DM Doug - December 09 - 2015

Connections - The Vanguard of Argus

The rolling deck of the Flag Ship Valiant had become a necessary friend to the Knights and Soldiers of Argus on the long journey home from Impiltur, across the Sea of Fallen Stars. The men were in good spirits after the hard won victory in that distant Kingdom. The survivors celebrated even as they mourned their comrade’s deaths on the field of battle. Amongst it all they dreamt of their homes - families, comfortable beds and fine drink.

The High Knights and their friends spent many evenings huddled together in the cramped space of a cabin on the Valiant, lantern swinging above a roughhewn table, discussing matters important to the Order; their respective gods; the Heartlands; and Faerûn in general. A Darkness had crept in upon the world, unseen for what it is to most, but to those with the knowledge to see it, evil lurked behind the many maladies that have befallen the Eastern Heartlands. These events are as a harbinger to the coming war. Each of them felt it in their bones, this sense of dark prophesy, the growing threat of the Dark Ones return.

The unprecedented events of the last few months hinted at dark powers walking the world, spreading their strife. Plagues, Pestilence, unnatural weather, and catastrophe seemed as the fury of chaotic deities punishing Faerûn for its ignorance and insignificance. As if infectious - nations skulked and postured amongst themselves all across the realms – uncertain; consolidating themselves at the expense of their neighbors; straining against centuries old borders. A palpable tension hangs taut as a lyre string, ready to snap. This is the world that the mighty heroes of the Impiltur war found themselves returning to.

DM Doug - February 13, 2015

Connections - The Knights of Argus

Prophecy.  (noun, plural prophecies.)

1. The foretelling or prediction of what is to come.

2. Something that is declared by a prophet, especially a divinely inspired prediction, instruction, or exhortation.

3. A divinely inspired utterance or revelation: oracular prophecies.

4. The action, function, or faculty of a prophet.

Prophecy - The foretelling of what is to come.  Even Prophecies from the ancient past, although hidden in the recesses of time and forgotten by mankind, they have a way of making themselves known to those whose purpose it is to serve – seeping up through the crevasse of time to reveal themselves at the appropriate time; even though they may not even be aware that they are serving a mysterious and higher purpose; this is true no matter which side of history you may stand on…

                                                                      * * * * *

While a golden chalice awakes with the divine power of heaven far to the west, in northern Cormyr, at the same instant, three Swords of Power begin to hum with energy in the distant land of Thesk.  Three Paladins are compelled to stop and draw forth their mighty Holy Swords – Each sword lightly humming, vibrating, giving off a brilliant golden glow and crackling with divine energy.  The Paladins are not all together in their camp as each carries out their duties, but the experience is shared none the less, as the Holy Swords of Power begin to speak; each with its own deep and commanding monotone, their voices heard by many within the camp who are nearby.

DM Doug - February 11, 2015

Connections - The Knights of Argus

A frigid blizzard blasts snow throughout northern Cormyr, blanketing the highways, roads, hamlets, villages, towns and cities in two feet of snow and huge windswept drifts towering against wooden cottages, palisades and stone keeps in equal measure.  The commoners would suggest that this is just another strange oddity in a long string of calamities that have befallen their personal worlds.  A snowstorm this early in the fall is not unheard of, though certainly rare.  But the harshness of its bite seems to add insult to injury to a people already suffering from plague and blight. 

Those special people, people who can look past the veneer of the obvious, see perhaps that the calamities and torturous weather plaguing the lands of Faerûn have a cadence of dark design to them.  This trifecta of troubles perhaps not so coincidental, in fact, precisely the opposite – Some dark, chaotic and evil force must be at work here and in other lands.

In a shuttered keep on a small Island in the Immerflow River, within the shadow of the Stormhorn Mountains and within sight of the twisted, snow blasted trees of the Hullack Forest - somber and purposeful priests of Tyr continue their work.  For the last couple of years these particular priests have been working steadily to uncover information and learn all they can about a holy artifact – The Holy Chalice of the Orachulum – Ancient tool of prophesy, plumbed from the long grip of time and carried forth from history to the present by a devout and wise servant of Almighty Tyr.

In its consecrated shrine the relic sits.  Few direct answers have been found regarding the device. That it is an intricately designed and decorated font, dedicated to Tyr, from an ancient time – there can be no doubt.  Its precise purpose - uncertain.  How to activate it - unknown.  These mysteries have been frustratingly elusive up till now - Until now.  On this storm swept, claustrophobic, dark day, with the atmosphere in the shrine energized with a deepening feeling of uncertainty, the chalice finds its voice and those assembled will speak of this day with reverence, touched by the hand of their god.

DM Doug - December 11, 2014

Connections - The Knights of Argus

The lands, cities and towns of Thesk were devastated by the onslaught of the Tuigan Horde’s advancement westward.  The people are just beginning to recuperate adequately from this event and have rebuilt much of their infrastructure. The government of this land is an oligarchy made up of the rulers of the trading cities along the Golden Way from Two-Stars to Milvarune which acts as a capital (mostly because it is so far removed from Thay). The nomadic tribes who run their flocks in the Thesk Mountains in the center of the land and the plains around the mountains also protect the cities by acting as a thorn in the side of any invading army from Thay. 

The KoA are met by representatives of each community individually as they progress through the land and are welcomed for the most part with cheers and adulation as they make their way east along the Golden Way. The intelligence is correct regarding increased banditry since the Tuigan invasion, especially in the easternmost areas of this land.  Different factions have been taking advantage of the situation and have been making regrowth that much more difficult in the region.

Gathering further information as they go, the Knights of Argus begin plotting out a campaign against banditry.  What they discover in the end is that the Tuigan presence is not as high as they had first suspected.  Most of the Tuigan survivors have gone back to their homelands, while only a small portion has remained.  This group was finally encountered north of Two Stars and they have coalesced under a new Khan (Khan Draygo) and have been operating as a decentralized roving settlement of Tuigan, their slaves and their women.  They have been preying on targets travelling the Golden Way in an opportunistic fashion.  They were met in battle and were crushed under the mounted offence of the Knights (Killed and/or dispersed).  Only 5 casualties and 2 deaths (1 from Galagus and 1 from Drake).

DM Doug - 2014

Connections - The Vanguard of Argus, The Swords of Power, The shadow Prophesies

Millennia ago the lands of Faerun were much different.  Many great countries were still in their infancy while once inspiring nations were declining into ruin.  Cormyr was not more than a collection of towns only recently being founded by the Obarskyr family.  Waterdeep was a glittering of the jewel that it would become.  The ancient cities, last remnants of the great Empire of Netheril, still held sway in their fragmented nations, soon to be forgotten amongst the Great Desert's rapid advancement.  The Heartlands were young and full of promise.  The Elves of Cormanthyr were living peacefully alongside the human settlements in the Dale Lands with their new found treaty.

At this time the largest regions of human habitation in the north were the broken nations of ancient Netheril.  They held many powerful, lost magics, and it was there that The Dark One was most worshipped.  The great empire of Netheril was lost for more than a thousand years before this time and the nations left in it's wake were but a pittance of what it once was.  The four remaining nations were Anauria, Asram, Eltarr and Hlondath. 

The Dark One began his reign of shadows by creating strife amongst all of the nations of the Realms - creating an atmosphere of distrust and paranoia.  His followers were secretly building armies and conjuring dark beings from the netherworld, through his teachings.  His dark laughter could be felt throughout Faerun as a plague began to spread throughout the civilized lands.  This dark sickness and famine brought many nations to the brink of destruction, and caused once peaceful nations to rise up against their neighbours.  This was all as the Dark One had planned.

DM Doug - November 02, 2014

Connections:The Knights of Argus; The Swords of Power; The Shadow Prophecies

Across the Heartlands a chill sweeps through the night air.  Babies cry out in the night and cattle stir within their pens.  Dark clouds move across the sky, obscuring the crescent moon as all living things are disturbed in their slumber by an  feeling of panic and despair.

In the small seaside town of Haven, on the eastern shores of the Dragonmere, a Lord sits staring into the depths of a failing fire.  His mind is troubled with thoughts of danger and his soul is shrouded in a constricting cloak of despair.  Across the great Sea of Fallen Stars, in The Vast, at a crossroads of a beleaguered trail, another warrior lord paces the flagstone hallways of a darkened keep.  His senses are assailed by a siege of overwhelming panic, his mind reeling with thoughts of ancient dark powers.  In the peaceful Kingdom of Cormyr, on a small island in the fast flowing Wyvern Flow River, a third Holy Knight is awakened by a feeling of impending doom.  He sits in bed wide-eyed and staring off into the darkness of his bed chamber wondering about the futility of life.  What sense all the great plans set for the future when one may surely die on the morrow.

Three Swords of Power, forged in an ancient and forgotten age, begin to hum with power even as their wielders are preoccupied with thoughts of darkness and feelings of despair.  They begin to glow with an otherworldly azure light - dimly at first, but growing into a crescendo of brilliance which bathes their chambers in awesome power, then as abruptly…….Darkness.

It is a time of awakening - a time where ancient things which have slept for millennia begin to stir within their cocoons; a time where an age old chalice begins to radiate with a diffused light and power, unbeknownst to its priestly caretakers; a time where ancient artifacts reveal new powers and memories long forgotten.  It is a time where mankind’s worst nightmares just may awaken to roam the world of mortal man.  It is a time of shadows……and mankind could not be less prepared.

DM Doug - November 02, 2014

Connections: The Knights of Argus; The Swords of Power; The Shadow Prophecies; The Crimson Reavers; Shadowdale Adventure

*This is a memory as transcribed and translated by the eminent Sage - Elminster of Shadowdale to the Crimson Reavers.  B'aalzemon's dialect is in ancient Netherise.  This has since been shared with the Knights of Argus as well. 

*(Drow Priest) "Great Queen, we have done your bidding and brought forth your instrument of power, as you have commanded".

--The shadowed form kills the Drow Priestess without speaking.

*(Drow Warrior) "y...you are not a servant of Lloth at all!!!"

*(B'aalzemon) "I do not worship your pitiful Spider diety, I serve a far greater Master". 

--He calls forth his scyth and slays all of the drow, absorbing their essence.  Then he turns his attention to the group of dwarves.

*(B'aalzemon) "Dwarvessss.....I shall drink of your souls and gain the strength I need that these pitiful elves could not give me"

--He tosses Flannigan aside with hardly a glance and proceeds to suck the life force out of the dwarves.  He pauses to gather their strength.  Upon hearing Simon's screams, he seems to notice the PC's for the first time.

*(B'aalzemon) "Mortal humans....... The pitiful stakes for which this game is played.  Will you offer more of a challenge this time?"

--He pauses and cocks his head as if in curiosity.  Perhaps waiting for a response from the party.

*(B'aalzemon) "You have even forgotten the language of Bar Teth in your ignorance.  Can this irony be more complete?  I shall enjoy the drinking of your souls".

--He attacks the PC's but is stopped by a magical barrier (Unaware that the Seal of Bar Teth protects them).  He paces about the confines of the PC's Shield.

*(B'aalzemon) "Chrysomer, you are long since dust and I yet live on eternal.  Your law and goodness has turned to ash along with you.  The Dark Ones power is far greater than that of your mewling whelp of a diety.  Even Bar Teth's magic has grown weak and brittle with age and soon your beloved world will know fear and despair in ultimate chaos.  I am but the first of many to be awakened from my sleep by the failing magic of weak minded Bar Teth.  I....."

--He pauses mid sentence, as if listening to a far away voice.

*(B'aalzemon) "There is another...."

--He wheels about and calls forth an obsidian black warhorse of demonic flame and a red glowing portal appears beside him.  He mounts the horse then He turns to the PC's and speaks to them directly.

*(B'aalzemon) "Do you even realize your peril?  Can you perceive the destruction of your world? The Dark One returns and he brings darkness and fear to shadow your souls.  You have forgotten the teachings of your ancestors and that shall be your peril."

--He clenches his fist and destroys the obsidian fragment (Seal of Bar Teth) at the feet of the PC's, then abruptly rides through the portal.