Category Archives: Journal Entries

From the Desk of Larenza Thort

5th Sarenith, 4718 AR

Oh, hell, no. Roderic’s Cove is not going to devolve into chaos. Not on my watch, and if I know Covers, not on anyone’s watch. Any town that can be under the thumb of Riddleport and go about fiercely telling themselves they determine their own fate, their own future damn you all isn’t going to fall apart due to a few ruffians from the woods, discontented Covers, or a ghost here or there.

And yet in the last several days all of those things have conspired to test our limits more than in recent memory. There is trouble in the Cove and by all the gods I’ll see it settle down to business as usual before our friends to the northwest take notice and decide to “help” me “maintain the order” here.

Yesterday we reached an unheard-of level of new problems when reports came in of some misshapen humanoid forms that attacked Svaci in the north woods. We still don’t know if they were once men that were melted or corrupted somehow, or human-shaped abominations someone pieced together from hunks of flesh. I’m told the scholars up at Peacock Manor are investigating. I hope they find some answers soon, in case any more of those things are around. I said as much aloud in earshot of the gravedigger, which earned me a derisive snort from her. Whatever, I don’t have time for that. I need answers.

Julit’s adding a patrol to the north just in case more of those things show up again. A shame about the guards she sent to investigate the disappearance of Galdsbredtha’s teamsters as they were driving here with a shipment from the Iron Peaks. Poor Lyndwyn was beside herself when she came pleading for help searching the Churlwood for them. We suspected Road Keepers immediately, of course, but they swore over and over that it was goblins of all things, that waylaid them, forcing them to abandon their wagon and stumble into town on foot. A small crew went back and retrieved the wagon (which was astonishingly intact, so the Keepers must not have found it yet themselves and the goblins were otherwise occupied), but there was no sign of the goblins. Now we have learned that the goblin lair was some distance away, so they abducted the dwarves and made haste to get away with their captives and didn’t bother to come back that far out again later.

Sadly, the guards sent to rescue the dwarves returned back to the Cove posthumously. We have arranged, for yet more troubling reasons (as if we needed more now), to have them buried today before sundown. That news, the bodies of the fallen, and the rescued dwarves, come courtesy of a few locals who seem to have banded together to help the Cove in our time of … whatever the hell this is that’s happening right now. They recently visited The Wreck after the ghost of Sir Roderic appeared. They say they have some kind of answers that will lead them to him finding his final rest, the poor bastard. Let us hope and pray they succeed. So far, they defeated the flesh-things, saved Svaci’s life, rescued the dwarves, and if their tale is true, rid us of the problem of living next to a forest infested with goblins.

The dwarves look like they didn’t suffer any permanent damage from their captivity, so with the goblins gone, I have asked Julit to focus on finding out what seems to have triggered this confrontation between the Keepers and the Fangs and put a stop to it before we have to bury more Covers.

I must stop for now. There is much left to be done today, and I need to go unlock the map cabinet for the—I’m not sure what to call them… heroes?—to look for some of Roderic’s old maps they are curious about.

Audrahni’s Journal, 4th Sarenith, 4718 AR (addendum)

They returned at mid-day from The Wreck. What an adventure they found for themselves, too. It seems to me that there is still some cleanup that needs to be done later, as they left behind some dangerous creatures, but if we can find what will allow Sir Roderic to go to his final rest, some of that may go away on its own, so I am content continuing to pursue that goal first. Not to mention the fact that an abandoned building such as that is bound to continue attracting vermin and other animals anyway.

Their tale was fascinating. From what they said, I believe they did in fact have Aurek himself manifest to them at least twice. The other encounters they had with him (and, astonishingly, his family) are, I think, merely haunts left behind in the house. Those, I think, will dissipate on their own. Interesting that they also managed to open the water-filled closet that almost killed that poor girl a while back. I should have warned them about that, even though the town boarded it up after that last incident. I forgot to ask them if they secured it again. A remnant, no doubt, of the watery tragedy that claimed Sir Roderic’s life and the lives of his wife and children.

The poltergeist concerns me, however. I cannot think of a connection it would have to Roderic and so I suspect it won’t leave on its own until someone goes in there and deals with it directly.

Reading between the lines, I suspect the old home is short a few valuables since yesterday, but from my point of view, considering the service being performed to the Cove and Roderic himself, I doubt he would mind. Being deceased with no living descendants would tend to change one’s attachment to material possessions, I should think.

My main concerns are centered around Roderic’s messages and a few things they found in the house.

I am sure Corstela would go to great lengths to get her hands on the sword case they found. I’m equally sure she shouldn’t, but I’m probably just letting an old grudge get in the way of my judgement, but even keeping her from having one more excuse to be pompously full of herself is a benefit. Roderic himself was particularly focused on the sword the box apparently contained.

The Cove.

Stone house in the woods.

Gauntlet.

Save them.

My map.

The key.

Curious and cryptic to a maddening degree. And intriguing nonetheless. The map fragment they found with the initials “St. Hs.” would seem to be a natural match to the stone house, whatever that is.

They took my map.

Find the map. They took the map. To town.

True, a long time ago the town took all the maps Sir Roderic had drawn to the town hall. They are of impressive quality, but I don’t recall anything abnormally important about any of them. I should ask Larenza to let me take a look through them.

Holds the key.

What holds the key? What key? To what?

Baraket will control them. May control you.

If Baraket is the sword the team talked about, this is quite a concern. All we need is some item imbued with malevolent power running amok in the Cove. We must find out what that warning actually means and what to do about it.

Must endure where I did not.

There’s a mystery. Sir Roderic was said to have been a brave soul, feared by his enemies as much as he was loved by his friends. What bested his resolve? He was, as they say, only human, after all. Everyone has a weakness.

The vault. It lies still in the vault.

This is a mystery, too. I have never heard of The Wreck having a vault, nor do I think there is a vault in the Cove, although there could be one in the town hall, Peacock Manor, or in a private residence that I would have no knowledge of. How to conduct a search for this vault without arousing suspicion?

The party said they fought some kind of misshapen abomination north of the Cove before meeting me. They dropped it off with the scholars at Peacock Manor. That should keep them occupied for a while. I will look with interest to see if they can manage to figure anything out about them, or what wild tales they will come up with to appear as though they know exactly what’s going on and how lucky we all are that they are here in town to know everything oh, so much better than everyone else.

That’s it, I need a drink.

Droste’s Journal for Sarenith 4 – 5, 4718

Moonday, Sarenith 4, 4718 late night
Churlwood The Bramblemouth Goblins’ Den

Change of plan: we decided to not sleep until after we had purged the goblins from their nest. This meant advancing down the narrow and short tunnel to where the remainder of the horde had fled. In the dark. With an unknown number of goblins waiting for us at the far side.

This was not a good strategic plan, especially with our magic users low on spells. Despite my misgivings we pushed forward.

It did not go well.

A little more than halfway down the death trap — by that I mean tunnel — we, or more precisely the person in front, Shimsa, was blocked by a very large snake. Surprisingly the snake spoke common, but unsurprisingly it was able to projectile vomit (with good accuracy) toxic phlegm. A light spell was cast on a stone so that those of us able to assist could see, and a short while later we were filing past the ex-snake.

Shimsa reached the end of the tunnel where proceded to enact our plan, which was to get as many of us out into the large chamber so we could engage in the goblins before they cut down those of us in front.

It worked, but only barely, and we used up the last bit of healing magic we possessed just to survive. There were a lot more goblins here than expected and the only thing that saved us was their relative incompetence, or perhaps overconfidence. Had they simply swarmed us all at once or released their dogs right away I would not be writing this now.

We scrounged what useful items we could from the two better equipped goblins and then searched the area.

We quickly realized that we were in the ruins of what had once been an above ground collection of buildings, which had been buried over time. The goblins must have burrowed in and set up their den amidst the ruins.

A recently excavated passageway led east. I suddenly realized why the goblins had captured the dwarves and exclaimed, “The turds brought the dwarves here to dig for them because, as far as they were concerned, every dwarf was an expert on mining.”

The passageway quickly dead ended, but a door in the north wall was exposed and beyond that was a room with a very highly magical circle — a teleportation portal of some sort. Thassilonian runes encircling the portal proclaimed that it was dedicated to Alasnist, the Runelord of Wrath.

Both Yanor and I were excited by the fact that these were Thassilonian ruins associated with a specific Runelord — the same one for which the ancient ruins beneath Sandpoint were built. I had visited those back when I was last there, but they had been picked over and sanitized years before, whereas these ruins were pristine and waiting to be explored!

We tossed a goblin body into the circle and it vanished, as expected. But we were unprepared to follow. Who knows if we could get back or what awaited us on the other side.

Instead we followed the main passage south, which is where we discovered that one goblin remained. She was some sort of spell caster and she was guarding the two dwarves.

After another unpleasant, but relatively brief, fight we dispatched the threat and freed the dwarves.

They were happy to be free and they confirmed my suspicion about why the goblins had captured them. Apparently the goblins were looking for treasure because the “long shanks” (their word for anything on two legs taller than three feet) were excavating another ruin close by.

That got our attention, and we wondered who they were and what they were looking for. It seemed likely that Sir Roderic’s words about his map and mysterious artifacts he had found were tied up in all of this.

We are thoroughly exhausted and are camping inside the inner, larger cavern near the (closed and spiked) teleport room door.

Toilday, Sarenith 4, 4718 afternoon
Roderic’s Cove The Creekside

The night passed without event and in the morning light we hauled the goblin bodies out from their den and tossed them over the ridge. We knew we’d probably return in the not too distant future, and goblins smelled ripe enough even when they haven’t been rotting for several days.

We escorted the dwarves back to town, picking up the bodies of the guards we had discovered yesterday.

As we crossed over the ferry Hallem said we had made an enemy with Lullaby from our humiliation of her in front of her team the day before. Yeah, we kind of figured that out for ourselves, and I was half expecting her to ambush us this morning. No doubt she was still licking her wounds and making big plans for her revenge. We will need to come back this way through the forest again, and we’ll need to be prepared to deal with the bandits — and my vote is to remove them as a threat once and for all.

Back in Roderic’s Cove we brought the bodies to Captain Freson, warning her about how to properly keep them from turning into undead. Next we briefed Audrahni about our adventure.

And lastly we visited Galds, the leader of the dwarven caravan. She was true to her word and took orders from each of us for a master work weapon of our choice. I paid extra for a compound longbow that would utilize my strength to deal extra damage.

As uncomfortable and awkward as it was to fight the goblins in such cramped quarters, I have found that the encounter has improved my ability with a bow at close range.

Next up was town hall, where we searched through the collection of regional maps that Sir Roderic had drawn. We found one of the Churlwood on which someone had drawn a Thassilonian rune — it highlighted a ridge very much like (and close to) the ridge into which the Bramblemouth’s had dug their den. On the back of this map was the sihedron rune — the primary symbol of the Runelords!

Yep, we’d be heading back into the Churlwood. But we need to proceed with caution. We already knew another party was already digging in the area, and we now had to deal with Lullaby’s wounded pride as well.

I purchased some extra arrows, a nice rope, and a lantern — the latter would have proved useful in the day before, and I am sure will prove useful very soon.

Yanor’s Journal Early Sarenith (Feb 2020)

This just has to be an old buried Thassilonian site and the bandits like the goblins are searching for something. What could possibly have the power to drive both goblins and humans on a frantic search for Thassilonian secrets? As much as I want to stay and further investigate the portal it’s time to get a closer look at Roderic’s maps.

The trip back to Roderick’s cove was uneventful, Apparently Lullaby doesn’t want to tangle with us at the moment.  The map of Churlwood had the symbol of the Runelords marking a spot near where we dealt with the goblins. I copied that and other missing points of reference onto my own map.

How is Audrahni tied to the Runelords? Or did she just happen to settle in Roderick’s cove for no reason. I know we have to build trust before she feels comfortable sharing more of her story and motivations but I just hope she doesn’t wait too long.

Spending time with Svaci truly shows how much these animals mean to her. Just hearing her talk about her dogs is clear to anyone that she is doing what she loves. I admit that Lucy has to be my favorite. If I was going to settle down or become a fur trader she would be my first dog but there is no place in my life for a dog. All in all Svaci is a good person and hopefully in the future she can find someone to marry that will share her passionate about dogs. In the meantime there is no reason for her to feel lonely.  I am not really sure if we are becoming just friends or friends with benefits but she seemed to understand that I am not the marrying type.