SourceMaterial-Avlis Campaign 7
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This is Avlis Source Material
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IntroductionThis is a campaign DM'ed by Ceardan taking place in present day server time (as of April 2020) in The Wastelands. Chapter 1There is a geographically complicated place on the map where the nations of Deglos, Jechran and The Wastelands come together at a point. On that point, there is a small town, more of a trading post than a town which has no name, and only a few residents, but it does have a tavern where local caravan traders unwind. Traders stopping in at the tavern come from the east and west. To the south lie the impassable and unknown Wastelands where few dare to tread and even fewer return from to tell the tale. Those who pass by this point must unload their goods heading for Jechran, so an all-Jechrani caravan can pick them up and take them into the country. Few outsiders are allowed to pass into that land. For the return trip, Deglos' rules are not so strict, but traffic in that direction is limited to traders and excludes settlers and refugees from elsewhere. A group of adventurers had been accompanying a caravan from Deglos for a while and became acquainted with one another in a professional capacity. While in the tavern enjoying their down time, they were accosted by an old mapmaker in a strange suit of armor with gears and vents. He said his name was Lorewarden Torvald and he called his strange armor contraption a "stig suit", and further explained to the group that he had just come from an excursion into the Wastelands in an effort to start mapping it. However, recently he is requiring new help to go deeper into the wastes to further map it. His goal is to find a path through to the south, to Drotid. He explained that his stig suits are his own invention and they are capable of reducing the poison and mutation rates of the Wastelands, though perhaps not with complete protection. Light, Medium, and Heavy stig suits provided increasing protection, but also increasing inability to see and hear, and stig suits beyond the Light variety interfered with casting spells that require somatic components. What may have escaped the Loremaster, or maybe not, was that changelings were immune to these effects, though they were often loathe to reveal their true changeling identities. If there were any changelings in this group of adventurers, they would need to use the suits solely to prevent detection. The adventurers agreed to help Lorewarden Torvald and began preparations. Chapter 2The group prepares itself and sets off the next morning with Torvald, who takes them to his wagon outside near the Inn. He announces that he will carry everyone to The Wastelands in the wagon and that there is plenty of room inside. As the group steps inside, they notice the inside is much bigger than the outside. Immediately after entering, the group is approached by a hulking humanoid made of metal and crystal who introduces himself simply as "Steve". Torvald says that Steve is his assistant and will be helping with the journey. The group is taken with Steve, and one of the members, a female warlock named Echococo inspects him to find that he is warm to the touch and over 7 ft tall. The rest of the group sets about making themselves comfortable in the wagon which has a library, a hot tub, two sleeping areas, and a storage room currently full of coffins. The white necromancer Senjae asks Torvald who is in the coffins, and he announces that they were former comrades who helped him test the stig suits, which were unsuccessful for much of the trial and error. Senjae, with permission, sets about performing an autopsy on one with assistance from a halfling ranger named Bearclaw. The wizard Thren Stonecleg inspects the inside of the wagon and figures out that the doorway acts as a Reduction spell that makes everyone smaller when they walk through, which makes the inside seem much bigger. It was not an extradimensional space. Thorvald concludes the scene by showing the group a map of the first 50 miles from the border of The Wastelands and points out various landmarks and bandit camps near the border. He explains that the bandits stay just over The Wastelands side of the border but raid outward into Jechran and Deglos. Since they spend a lot of time in the poisonous areas, they mutate, if they do not die, and that means several things. Firstly, they all seem to mutate differently on an individual basis. Secondly, once fully mutated, they can no longer live outside The Wastelands. They appear to feed off the mysterious energy of the place from that time onward, and cannot live without it. These residents exist mostly within riding distance to Jechran and Deglos, but deeper inside they are reputed to get even stranger and more corrupt. There are no longer any bandits past 50 miles into the area, because they cannot sustain themselves farther than that. After three hours the group arrives inside the border of The Wastelands at a burnt out village called Kethlatu. All the buildings in this village are abandoned. As the group exits the wagon and listens to Lorewarden Torvald calling to his associated outside, they are confronted by many strange sites at once: A large tyrannosaurus with a saddle and bridle waiting calmly near a building.... And two figures approaching... one, a fully humanoid beaver covered in thick fur, and the other a shark-headed humanoid with powerful-looking muscles and sharp teeth. They greet Torvald warmly and announce a party in everyone's honor, seemingly very happy about the mapping process that is to begin. They bring their pet forward, a pig with the head of a cat, who sniffs everyone and nods to the two strange humanoids, who seem confirmed that everyone is ok to admit to the camp. That night the group meets the mostly human seeming camp leader who tells them that if they are going to the nearby ruins to clear it out and map it, they should take care of a more local problem first. The tower in the camp is acting strange with weird lights coming out of it at night. The camp leader asks the group to check it out the next day, and they agree to as a starting point. Chapter 3Threk, Senjae, Steve, and that fey-like demon girl no one remembers all ventured into the tower that day. Aside from a few minor struggles with a weak denizen or two, they found nothing....except a shade of a dead denizen of Hell. Through some negotiation, they managed to make contact and talk to it. He said his name was Terpin and he worked for T'Zeezsch, an undead of some sort who lived below the tower. He said The Wastelands was under a sort of teleportation lock for extraplanar creatures. If they die there, they are unable to return to their home plane, and they roam as shades until the lock is lifted, or they die for good. The shade, Terpin, went on to say that the undead master living below the tower would occasionally steal people from Kethlatu to create for his own minions, but mostly they used the two-mile long underground tunnel to go to the nearby ruins for food. The party agreed to take this undead down, but needed more incentive from the camp leaders. The shark-headed camp leader, Foglach, pledged to accompany the group on its trip below the surface of the tower and allow the group full access to the town as a base, with any healing that may be needed. No one there had a copper to their name beside that. The party decided they would talk about it and go down that night, later. When night arrived, the full party assembled along with Foglach and his shark-headed squire, Drac. As soon as they entered the tower and broke through into the basement, they were assailed by a group of weird mutated undead creatures: a zombie with an axe and scimitar for hands, another one with long spindly arms, and several other variations. After fighting through these denizens, the group noticed a lot of mutated dead animals in cages, and a living half-pony/half-monkey creature, which seemed skittish. As the group explored the basement, it noticed a bookshelf and two harmless undead that were working around the place to straighten things. Turning a corner, the group was greeted by a grotesque undead creature floating in the air next to a contraption of some sort. The mechanism was hooked up to some coffins behind him and a large circle in the middle of the room with another dead unmoving creature. Instead of attacking outright, the group paused and tried to parley. The creature said his name was T'Zeezsch, and he was happy to see everyone. The time was right to conduct his latest experiment, and more subjects were exactly what he hoped to see. Senjae offered to help him with his research as he found it fascinating, but T'Zeezsch refused to let Senjae help or be a subject because he was a Changeling like his fellow party member, Thren, and Changelings are immune to the effects of mutation from The Wastelands which form the central piece of his research. Being outed as a Changeling upset Thren and Senjae, and this unnerved the party, who eventually attacked T'Zeezsch after being unable to gather more information about his research. It turned out he was an extremely powerful wizard and it took the might of the whole party along with Foglach to bring him down. After looting and inspecting everything, Terpin returned and began speaking with everyone about the matter. He said that T'Zeezsch was the ruler of this part of The Wastelands, and that there are still eight other rules who control different parts of it. Whether or not these rulers are all like T'Zeezsch, Terpin did not say, but he implied heavily that none of them were ordinary. Terpin went on to point to a bookshelf full of tomes and mentioned that information on the other eight rulers was in them. The party used Steve as a cart after he transformed into some kind of mechanical carrier to wheel out all the books on the shelf. To the objection of Katar, the Paladin of Gorethar, the party invited Terpin to be another guide for them on their trip through The Wastelands, and Terpin accepted. After leaving the basement, the party relayed the information to the leaders of Kethlatu and retired back to the carriage to decide what to do and to read the tomes. Chapter 4The party recovered for the night and found Lorewarden Torevald returned to his wagon after an errand. He gathered the group and mentioned that they should be moving on from Kethlatu to start mapping the area further. Inside the wagon, he showed the group a map of the Architect's Laboratory, their current region.  The group debated which way to travel first to start the mapping process. Some wished to travel straight through to find the quickest route to Drotid. Some argued to head east or west where they could potentially find some waypoints of civilization. In the end, the group spied a small green patch on the map just a couple hours south of their location. They decided to check that patch out first and then decide next what to do. On the way they were attacked by large blood sucking mosquito-like insects called 'ravagers' and smaller swarms of exploding hornets, which they quickly dispatched. Soon they reached the green patch and fought their way through more of these beasts, including a new flea-like insect mutation the size of a man. On the south end of the green patch of cliffs and dead trees, they found a homestead occupied by a friendly creature that most had never seen before. The creature was a 'flumph', except that it wasn't. It was really a mutated elf named Myrtle who took the group in and gave them hospitality while revealing that she was a prophet of sorts. Her prophesies made her unpopular among the elves, so she fled to the The Wastelands and soon became dependent on them. Myrtle informed the group that Tzeenzch was not dead. He was simply a lich who would regenerate until his phylactery was eliminated or he was killed three times, according to her prophecy. Myrtle handed the group two books of her prophecies. Two of them were as follows: The perfect Laborers will work hard, know their place, and do what is needed to keep society growing and keep it strong. They must be strong an industrious, like ants. They must be trainable, and loyal, like dogs. Finally they must be hardy, yet calm. The Soldiers in my military must be soulless killing machines. I will use Sharks as a base. I look to Orcs next, as they are large, strong and brutish. They make good soldiers and will work together. Finally, for the final piece, I need them to be able to overcome obstacles. The Rhinoceros beetle will give them limited flight and a hard chitinous shell. The second one:
From the west and north heroes will come to cleanse the land. The machines. They must stop the machines.
Malafoge will rest at the roots of doom and the green wood shall take up roots and march with cruel intent.
The Brittle will tremble against a might they cannot devour.
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