and a spell that lets him pass as human. Sees the spirit world well enough to know the heart we carry is a beacon in it.
• Liz's dwarf (Liz): joining now. She boards the soldiers' boat east as a passenger who bribed her way aboard. Name, class, and clan to come once the GM and Liz have settled them.

Everyone is level 10. The GM is Darin.

What we carry, and why everyone will want it

We have two Hearts.

• The battery. A silent black shard that reflects other worlds instead of its surroundings. We took it from the yuan-ti in the far east, inside a jeweled egg-case that was built to hide it and was deliberately damaged. Bartek carries it encased in stone and Coren keeps it invisible. The yuan-ti tracked us by it for a while.
• The key. A talking shard we call the Helpdesk. It is charming, opinionated, evades questions about itself, and calls itself "the key." We pried it from its cradle at the peak of the Greenlords' central shrine on July 15, after Rori broke the claw holding it.

The key says that together they open a doorway in the Hall of the Revered, a greater hall near Crouden Fields, "adjacent to the great channel." It says to pass through the Valley of the Revered, a graveyard, where a mount and a facility wait. It also says "rebuild the heart and shape it, do it before the darkness begins," and that taking it to the proper place "will finish the falling of night." We still argue about whether finish means end or complete.

We left a decoy in the cradle. It fools even a Greenlord's gaze, but only for about two more days. When it fails, every Greenlord will know the key is gone and "the Accord will demand an answer."

How we got here

1. Before the recordings: trouble at Deegan's Hollow, the Anvilfist Mines, Samadar's Hold, the Thin Lands, and Khurahad's Tower, where we met an old, time-lost wizard. Then over the Spine, through a storm, to the shore of an inner sea, where the stonefish Greenlord Burble Festayne tested us, read our minds, and gave us blessings.
2. February: a shaman's portal dropped us in a jungle in yuan-ti territory. Beneath a dwarven safe hold we found a cavern of yuan-ti soldiers whose High Priestess had foreseen us ("a bird, a flame, a stone, and a ghost") and had stolen the heart from her own people. We left with it under an illusion, and a one-use signal shard dropped us far to the east at the Broken Towers.
3. March: a week's trek west. Kirkbrite had fallen to gnolls. At Calidel an old druid told us the goblin clans have vanished and warbands march west. We reached Innsbrun in late summer.
4. Innsbrun: we reported to Thrain at the Iron Hall and heard the rumors: nobles sick with bad dreams, dwarves sleepworking, a hag called Mother Algus. Bartek worked out that "the twins" of the heart rhyme are Khurahad. Simeon appeared in Coren's room and offered to find Khurahad as a favor.
5. April: we rode a garbage scow into Innsbrun Prison and climbed to a lab at the top, where a young, temporally stable Khurahad was being made to build a key for Simeon that opens a shrine. Bartek told him he made Clatterclank in the future, and the world shifted: each of us may change one small thing about our past.
6. May: three sessions in that lab. With Khurahad, Coren built a device that mimics a Greenlord's "frequency" so a Greenlord door thinks we belong. We escaped down through a drowned undercity to a kobold warren under the cliffs, whose leader Osif knelt at Simeon's name.
7. June and July: into the Greenlord shrine beneath Innsbrun Keep, then by boat across a black sea to a mesa where every Greenlord holds a slice of land. We killed a fungal Mycoloth, sat in the Greenlords' seats, and freed the key. We learned that Veritnautus plans to reach into Crouden Fields and drain its power, and that another Greenlord, "the dragon lord," is moving against him.
8. September 8: the kobolds smuggled us out of the keep. Two days had passed outside and Innsbrun had turned martial. Thrain put us on the books as his auxiliaries with a credential scroll, two boat writs, and a contact at the Crouden watch camp. We took the crowded soldiers' boat east that afternoon.

People to know

• Bellis, High Lord Protector. Strict, lawful, never met. Outlawed shards. Now conscripting.
• Simeon Hagravad, High Mage. Tall, gaunt, white-faced. Wanted the shrine opened as much as we did and lost the race. Only knows Coren's face.
• Khurahad, time-displaced wizard, Bartek's patron, "the twins." We left him in his prison lab with a memory-wipe device and an unclear plan.
• Thrain Ironspike, dwarf officer at the Iron Hall. Rori's friend through clan ties. Our sponsor on paper.
• Mother Algus, the hag. Shelters street kids, makes the gold-filigreed festival masks that cause the dreaming, hides on a flotilla of boats at the Old City docks. Her urchins picked Coren's pocket.
• Osif, kobold clan leader under the city. Serves "the great dragon" and Simeon. Got us out.
• Same Face Not Same, masked goblin merchant who trades mischief goods and secrets. May be one goblin, many, or something else.
• Burble Festayne, the stonefish Sea Greenlord. Our chosen patron among the eight. Bartek can channel him.
• Gromar, the Boar Greenlord of Innsbrun. Watched us on the road. His avatar once adopted Rori as pack.
• Veritnautus, the corrupted Tree Greenlord. The enemy. Always moving toward Crouden.

Right now

We are on a soldiers' boat crossing the lake overnight, due at the east shore by morning. From there: Thrain's contact at the watch camp, the Valley of the Revered, the Hall of the Revered. The clock on the decoy runs out in about two days. Innsbrun's shops only stock up to level 8, so we sail under-equipped and nearly broke. A dwarf passenger who bribed her way aboard is about to become the fifth member of the party.

The arguments we keep having

• Does "finish the falling of night" mean end it or complete it? We should not open that door until we know.
• Are we couriers or thieves? What answer will satisfy the Accord when it asks?
• Is Simeon an enemy, a rival, or a future ally? He wanted the same door opened.
• Who is the dragon lord moving on Crouden, and is he helping us or competing for the same prize?
• Why did a shard splinter in Rori's pack speak with his father's voice?

If your character is a dwarf from around Innsbrun, you already know

• Bellis has called for conscription and is seizing boats. Soldiers are heading east to Crouden.
• Shards are illegal, and the Gray Hands pay a bounty for turning them in.
• The Anvilfist, Stonehelm, and Stonebreaker clans matter at the Iron Hall. Dwarves in the city have been sleepworking, and one apprentice mutters about "two faces."
• The end-of-summer Festival of Masks just happened, and some of the masks were not ordinary.
• Beastmen sacked the tent city outside Samadar's Hold, and settlements near the Broken Towers were hit.