SourceMaterial-Avlis Campaign 7, Part 2

This is Avlis Source Material ⚠️Use of this material has NOT been authorized on the NWN Avlis Servers.⚠️ To use any of this material IC on NWN Avlis Servers, you must request approval of this material from the Avlis Team. Send a PM to the Dungeon Masters group on the Avlis forums to begin that approval process. To learn more about what Avlis Source Material is, please click here. You may use this material for non-server-related Avlis events, such as D&D/PnP.		Campaign Title Part Avlis Campaign 1 The "Jade" Campaign Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 Avlis Campaign 2 The West End of Time Part 1, 2, 3, 4 Avlis Campaign 3 Vanoviel and The Godslayer Part 1 Avlis Campaign 4 Rune Quest Part 1, 2 Avlis Campaign 5 The Western Underdark Part 1, 2, 3, 4 Avlis Campaign 6 Daggerspace Part 1, 2, 3 Avlis Campaign 7 Into The Wastes Part 1, 2, 3 Chapter 5 After jumping back into Lorewarden Torvald's wagon, the group carried onward to the south. They decided to cut a path southward and straight through the middle of the Architect's Laboratory region. The land turned arid but the trek was extremely comfortable within the wagon. Soon, on the horizon, they spotted a curious site: a giant winged dog flying around. The dog looked a bit like a Doberman breed with angel-like wings, and it lazily barked as it played at aerial maneuvers. Upon closer investigation, the group made contact with the dog and fed it a few treats, but soon after that, another person appeared on the horizon with a leash. This person looked a bit dog-like as well, with a doberman-like head and a humanoid body. He thanked the group for feeding his dog and walked off into the desert with it. After no more than a day and half of travel, they came upon a partially ruined building. It was a building of stone with several floors but no roof. Naturally, they decided to investigate further. Within the building, they found many friendly or neutral inhabitants. One of them was the doberman-like person who introduced them to several other inhabitants and told them the building was actually a library once, and that it still contained many books. The group asked if it could make itself at home searching through the books for maps and other useful information, and they were welcomed to do so. At that point, another curious inhabitant came into the room. He was a tall lion-humanoid with a deep growling voice who showed little interest in the group until they began asking him questions. He told them a story of "The Golden", one of the Nine Lords of The Wastelands. The Golden was a celestial who became trapped in The Wastelands when the explosion happened during the story of Durethar, which created the area everyone knows today. After the explosion event, The Golden was trapped there and could no longer plane shift. As a follower of Dru'El, he sought help from his god but was apparently answered by Senath, a different god, without knowing that it was Senath. It was not clear why the Lion-humanoid wanted to contact The Golden, except that he wanted to make The Golden aware that Senath was really the one answering his prayers. He believed that this revelation would somehow help The Golden. The group suggested something even trickier behind it than the god of strategy. During this conversation, Katar, the warlock/paladin of Gorethar walked around the library and went up some stairs. There he found some rooms and one of the rooms held a scorpion-dog, which instantly attacked him. Katar ran and told the group, and then realized he neglected to close the door to the room that contained the creature which was now running loose. One of the inhabitants of the library was a cleric of O'Ma with an addled brain who told them that was probably not a good thing, so the group decided to take care of it. A melee ensued when the scorpion-dog came downstairs, and they vanquished it. The conversations around this incident shed light on the fact that the lion-humanoid, who appeared to be the leader of the other group, was not actually a resident of the library. He was just stopping by with his group. Only the cleric of O'Ma lived there, and apparently the doberman-man and the flying dog did too. The group decided to explore the rest of the building. They found some cleric robes of O'Ma with the red and sliver colors reversed, and eventually they found the flying dog too, along with the Journal of Thomas Laszerewski. The journal proved interesting. It shed a lot of light on what was happening in the area. Thomas Laserewski was Tzeenzch, the current Lord of The Architect's Laboratory. Tzeenzch was searching for a way to become a lich to prolong his life in The Wastelands, but he botched the first attempt. For his second attempt, he tried to use a living creature as a phylactery and reportedly succeeded. The journal also revealed that all the mutated creatures encountered by the group, including their very own Avenger, the shark-orc Drac, were all mutated as part of Tzeench's experiments. Next, the group turned its attention to the dog. The cleric of O'Ma downstairs mentioned that this dog was once the Abbott of the monastery/library, which was once holy to O'Ma. The group found out that the dog still had all of the Abbott's intelligence, so they worked on a way to free him. Senjay and the paladin/warlock, Katar, used a mage hand each to undo the beast's collar. (Touching it directly gave a nasty shock.) The beast then quickly transformed into a rhino-orc, one of Tzeenzch's creations. However, he was not hostile and very thankful for being freed. He promised to create a magic item for the party in his forge room where they now all stood. As part of the information he revealed, he confirmed that all animal-hybrid creatures in the Architect's Laboratory were Tzeenzch's creations. "Normal" wastelands corruption does not do this to people. "Normal" wastelands corruption usually turns people feral and crazy from the influences of the area. The animal hybrid mutations were all from Tzeenzch, who would also wipe the memories of his subjects so they do not remember turning. The Abbott also confirmed the suspicion of the group that Tzeenzch's fascination with Senath seemed out of character, but possible, especially if some other unknown entity (possibly Angadar?) was messing with the whole thing. After going downstairs to show everyone that they freed the dog who was in fact the Abbott, the cleric of O'Ma went strangely delirious and attacked him. This caused a grand melee to break out between the two groups who were not sure why they were fighting or whom they were fighting. As the cleric died, the groups decided to call off the fight and talk it over. Chapter 6 Being weary from their battles, the group retired to the wagon to recover. They emerged a day later to find that their oxen dead. With no visible means to pull their wagon anymore, and worried about what killed their animals, the group sallied forth from the wagon and re-entered the library. Immediately at the entrance, they were confronted by a loud ruckus and a stream of undead minions pouring forth to attack them. They had to battle their way back into the library through zombies, dolgaunts, and bone knights. Inside, they saw carnage everywhere. Most of the library's original inhabitants were dead, and there were several dead dinosaurs laying on the floor, presumably mounts of the bone knights that did not fare too well in the battle. The adventurers fought bravely and at times the tide seemed to turn against them, but eventually all the enemies were purged from the library, except for a single bone knight who declared that "The Lady" was on her way there to annihilate everyone. After dispatching that bone knight, the party became worried about this Lady and speculated that she might be one of the Lords of the Wastelands, which would be a bad thing. Most members of the group agreed that they were not strong enough to take a Lord head-on. The consensus shifted to fleeing the library as soon as possible. However, on their way out, the group encountered another party of adventurers, most of whom had been altered as cat hybrids by Tzeench. The cats were on their way south to something called "The Hunt", and wanted a place to stay for the night. The adventurers told them about the imminent arrival of The Lady and warned them against staying at the library, and then proceeded to ask the cats about this "Hunt". What follows is the cats' description of The Hunt: Every ten years, a certain major group of tribes in Jechran hosts an event they call "The Hunt". Each decade, the hunt is held in a different place, and always outside of Jechran, because such events are outlawed almost everywhere within the nation by consent of nearly all the tribes. Originally, the hunt served the purpose of dispatching older slaves and older male concubines who were no longer useful to the tribes. They would be hunted by various entrants from the tribes of southern Jechran. Southern Jechranian tribes, referred to as "akvates" form a common cultural and linguistic superfamily that started this practice approximately 1,500 years after The Great War.