Mission: Purge The Scepter Tower of Spellgard

This letter contains your assignment and information that may help you complete it.

-Vanisher.
Eleasias, 8th Month in the Year of the Dark Circle, 1477DR.


Assignment
The Scepter Tower of Spellgard has been taken by forces unknown. It is believed these forces intend to bind the Spirit of the ruins, Lady Saharel, to their will.

Objectives:
Free the Tower from its current hosts. Prevent the binding ritual.

Your Contact:
Millek the Thrush. She will find you. Do not use real names outside of your group.

Our network has prepared the following background and intelligence summary:

The Fallen Lands
Sages, cartographers, and explorers once wrote extensively regarding the area long known as the Fallen Lands—a last remnant of Netheril that once lay along the western edge of the desert known as Anauroch. Then the Spellplague came, thrusting this area into great upheaval and leaving much of this territory shrouded in mystery. Although the lands of the Gray Vale beyond the Graypeak Mountains, including the towns of Loudwater and Llorkh, stand as an island of civilization in the vicinity, the Fallen Lands remain a forbidding place.

This area, roughly comprising the territory south of the Far Forest, north of the Graypeak Mountains, and east of the Deep Maw, is crisscrossed by ridges of low foothills, dotted with scrubby stands of pine and barren plateaus. Craters, fissures, and fault lines make navigation and orientation difficult. Sheer ridges force travelers along endless twisting paths, and the fractured topography makes good vantage points few and far between.

The Fallen Lands, as they exist in the aftermath of the Spellplague, remain largely unexplored, but here are a few facts every traveler knows:

✦ Orcs and goblins live in scattered bands throughout the region. They mostly war against each other, though different tribes occasionally unite under a single banner to raid over the Graypeaks and strike the frontier communities of the Gray Vale.

✦ Travel by day is reasonably safe, although particularly bold bandits sometimes menace travelers who don’t appear capable of defending themselves.

✦ Spellgard was once known as Saharelgard, a great fortress of ancient Netheril. It is home to Lady Saharel, a ghost who has the gift of prophecy and insight. She speaks of the future or the past to anyone who chances upon her in the Spellgard ruins.



✦ Spellgard lies atop a ridge at the eastern edge of the Fallen Lands. Its ruins are visible from miles away on a clear day.

✦ At the edge of Spellgard stands the Monastery of the Precipice. Treasure-hunters and seekers after Lady Saharel congregate there.


Rumors
Beyond the accepted facts are the following rumors:

✦ The Monastery of the Precipice trades whiskey distilled on the premises for food and sundries supplied by dwarf merchants.

✦ Orcs are on the march across the Fallen Lands. They are set to seize Spellgard within a month, seeking weapons and magic with which they will assault the settlements of the Gray Vale.

✦ Three weeks ago, a widowed noble came to the Monastery of the Precipice, saying that Lady Saharel had told her where to find her lost husband’s body. She was intending to hire mercenaries to retrieve it so she could give it a proper burial.

✦ A half-finished castle in the Fallen Lands is haunted by the ghost of the lord who died before it could be finished.

✦ The great treasures of Spellgard were taken from the place years ago, in the final days of Low Netheril when the fortress was sacked. However, rumors persist of undisturbed chambers there, and of ancient relics that have not seen the light of day for centuries.

✦ Spellgard has lain in ruins for more than a thousand years, but the castle has never been truly abandoned. A shifting population of treasure hunters and prophecy seekers occupy the aboveground ruins, and the old tunnels beneath the site are home to kobolds and fouler
creatures.

✦ In the middle of Spellgard is the Scepter Tower, one of the few structures of the old castle that still stands complete. Mystery and legend surround the Scepter Tower, and it is said that no living being can pass within its walls.

✦ The magic of Netheril lingers within the stones of Spellgard. Before the castle fell, its arcanists focused incalculable power within the Scepter Tower, and the chambers of old Saharelgard were warded by magic locks that no one could defeat.

✦ Not all who look for Lady Saharel make the Monastery of the Precipice their base of operations in Spellgard. Seeker camps dot the ruins, and some of their residents are as dangerous as any monsters roaming the Fallen Lands.

✦ Dark rumors have come down from the Monastery of the Precipice with the most recent dwarven caravans. Though the Spellgard ruins have always been a dangerous place, a dark presence is said to have established itself there in recent weeks. More than a few of the so-called seekers who look for Lady Saharel have disappeared in the ruins, never to be heard from or seen
again.

Session 2: The Rescue

As the heroes investigated the so-called Lady of Shadows in Loudwater, they were joined by another adventurer who aspired to join the Harpers, one Tieryn of Ashabenford. Assigned to assist the party, Tieryn brought news that 6 children from the neighboring farmlands had been kidnapped over the past week and his Harper contact believes the Lady of Shadow is involved.

Not wanting to waste time, the adventurers assaulted the Lady of Shadow and her criminal gang in their concealed hideout within Loudwater. There the Lady herself, a creature of darkness, along with several villains and thugs crossed blades with the party and was defeated. Though the children were not in the hideout, an interrogated gang member revealed the boys had been sold to a bandit group based in the ruined town of Zelbross, not far to the West.


The adventurers quickly purchased horses, and sped off to Zelbross as the sun began to set. By nightfall, they found the Bandits holed up in a ruined temple to the former god Tyr, and attacked. The battle was not easy, but the adventurers defeated the bandits, looted their base and discovered only 3 children being held as prisoners.


The group convinced one of the bandits, Hermal Lowfields, to help save the remaining 3 boys. Hermal had joined the bandits to pay for a cure for his ailing son. While kidnapping the children of his neighbors disgusted him, he was a desperate man with little time left. With the promise of help from the heroes, Hermal explained 3 boys had been sold to Lizardfolk of the High Moor and described the location they were being held.



Despite the dangers of The Moor, the group made haste into it's heart on the following day and reached a rocky tor that stood out from the bog and brush. It was there that the party attacked a Lizardfolk sentry, there that the creatures erupted from the tor to do battle, and there that party was nearly defeated. Despite both Nayos and Asher being knocked from consciousness, the group rallied to purge the Lizardfolk and rescue the 3 children held inside the cavernous tor.

Victorious, the group returned to Loudwater to a warm welcome. A Harper agent, called Vanisher, introduced herself to the heroes and formally inducted them into the Organization at the rank of Initiate. Over the course of several weeks, the heroes would train in the ways of Those Who Harp and would soon receive their first assignment on their way to full-fledged Harper Agents.

Characters:

The Lady of Shadow.
Criminal boss of Loudwater, the so-called Lady of Shadow could cloak herself in darkness as she moved and was an extremely dangerous villain. Responsible for extortion, kidnapping and many other criminal acts, the Lady left no body when the heroes slew her, but rather burst into shadows that blinded any who were near.


Hermal Lowfields
Once a farmer and devoted worshiper of Chauntea, Hermal and his family became indebted and poor after several years of their croplands failing to produce. When his youngest son came down with Blacktongue fever, Hermal realized time was short. In his desperation, he turned to a group of Bandits who promised him enough coin to purchase a cure in the following week. Without asking how the money would be earned, Hermal accepted the job.


Vanisher
A Harper agent, the woman known as Vanisher inducted the heroes into the ranks of the organization, and trained them in the ways of Those Who Harp. She will be giving them assignments in the months and years ahead, and can be communicated with via the Harper Pins each hero now secretly wears.

Finn

As an apprentice to Phalaster of the Starmount, the mage who would come to be known as Finn was sometimes brash and arrogant. In a secluded tower on the slopes of the Star Mountains, Phalaster taught the boy much of the arcane arts, but humility was a lesson that would be learned the hard way.


In an act of youthful hubris, Finn accidentally unleashed a dark and ancient spirit into the abode of his master. Unprepared, the apprentice found his body completely possessed by the spirit and felt an unfamiliar surge of power as he lost control. His screams alerted Phalaster, who burst into the chamber, tome in hand. A mighty spell-battle erupted between master and apprentice, whose physical presence was now surrounded in bright flames. Finn was an observer bound in his own body, and could do nothing but watch as the spirit used his arms to hurl forth gouts of colored flame that destroyed much of the tower.

From a tome which Finn had never seen his master use, Phalaster uttered an incantation that ripped the spirit out from the body of his apprentice, leaving the boy drained and collapsed upon the floor. Bodiless, the creature was now a hovering cloud of flame, shaped to appear vaguely humanoid with a head of bull horns and brightly glowing white eyes.

The spirit launched itself at Phalaster and began to take control of the wizard. Though his master was powerful, it appeared to Finn that the spirit was consuming him and would soon have complete control. In a final act of what may have been desperation, Phalaster whispered a spell that snuffed out his own life, and his body crumpled to the ground. The spirit howled in rage, and unable to repossess the spell-guarded form of Finn, fled the remains of the tower.

Deeply affected by this tragedy, Finn swore to one day atone for his master's death and banish the spirit forever. Toward this end, he decided to join a group that Phalaster supported during his life, The Harpers. Their resources could help him find this evil, and experience gained in service to them could help him face it.

Nayos Cromwell

Born in 1455 to the Husteem Noble House of Waterdeep, Nayos had an early childhood that was mostly carefree, despite the militaristic nature of the household. His parents planned for Nayos to eventually help run the Mercenary business, and began his training in the martial arts by the time the boy was 9 winters of age.

Soon after his 10th birthday however, House Husteem was besieged by a rival House, altering the course of Nayos's fate forever.In a surprise assault, a small group of cloaked individuals entered the family villa and before any alarm could be raised, murdered half the family while they slept. The remaining family battled back as best they could, and while a few assassins were defeated, House Husteem ultimately fell that night.

Throughout the chaos, Nayos hid in a suit of decorative plate armor and watched in horror as his Uncle, the Patriarch Boreas the 2nd and his consort were forced to their knees and transformed by a Tattoo-faced woman into twisted undead monsters. Nayos screamed upon seeing this and realizing he had revealed himself, ran the only direction he saw, the cellar.

The moaning of his family, now cursed undead creatures, grew louder as their corpses shambled slowly down the stairs towards Nayos. Desperate, Nayos squeezed his small body through the grates that drained water into the sewers beneath the villa and plunged into the darkness below. His pursuers must have heard the splash Nayos made upon landing in the waste-deep muck, as the sound of bending metal and cracking stone made him realize that he had not escaped, and so he ran deeper into the sewers.

Without light, Nayos inevitably reached a dead end. Though his will to live was not yet exhausted, his legs had given out and he could barely raise a hand as if to halt the two walking dead, once his family, that had tracked him to this spot. But, as the Gods willed, Nayos did not meet his end that night……

Light filled the chamber, as blinding and warming to the skin as the sun in mid-summer, accompanied by the sound of men chanting prayers. The last thought of Nayos before he slipped from consciousness was that he must have reached the Heavens.

Nayos was rescued by the Cromwell clan in service to the God Kelemvor, Judge of the Dead. They never asked how he had come to the sewers, or where he belonged. Once they realized that the boy had no home to speak of, they took it as a sign from their God that Nayos had been delivered to them for a purpose, and that purpose was to become a champion of the faith.

When he was old enough, Nayos decided to head East to the Gray Vale, a frontier where it was said a group of like-minded adventurers could be joined that sought to eradicate corruption, tyranny and the perversion of nature that is the Undead.

Though he never spoke of the night House Husteem was ended, Nayos took a personal vow to find those responsible and bring justice to them. One day he would find that tattoo-faced woman, and ensure that never again would she bring another monstrosity upon the face of Faerun.

Session 1: Barrow of the Ogre King

Eleasias, 8th Month in the Year of the Dark Circle, 1477 DR.

A group of four individuals, each with their own personal desire to become part of the Harper organization, traveled to the frontier town of Loudwater to seek out the town's leader and rumored Harper ally, Lady Moonfire.

No sooner had the four realized they shared a common goal and banded together did the outer wall of Loudwater explode in a fiery burst that sent debris flying dangerously into the town square. From the newly created gap poured forth a contingent of goblin attackers.



The goblins made haste to the shop of Garwan's Curiousity's, slaying several townsfolk who were unable to flee in time, and entered the shop. The four adventurers drew their weapons and quickly cut down the invaders, rescuing the shopkeeper Garwan, who presented the party with what he believed the goblins were after, the Horn Totem.

After speaking with several key residents of Loudwater, including Lady Moonfire herself, the group ventured to the goblin's lair, referred to by some as The Barrow of the Ogre King.

Though the goblins put up a fierce defense, the adventurers sweeped through the Barrow and destroyed their leader, High Shaman Sancossug, thus ending the goblin threat to Loudwater.

Lady Moonfire thanked the group, and suggested a final test of valor to determine their worth. The party was tasked with rooting out and bringing to justice the so-called "Lady of Shadows", a crimial boss within the town.

Party notes:
Kyos - former cutpurse punished by the Lady of Shadows gang. We paid him some coin for information including the lair of the crime boss herself, as well as his many colorful opinions of Lady Moonfire and Curavar the Brazen.

Lady Moonfire - somewhat flighty half-elf leader of the town. Uncertain if she's a Harper agent or ally, but seems genuine about helping us join the organization.

Sunsteen Urbeth- local man who offers advice to use for saving his life. Can often be found in the Green Tankard Tavern.

The Lady of Shadow - hidden crime boss, possibly a worshipper of Shar. Runs a protection racket, charging local merchants.

Curavar the Brazen - local wizard who stole the Horn Totem from the goblin barrow. Offered the party more information if they would recover the Skull Totem from the barrow for him.

Brosha Manx - Runs the Apothecary. We investigated the shop, but was closed with a sign indicating she'd be back in a ten-day. Aparently doesn't pay protection money to the Lady of Shadow.

Megana Nistral - Enormously powerful woman who runs the smithy. Does not pay protection money because she can defend her own shop. Seems plausible.

The Ogre King - Long dead ogre-like creature. The goblins were trying to bring him back to life with a ritual.

High Shaman Sancossug - Leader of the goblin tribe. Attempted to return the Ogre King back to life with ritual.