#grimhollow

[justabitscrewy]

Finalizing my new Druid’s 1.0 design~

Only one session in and already SO HYPED

[holloweddreamer]

simple lil' experimental anti burnout doodle yessir

[jbpeony-draws]

i rarely see werewolves being haughty, prim and proper foppish kind of dudes so i made another character. This is Lowell, He's a Dance Bard and I'm using the Wulven species from Grimhollow

[thehealinghollowknight]

((Work doodles))

[haaaaaaaaaaaave-you-met-ted]

GrimHollow: Lairs of Etharis Cover Art by Russell Jones

[supereffectivemoonblast]

Part 17: The Root of All Evil

Covering Session Notes 66-68

Esmeray and Nerissa carefully explain to the freshly resurrected Gretel Drach that she had been annihilated by a force beyond their control. She is understanding of the fact that openly discusssing why it happened (Typharia silencing those who know too much) would only put her in danger again.

They tell Gretel about their recent meeting with the Emperor, and they agree it'll be best for Gretel to find her way to him, away from Nerissa and the baggage of her patron. Nerissa fetches Ostarion to help with a Transport Via Plants, but Gretel makes the three promise to not tell Anneliese or his sister Anna that she had died. Things are hard enough already. Ostarion summons a tree and Gretel steps through, leaving the adventurers to have a difficult night's sleep.

Before sleep, Nerissa prays to Typharia. She needs answers as to what the true meaning of that holy smite was. Typharia answers her call, and gives Nerissa the upsetting answer that yes people were supposed to get hurt. Typharia has a grand plan, and for it to go as planned, Nerissa must be kept away from some darker secrets. Nerissa tells Typharia she is frustrated but hopes her patron knows what she is doing.

In the morning the weather had cleared up immensely. It seems Deteriora, Archdemon of Progress had set back the evil cultists of the mists by a lot.

Nerissa fills in her party on what she'd found out on the Typharia smite incident. It seems the Goddess of Knowledge has plans beyond their understanding, and if recent events are any indication, then the safety of mortals is not a priority. The Stormbringers theorise that Typharia could be kept in check if they worked to bring another god back to life. Unfortunately, the best god for that role is Aurelia, and Typharia is in control of her sacred artefact, the Mantle of Aurelia.

* * *

The party were supposed to be interrogated by the Morencian council that day, so the party head toward their chambers. Guards outside tell the party that the council are in a very heated meeting right now, so as they walk away, Esmeray sends her shadow snake familiar in to eavesdrop. Mar (Deteriora) had joined the council meeting, which seems to mainly be a loud argument between the monster hunter Vendemir Kaltstahl and Doge Lorenzo Flabenici about the fate of Syndra and the Stormbringers.

Left: Vendemir. Right: Doge Lorenzo

Nerissa contacts Syndra by Sending, and it seems it has been decided she is innocent. During the interview process, another council member openly tried to kill her. Since they can only wait for the council, she advises the party to go snooping for more evidence of foul play. Their next person of interest was Admiral Endoria Onaglie, so Anneliese uses her Clockwork Orrery to track down the Admiral's office.

As the party slink through the winding halls, they are intercepted by some very intimidating naval officers, all displaying Nautanticli on their persons. Combat comes immediately, and they soon learn these captains are powerful undead soldiers, and the Nautanticli empower their necrotic magicks. Seared into their flesh, the party spot the cursed power words: RISE, WITHSTAND, OBEY. As the party fight, they find out enough Radiant or Force damage can destroy a word, and that destroying RISE (the word giving life to the undead) instantly destroys the undead soldiers.

During combat, Ostarion gets pulled into a private realm to one on one a death knight. Without the fear of being discovered by his friends, he finally unleashes the power he discovered from Oak's cursed dagger: it allows him to commune directly with the spirits of Morencia's mist, and control the undead. Using this power, he seamlessly destroys the undead officer, and returns to the material plane just as his allies finish dispatching the other officers.

Ostarion; The New Master of the Mists

While they pick over the undead captain's bodies, Esmeray's snake familiar is spotted by Mar, who speaks through the snake to Esmeray. The council debate is now on the ceasefire, and while things have been heated, the Admiral has been giving Mar weird looks.

Esmeray asks Mar to describe what is strange about the Admiral's behaviour, and as those quirks are communicated, the party realise that the Admiral in that meeting is a faker in magical disguise. Mar stands up in the meeting and points at the Admiral, calling him out as a faker trying to destroy the council from within. The officials around the table gasp and Vendemir starts to prepare a magic tincture to undo the potential disguise.

Before Vendemir approaches, the fake Admiral spits a string of magic words and instantly detonates, covering the council room in a shower of viscera. A diversion!

* * *

While Mar and Vendemir try to calm the panicked council members who just saw the head of the Navigator's Guild explode, the party continue forward to the Admiral's office.

The door is locked by both magical and physical precautions, and too afraid to interact directly with the mechanism, Ostarion uses Pass Wall on an adjacent wall to make their own way in.

As soon as they enter, the air stinks with blood. The corpse of Admiral Onaglie lies across the room, slumped on her desk, the carpet immediately around her soaked with blood. They look over the body and the missing eye under her patch proves this to be the real deal. Marks on her ankles, and skin discolouration makes them believe she was strung up by her feet and drained of blood before being dumped here. But there are no cursed runes on her skin, in fact, Edrik's paladin senses indicate her body had been consecrated with holy light before her death.

Initially the party suspect this could mean that the Admiral's blood was being used as a substitute for Dawn's Blood, which the party know Coltan has been in short supply of.

Using Speak with Dead, the party interrogate the corpse to try and find out why the Admiral died in this way. Endoria's ghost tells the party she sacrificed herself to appease the mists. She prepared holy rites so that her body was properly consecrated before her death; consecration is a vital part of calming the mists so they cooperate with the peoples of Morencia. The party concludes this means that the other, desecrated sacrifices would have aggravated the mists. The temperament of the mist may be affected by the nature of sacrifices to it, and despite all their misgivings about the real admiral, it seems she was trying to calm the mists as her final act.

* * *

Knowing this information needed to be presented to the council, the party rush back to the council chambers, where they are met by guards forbidding them to proceed. Given the exploding faker, the adventurers decide they can't wait, and after magically disabling the guards, they climb the stairs.

They reach the top just as the chamber doors swing open, the Doge staring daggers at them. Suspecting the Doge might be possessed, Nerissa dashes forward to Dispel Evil and Good on him, but the Doge sees this as one act of aggression too far, and orders the surrounding guards to dogpile the adventurers.

Edrik cries out, trying to argue that they can prove their innocence, by bringing that exploded fake Admiral back to life, for interrogation. Vendemir agrees they could be helpful, but the Doge wants the Stormbringers locked away for their defiance.

The ever slippery Esmeray invisibily dashes up to the Doge, spotting a chunk of flesh on his collar. She grabs and throws it to Ostarion, who uses a wish to instantly resurrect the fake Admiral in their entirety.

The faker is bewildered, but after getting their bearings and realising what happened, begins to chant again. Nerissa fixes him with her Antimagic stare, and whatever suicide bomb spell he was casting fails. Misha quickly grabs them by the shoulders. To the bewilderment of the Doge and his council, the party present the fake admiral.

One of the bankers steps forward. Certain mannerisms had given Mr Banksy suspicion of a faker for a while. He walks forward kicks the Admiral in the groin. The faker doubles over in pain, and Vendemir uses this opening to pour a tonic over their form, revealing a shorter and slimmer man with a bald head. The ceremonial tattoos covering his face and chest clearing mark him as a member of the Daughters of Light, Coltan's doomsday cult.

The guards ease off on the party, as the Doge and Vendemir walk back into the council chamber to better discuss the ramifications of this reveal.

Very soon, a few guards come walking up, accompanied by Syndra, who congratulates the party on their investigation. She stands next to Nerissa, who's antimagic stare is still stuck on the cultist, and asks the party what the sum results of their search was.

Syndra is given the breakdown of their encounter with Oak, their fight with the Magialate (but leaving out Deteriora), and how they discovered the sacrifices to the mist have been aggravating the undead spirits into a frenzy.

Nerissa concludes her recap by saying that Morencia is a city of liars and secrets. Syndra whispers to her that she has already found out too much, and Nerissa falls under the control of a Dominate charm.

* * *

The evil Nerissa is told to eliminate Ostarion, so she Stops Time and begins layering on enchantments and abjurations to completely rob Ostarion of his psyche. Anneliese, who is unaffected by other time magic, is still moving, and immediately clocks Nerissa's unusual behaviour. She quickly uses her own time magic to pull her other allies into the frozen world.

Esmeray's lunar fey magic dispels the charm on Nerissa, and they quickly deduce something is up with Syndra. Something has control over her, and they might have to beat it out of her.

As the Time Stop ends, Esmeray attempts to Dispel Evil and Good on Syndra, but the spell fails. A magical shield around Syndra blasts Esmeray flying back by some ghostly force. This is a possession more powerful than the mists of Morencia.

Nerissa takes a step back, as Anneliese, Esmeray, and Misha rush forward to slam their powerful weapons into Syndra. Edrik grapples and gags the Daughter of Light cultist.

A very wounded Syndra looks up pleadingly at Nerissa, asking the tiefling to defend her. Nerissa bites back tears, why would Syndra ask her to destroy her friends? She wants to believe the real Syndra wouldn't do this, that somebody else has possession over her.

So she asks in return why this person had to choose Syndra.

Syndra's eyes glow a vibrant magical blue and screams back at Nerissa, "Because you took her from me!" The same eyes she saw in Coltan. This is Gitta Sauber, getting back at Nerissa for locking away the Tower Master's psyche.

Left: Coltan the Conqueror, Right: Syndra Quinen

Syndra casts Feeblemind on Nerissa, and begins to lash out with dark magic blasts at the rest of the party. Thinking over what Syndra just said, and seeing those same electric blue eyes, Esmeray gives herself and Anneliese See Invisibility. She now sees the totality of Sauber's new possession spell.

Syndra's body is blurred, overlapping with the body of somebody else, and tendrils of spiritual energy spiderweb out from her body to link with every other person in the chamber. The guards, Vendemir, even the Doge. Gitta had captured Syndra's body, and through her, taken over the minds of everyone in Morencia's central government.

Esmeray and Anneliese begin targeting the invisible tendrils themselves, and with enough force, manage to sever the links between a few guards and Syndra. Thankfully, it seems this version of the possession ritual does not kill those they sever, but it seems to be doing damage to Syndra's psyche.

After being clued into the plan, Ostarion casts Time Stop. Anneliese once again pulls her allies into the frozen world, so she, Edrik, Misha, and Esmeray can quickly rush around the chamber and sever the twenty or so tendrils anchoring Syndra to the council. Ostarion uses the frozen time to cure Nerissa's feeblemind, and time resumes.

The whiplash of every tendril being destroyed in a split second knocks Syndra off her feet, and Anneliese makes one final precise cleave with her scythe to try and sever Syndra from the now wavering shadow around her.

As Syndra falls forward, the shadow separates from her. The dark silhouette, now visible to all, glows and pulsates in an alarming fashion. An arcane explosion is likely imminent.

Nerissa and Esmeray rush after Vendemir and the Doge, Ostarion pulls the pile of guards into a private demiplane, and Anneliese coordinates those council members still standing. Ostarion and Anneliese combine their efforts to teleport everyone they can to Castalore, reaching safety at Raghnall's estate.

The others find Vendemir standing over a dead Doge Lorenzo. A severed, bejeweled hand in Vendemir's grasp. It seems their argument did not end well. Nerissa teleports herself, Vendemir, and Esmeray to the Free Sword's keep in Voros.

Why the Free Swords? That was where she met her allies, and she was feeling nostalgic.

* * *

At Voros, Nerissa, Esmeray, and Vendemir catch the worried gaze of a few Free Sword soldiers, but before any meaningful conversation can be had, a deafening sonic boom washes over the keep and tremors knock many to the ground.

Esmeray assumes her fey form and flies up into the air. Across the horizon, she sees a magnificent mushroom cloud, which slowly clears to reveal a chasm rapidly filling with water. Morencia was destroyed in its entirety, and was now nothing more than a crater.

After instructing one of the Free Sword guards to spread word of Morencia's fall, Nerissas contacts their allies and teleports to Castalore, where they can finally discuss what just happened.

Once their Stormbringers and remaining Morencian allies are filled in on what Esmeray saw, their initial discussion is how such an arcane misfire could have destroyed the entire city. With Vendemir's input, they remember that quite recently, they had tipped off the Free Swords of suspicious activity in Castalore, that led to bombs being found in the city sewers. It is likely Morencia had been rigged to go in a similar fashion and that the arcane eruption was always part of a bigger plan.

If Castalore and Morencia were both rigged for a magical nuke, there is a possibility this could soon happen again in other large cities. Esmeray runs away to teleport to Raghnall and their allies on the war front, while Edrik approaches Dobreslov, a fey wizard that Raghnall had hired to look after his estate. Dobreslov is adept at sending magical letters across long distances quickly, so Edrik works with him over the next hour to tell every major city across the continent of Etharis what had happened to Morencia, and that similar explosive traps could be laying in wait under their feet.

Syndra was unconcious when they teleported to Castalore, so after some magical healing, they wake her up. Apparently she had no memory of her life within the last week, so the party had been talking to her possessed self the entirety of their most recent visit. She becomes very unsettled by the true gravitas of what happened to Morencia. But after conferring with Vendemir, she assures the party that not all was in vain.

The Doge's hand, which Vendemir had brought with him, possesses a magical ring that the Doge had been using to access a private sanctum in which he was hoarding the wealth of not only Morencia but of many other countries too. Within the realm was a leger book, detailing all of the money that other countries had invested in Morencia, so once Syndra could open this sanctum, she could resume transactions with other countries, and organise the ceasefire between Burach and Ostoya.

* * *

Syndra finds Nerissa brooding alone elsewhere in Raghnall's keep. Nerissa is frustrated that they've been trying their best to save everyone they can, do the best for this world, but they are always two steps behind. She is one of the most powerful beings on the material plane, but feels more powerless than ever.

Syndra consoles her, explaining that defeats always leave more mental impact than victories. While The Stormbringers have been seeing a lot slip out of their control, they have managed to save people from oblivion at every step. And though what happened to Morencia is a tragedy, that city was rotten to the core, with not much good left to save. Syndra leaves Nerissa with her thoughts but expresses that at the very least, she is grateful Nerissa was there for her.

Much later, Anneliese finds Nerissa. Anneliese was also very shaken by this event, especially since she sees parallels with her role in the absolute destruction of Ulmyr's Gate. Anneliese echoes Syndra's point about the little victories. They are haunted by the bad, because the results of their good happen after they leave.

They are the Stormbringers. Storms bring lightning and destruction, but their rain brings fertile regrowth too. And they don't have time to stick around and watch that regrowth when there is more zapping to do.

Nerissa is roused by this last point. They do have someone to blame, and its not her. Its Gitta Sauber.

[supereffectiveartblog]

Esmeray Khan

Blade Dance Rogue/Cosmic Soul Sorceror

This is art I made of one of my fellow player characters in Welcome to Etharis. Esmeray is a Changeling, who was raised in the Fey Winter Court. She uses her Charisma as a weapon in battle, charming her foes and mesmerising them with her fan blade dances, before going in for the kill.

[vidis-forge]

Heroforge models of my party for my campaign, The Unseen Sun!

Lore and Info dump below the cut!

It is... adjacent to Grimhollow's The Citadel of the Unseen Sun in that I didn't have the money to put out for every chapter (and didn't want to, honestly, in the beginning!)

Maybe someday I'll go back and run The Citadel of the Unseen Sun from beginning to end as intended. Originally, I just wanted to run a game in Etharis and choose the spooky vampire-ridden Ostoya because, I also wanted a vampire game!

I bought chapter 5 of the Citadel of the Unseen Sun to get canon information Nov Ostoya and get the maps that come with the book-- then became interested in Kasimir Sundrinker as a big bad (maybe I'll post him some day, after my players get to meet him in game!)

But, campaign lore dump time;

Here we see each of them and their current relationship to the Unseen Sun.

For Tzipporah, who *is* the Unseen Sun, we have responsibility. She is among the last of the divine, and her grandeur has been stripped from her yet *still* feels like shackles. She reaches up, begging for help from higher powers that have forsaken and abandoned her.

For Wulfgar, we have a man who has been reborn over and over to accomplish his goal of defeating Kasimir Sundrinker. As he learns more about his past selves, about the truth of Tzipporah's nature and what he is destined for, he regards the Unseen Sun as his partner. An extension of himself in their interwoven fates.

Aleksi is a tortured man with a life-long history of trauma, abuse, and control. As he steps from the shadow of his past and into the light, he finds himself unsure how to navigate this new world. To him, the Unseen Sun is a beacon that casts light to his shame, and overpowers anyone's ability to see his struggles.

And lastly, for Keres, a strange aberration who was already out of her depth joining the world at large, the Unseen Sun is her friend. Or at least... she'd like it to be. She holds it close, as a symbol of her desire for a better world, and to be part of that better world once the Unseen Sun is liberated.