The site of the druid festival, Scarlet Moon Hall, is deep in the Sumber Hills, well east of the the Larch Path and well west of the Dessarin River.
The Knights of Samular brought out a crude map of the Sumber Hills. They identified roughly where the "Circle of the Scarlet Moon" was conducting its cleansing druid festival. Some spoke of how they had heard druids making the pilgrimage to the festival speak excitedly of the chance that this mysterious "Rite of the Wicker Giant" might restore nature's balance in the troubled region.
The knights discussed local folklore and seemed to think that the festival was to occur at the site of an old, abandoned keep that some in the region referred to as Scarlet Moon Hall.
As eager as they were to investigate these rumors, and as close as they might have been, they had all agreed to hasten north to Nettlebee Ranch to help Quelline's kin and investigate the disturbing rumors of a fire witch.
The townsfolk at Westbridge were able to give precise directions to the Nettlebee homestead.
The group had quite a ways to travel to Nettlebee Ranch. Three Knights of Samular accompanied them on their keelboat travelling north on the Dessarin River. After a day and a half, they could see the daunting sight of the old Stone Bridge. They went ashore on the western banks of the Dessarin just north of the bridge, then traveled for two days on foot to Westbridge.
They spent the night in Westbridge, did some drinking, some shopping, and some resting. They heard all manor of strange tales about the troubles in the Dessarin Valley. The weather was all fucked up. Crops had failed. Whole settlements had vanished. Kidnappings. Fear permeated the place.
At the Harvest Inn, run by the affable halfling Herivin Dardragon, they were inundated with worried rumors about the disappearance of Oric and Lathana, siblings who, several tenday ago, were abducted by raiders from a homestead a short distance outside of town. Immediately the party recognized these as the captives they met serving in the kitchens of Rivergard Keep . . . the captives who had assisted them after their fight with Jolliver Grimjaw . . .the captives who they found murdered after their confrontation with the pirate Shoalar Quanderil. In fact, they remembered how Shoalar had shifted into Oric's shape and called out for the party's help. Although they sympathized with the folk at the inn, they kept their knowledge of Oric and Lathana's fate to themselves.
And of course, they heard wild tales that in some ways substantiated the rumors of a "fire witch" haunting "ole Nettlebees" bit of land.
Desperate for a replacement instrument (after his had been smashed to bits by a Sacred Stone monk), Leopold came across an old orcish harmonica that he was able to procure for a good price. It appeared a valuable artifact and proved a finely-crafted instrument. He was happy for the time being, but was eager to get his hands on a "more sophisticated" instrument.
Don't looketh down!
This gigantic stone archway (two miles long and four hundred feet high) comfortably spans the widest spring flood of the Dessarin River. It is a sacred site of pilgrimage for many dwarves. Long ago, the dwarf god Moradin appeared atop the Stone Bridge to rally dwarves of the Ironstar clan against a horde of orcs. The founder of Besilmer, King Torhild Flametongue died fighting a hill giant atop the Stone Bridge. Rumors are that he is entombed within the Halls of the Hunting Axe with his famous sword, Orcsplitter; however, despite being vigorously sought after, nobody has been able to locate the entrance to his tomb.
Built to connect those parts of the dwarven realm of Besilmer on both the western and eastern banks of the Dessarin, the Stone Bridge is made of smooth, fused hard granite. It is only six paces wide and lacks railings or barriers, so anyone atop it is at the mercy of the wind, particularly in winter.
The Stone Bridge is the only crossing of the Dessarin River between Womford and Yartar; travelers and caravans frequently use it (with care).
Nettlebee Ranch sprawls over a series of low, rolling hills where the forest had been cleared away for crops of oats and barley. The Nettlebee's prize livestock--sheep, ponies, and cattle--would graze in multitudes upon the hillside pastures. The ranch consisted of a large two-story house and several low stalls and granaries. In the distance, an unnatural mound of earth rose over the ranch, its balding crown sparsely stubbled with charred remnants of tress.
The Nettlebees owned one hundred sheep, twelve cows, twelve oxen, and fifteen ponies. The party learned upon their arrival that a quarter of their livestock had been branded with the following mark:
What was this strange symbol branded onto some of the cattle? Here's what was up:
Wiggan Nettlebee, miserly patriarch of the Nettlebee halfling family (and father-in-law to Quelline's sister, Jayne), amassed a fortune through shrewd trade and inheritance. When earth cultists first started to explore the region, Wiggan took their money for information and occasional aid. As he got to know the cultists, the earth powers they demonstrated intrigued him. Control over the earth could be valuable for a farmer. Wiggan's cult contacts helped remove a couple of his rivals, and assured him that his wealth and influence would only increase as the cult ascended to power.
Among the Nettlebees, Wiggan's secret was known only to his son, Betram, now an initiate in the earth cult. The cult had begun its slow indoctrination of the whole Nettlebee clan, starting with Bertram's son Watson.
Watson was receptive to his father's and grandfather's new religion, but he remained unaware of its true nature. In fact, Wiggan and Betram don't know the cult's ultimate aims, only that it reveres a mighty earth power.
After our heroes uprooted the Red Larch conspiracy, breaking up the secret society known as "The Believers" and destroying the Black Earth Priest, Larrahk, agents from the cult ordered Wiggan to lure the party to their isolated ranch and kill them. He set a price, they agreed, and he set his plan in motion.
This lead them to desecrating an Uthgardt tribe's ancient burial mound with fire, branding some of their own cattle, and spreading rumors about a fictitious "fire witch" plaguing the area.
Wiggan's only son, Betram is set in his ways and full of bluster.
Betram's wife, Jayne, who is also Quelline Alderleaf's older sister, is a no-nonsense lady who knows how to handle Wiggan, Betram, and other loudmouths. She is afraid, though, and is most concerned for her children.
Betram's heir and oldest child, at twenty-three, Watson is brave, honest, and forthright. He takes more after his mother than his father or grandfather. He is angry at the mistreatment of the cattle. Watson knows about Wiggan and Betram's new religion, but he thinks it's not important, so he's unlikely to mention it. He knows nothing about Wiggan's plans.
Just a year younger than Watson, Darrow is Betram's next son. He is good-natured, but his grandfather's bluster over inheritance has him thinking about his future. He might take to the adventurers a little too readily for Jayne's liking.
Betram's and Jayne's only daughter, Elisa, is nineteen. She's like her mother and very open about disliking her "old goat" of a grandfather.
The youngest Nettlebee, at twelve, Ignatius is really just a little boy. Everyone (even Wiggan) favors him, so he's a happy kid, but the fire witch has him so scared that he has night terrors.
The party arrived and explained who they were and what they were doing there. Wiggan kept to his study; Betram kept to the fields. As they got to know (and like) the Nettlebees, they also learned about recent events:
Later, as if on cue, during supper, Wiggan made a blustering speech about how confident he was that our heroes could make the fire witch pay for what she had done to the Nettlebees. The party was suspicious of just about everybody, but agreed to investigate the barrow mound at first light the following day. At the apparent chagrin of the Nettlebee patriarch, Jayne offered to pay the party 200 gp each for ridding them of this curse. Betram kept quiet. Wiggan frowned and nodded in hesitant approval.
At the eager, excited prompting of young Darrow, Alexander was up before sunrise, training the lad with crude, wooden swords in front of the farm house. The persistent clacking of the sticks reverberated through the brisk, early morning air. The Nettlebees arose shortly after, though there was no sign of Wiggan (who was sequestered in his study) nor Betram (who had left early to tend to the flock). The party enjoyed a hearty, farmers' breakfast while listening to the Nettlebees engage in local gossip and talk shit about Wiggan's new religiosity. Apparently Jayne and Elisa disliked this new "earth god" they were being pressured to worship.
A few of our heroes had trouble following along with the table talk at breakfast, engrossed in their meal as they were.
After breakfast the group set out on the three mile walk to the barrow mound. They surveyed the well-tended lands along the way. Betram and Wiggan followed the party as they walked, keeping back about a half mile.
The Nettlebees seemed to be having a banner year: their cattle were fat, their early-sprouting crops healthy, their streams flowing. With all the environmental disasters and strange phenomenon happening in the Dessarin Valley, LiKi thought it odd that the Nettlebees should be so singularly spared from this tumult.
The neatly irrigated lands were fed by healthy springs originating in the Dessarin Hills.
Assuming that the Nettlebees could spare the water, LiKi pulled out a small bag from her belt pouch. She stopped, stooping beside a kidney-shaped pond that the stream vigorously fed. The party watched as she proceed to drop a pinch of dust into the water.
The group looked on in astonishment as a wall of water rose up above the pond, then suddenly compressed in a flash of light and sloshing sound. The pond had been drained by half and LiKi walked over to pick up a small, perfectly spherical blue pellet. Hesitating for a moment, LiKi then walked down the muddy new banks of this shrunken pond, reached the water's edge, and repeated this process; this completely drained the Nettlebee's pond and effectively cut off the water flow down stream. Luckily the vigorous stream entering the pond from the north continued to feed it. It might take a week or a month, but the Nettlebees would have their pond again one day.
Having an understanding of science is like being proficient with magic. It makes you feel superior to everybody else!
So, did two pinches of dust of dryness drain the pond?? Seems hard to believe. But consider this, smart guy (editors note: Mr. Wizard is a notoriously patronizing dick; for evidence supporting this conclusion, see video clip here):
LiKi retrieved the two pellets, then casually walked over and handed one to Leopold and one to Alexander, each of whom now walk around with 25k gallons of water in their pockets! LiKi planned to return to the pond after it fills in order to retrieve two more pellets, one for Kahntun, and one for her.
When Betram and Wiggan came running up in a huff and excoriated our little gnome sorceress for draining their pond, she didn't seem too concerned.
The pair of patriarchs ordered the group to stop fucking with their property and to hurry up and get to the mound and "do your job!"
At this, LiKi pulled a piece of fur from her small grey bag and threw it on the ground; suddenly a badger appeared, ran over to her, climbing up her back and onto her shoulder. The party continued their journey.
THe barrow mound capped a high hill overlooking the surrounding countryside. The area around the barrow was still and charred. Burned trees reached like dark finger bones from the bald earthen mound. It was noticeably chillier there. Wiggan and Betram cowered at the edge of the hill, refusing to step foot upon the "cursed" ground. Before moving forward, LiKi whispered into her badger's ear. Immediately the creature leaped off her back and sprinted toward the tree line, disappearing into a dense tangle of woods. The characters surveyed the surrounding area, then climbed the hill, preparing themselves for what awaited them inside.
Tall monoliths lined the earthen corridor that connected the barrow's entrance to the burial chamber far within. Motes of flame lit the corridor and the chamber beyond. The air was cold and heavy with the scent of ash. Leopold investigated the flames and quickly realized that, since they gave off no heat, they were apparently the product of magic. LiKi first categorized this spell as Evocation magic, then pinpointed the spell itself, sometimes called continual flame. Drawing on his knowledge of religions, Kahntun recollected that members of the Uthgardt tribe detest magic. With a word, Alexander's sword lit up like a torch, illuminating the gloom out to about 15 feet. They continued down the chamber.
A crude fieldstone arch formed the entrance to the burial chamber. In three branching alcoves were three scorched altars--one of a tiger, another of an elk, and another of a bear. In the center of the chamber was a stone bier upon which rested a broken and blackened skeleton, its skull and limbs scattered about the chamber. The air of the sepulcher was deathly cold and scented with ash. After a brief investigation, it became clear that the vandals weren't satisfied with burning trees, they were also eager to carefully, and calculatingly desecrate the resting place of a legendary tribesman from the past. But why?
Suddenly, the temperature dropped further, and with a crackling sound, frost coated the entire chamber. Flames on the walls and in the hall went out, as did the glow of Alexander's sword. A point of blue light appeared over the bier and expanded into a faintly humanoid form. The bones in the tomb, as well as antlers on the elk altar, stirred then flew together into the light. In a flash, a massively built but very pale human male stood before the party, his face darkly bearded and his head crowned with the antlers. His milky eyes burned with blue flame briefly as he cast his gaze on the party.
His voice was deep, resonant, and oddly accented. He said, "I return from a warrior's rest among the spirits to find my tomb burned and my bones desecrated. I know the desecraters are not among you, but who are you and why are you here?"
After a brief recovery period, here's what happened:
When they exited the cave, a dozen barbarians surrounded Javor, forming a semicircle in front of the barrow. Two were mounted on horses. All but ignoring your arrival, they looked on the returned chieftain with awe. One of the riders, her forehead marked with a tattoo of elk horns, dismounted.
"My daughter's vision was true. This one is the ancient. He is one of us!"
She knelt before Javor, and her fellows followed her lead.
"We come to see you avenged, ancient one."
Jarvor nodded with grim approval, adding "you are in time for blood. The desecrater dwells there."
The party watched as Javor raised his arm then pointed toward the Nettlebee ranch in the valley below the barrow. Then, he and each member of the tribe began to run in that direction. It was obvious that justice for the Uthgardt amounted to a river of halfling blood; perhaps Nettlebee pond would refill sooner than they had originally thought!
As the party were running with the Uthgardt toward the ranch, LiKi's badger caught up with her and informed her of what she saw from the treeline:
What follows is a brief, itemized description of what ensued:
Wiggans reveals some broader clues for our heroes.
Watson was embarrassed and apparently eager to move on to more traditionally wholesome Nettelbee doings.
Sad, yet relieved that the party helped his family root out the evil corrupting it, Wiggan brought a gift to Alexander. It was of halfling make and a very old family heirloom. He joked ruefully that "now it will be harder to get bales of wool to market in the future . . ."
This bag has an interior space considerably larger than its outside dimensions, roughly 2 feet in diameter at the mouth and 4 feet deep. The bag can hold up to 500 pounds, not exceeding a volume of 64 cubic feet. The bag weighs 15 pounds, regardless of its contents. Retrieving an item from the bag requires an action.
If the bag is overloaded, pierced, or torn, it ruptures and is destroyed, and its contents are scattered in the Astral Plane. If the bag is turned inside out, its contents spill forth, unharmed, but the bag must be put right before it can be used again. Breathing creatures inside the bag can survive up to a number of minutes equal to 10 divided by the number of creatures (minimum 1 minute), after which time they begin to suffocate.
Placing a bag of holding inside an extradimensional space created by a Handy Haversack, Portable Hole, or similar item instantly destroys both items and opens a gate to the Astral Plane. The gate originates where the one item was placed inside the other. Any creature within 10 feet of the gate is sucked through it to a random location on the Astral Plane. The gate then closes. The gate is one-way only and can't be reopened.
When she awoke one morning, a silver figurine of a raven was resting on the chest of drawers in the room within which she slept. She took this as a sign that Javor looked favorably upon our heroes fulfilling their promise to the ancient spirit.
This rare and powerful artifact returned to LiKi from Javor is known by those who study arcane items to be worth 3,800 gp.
A figurine of wondrous power is a small statuette ranging in size from a grown man's hand to the size of a little finger, that is similar in shape to the extra-planar creature that it turns into. These rare items transform into many types of bestial planar creatures that understand common and follow the orders of the wielder of the statuette. These creatures are called by the name given to the creature upon the item's creation. They cannot reside on the prime material plane for large amounts of time and therefore are bound by the figurines to return to their home planes to rest after a set amount of time on the prime. If the creature is slain while on this plane it will revert back to statuette form and live on, but if the statuette is destroyed the item becomes worthless and loses all enchantment. Depending on the strength of the enchantment this artifact's effects should be permanent unless passed through an anti-magic field, which could disrupt the base structure of any magic item.
This silver figurine turns into a raven on command (but it retains its metallic consistency, which gives it hardness 10). Another command sends it off into the air, bearing a message just like a creature affected by an animal messenger spell. If not commanded to carry a message, the raven obeys the commands of its owner, although it has no special powers or telepathic Abilities.
It can maintain its nonfigurine status for only 24 hours per week, but the duration need not be continuous.
Evidencing further that Javor was pleased with the party, each member awoke one morning feeling charmed in a unique way. They couldn't tell how specifically they felt different, yet they knew that they did. They had been gifted with a supernatural charm.
A charm is a minor supernatural gift, which can be received in a large variety of ways. For example, a wizard who finds an eldritch secret in a dead arch mage's spellbook might be infused with the magic of a charm, as might a character who solves a sphinx's riddle or drinks from a magic fountain. Legendary creatures, such as ancient gold dragons and unicorns, sometimes grace their allies with charms, and some explorers find themselves bearing the magic of a charm after discovering a long-lost location that is drenched in primeval magic.
Some charms can be used only once, and others can be used a specific number of times before vanishing. If a charm lets you cast a spell, you are able to do so without spending a spell slot or providing any components (verbal, somatic, or material). In any case, a charm can't be used in the area created by an antimagic field or a similar effect, and a charm's effects are susceptible to dispel magic and the like. But the charm itself can't be removed from a creature by anything short of divine intervention or the wish spell.
Charm of Flight: grants you two charges of the Fly spell. You touch a willing creature. The target gains a flying speed of 60 feet for ten minutes.
Charm of the Slayer: One sword in your possession becomes a dragon slayer for the next 9 days. The charm then vanishes from you, and the weapon returns to normal. When you hit a dragon with this weapon, the dragon takes an extra 3d6 damage of the weapon's type. For the purpose of this weapon, "dragon" refers to any creature with the dragon type, including dragon turtles and wyverns.
Charm of Vitality: This charm grants you two charges ot the spell Aura of Vitality. Healing energy radiates from you for one minute in an aura with a 30 foot radius. Until the spell ends, the aura moves with you, centered on you. You can use a bonus action to cause one creature in the aura (including you) to regain 2d6 hit points.
Charm of Darkvision: (2 charges) you gain darkvision out to a range of 60 feet for 8 hours.