Jeb's Journal, Entry 1 The Sellsword Tavern...
I was sitting in a Tavern in the Market District. This was my first visit to Bard’s Gate. I’m from a small homestead, tucked in the corner of nowhere. Anyway, I had just gone where the crowd had suggested and I was only a few minutes into my lunch, a loose stew with black bread and some ale. That’s when they walked in. A lady with a weird hat and her daughter. Or so I thought. Turns out they were two “artifact historians”. One a Teifling, some sort of half-human/half-demon person, and the other a halfling, a race of small people. Like I said, I’m from a small town. Never seen none ’a them before.
They came looking for muscle for an expedition to some shrines. They’d come into possession of a defiled holy artifact that apparently the church of Muir had wanted to check on. Hadn’t sent anyone out there in decades or more and didn’t realize things could get that bad. I took the job offer along with some dwarf who was more drunk than ol’ Blillings gets on harvest festival nights. And that’s tough. Oh, and a crazy little gnome (more little folk, but they tend to be magical) and his pet scorpion tagged along too.
We headed for the temple of Muir. When we got there, we met with the clergy’s leadership and met our next two members of our expedition. Two brothers, both dedicated to Muir and bona fide badasses. We were given some things to help us with the journey, some holy water and oils. And we made no waste, heading out that afternoon.
In ages past, two vast temples to Thyr and Muir were erected in Bard’s Gate at the founding of that great city that still stands today. The priestly followers of these noble gods erected smaller duplicates of the twin temples in a small, secluded valley to the north of the city, adjacent to a lake of crystalline clarity. This valley became known as the Valley of the Shrines. In the nearby hills they also carved burial halls to house their fallen heroes and worshipers. For years the worship of Thyr and Muir thrived, producing heroes and paladins of legend, some of whom are entombed in the burial halls.
But new gods came, replacing the older gods. And the worship of Thyr and Muir in the secluded valley — both demanding deities — waned in favor of the more liberal gods of song, craft and commerce in the city of Bard’s Gate. Unable to maintain both the twin temples in Bard’s Gate and the complex in the Valley of the Shrines, the priests of Thyr and Muir sealed the northern shrines in the valley and returned their worship to the temples in the city. Abandoned, the burial halls still remained sacred places, and small groups of pilgrims continued to make treks to the sealed temples to pay respect to their fallen predecessors and to peer into the crystalline lake.
As the years passed, the shrines in the northern valley increasingly fell to disuse and ruin. Only a handful of devoted priests, led by the high priest Abysthor, were left to continue the elaborate rituals of their gods. Even the great twin temples in Bard’s Gate began to deteriorate. Despite Abysthor’s devotion, his temple and the worship of his gods in general waned.
In his final years, Abysthor spent many hours in the main temple in Bard’s Gate in communion with his deity. Declaring he had received a great vision, he traveled alone — aged and infirm — to the Valley of the Shrines, claiming he would return soon and that the glory of Thyr and Muir would be restored. Abysthor never returned. Some said he had gone there to die and had done so alone because no other priest could cast the spells necessary to consecrate him properly. None since Abysthor have returned to the abandoned burial halls or the twin shrines by the crystal lake.
Abysthor’s failed quest was taken as a sign of decline. It has been some twenty years since Abysthor disappeared. Only a handful of priests remain in the temples in Bard’s Gate, their cavernous temples falling to disuse, bereft of worshipers.
The company had reached the Twin Shrines at last. After trekking North from Bard's Gate, staying over in the Citadel of Griffons, they had navigated the harsh frontier led by their guide, the tracker Jebbah Hardthorne. Harried by increasingly evil forces, they made their way to the Crystal Lake, only to find it polluted by abyssal skum. The dwarf Tarvellin was swallowed whole as fiendish frogs emerged from the tainted waters of the once sacred lake. Making their way into the vault beneath the defiled shrine to rally, they heard the rumble of granite slid aside as a terror from the abyss spoke to them inside their minds promising doom and tragic defeat.
The two brothers, faithful of Muir, drew their swords for one last stand. Jeb Hardthorne nocked an arrow to his bow. Lucia Moonshadow readied her most efficacious spells. But Priscilla Springheel, the tiny thief, seeing the odds were against them, searched every nook and cranny for access to the treasure room, hoping to find a weapon that could turn the tide of battle. Behind a tapestry she found a secret door and entered, but behind her, Ares Valorn, seeing that all was lost, sealed her inside the secret chamber so that she might escape a terrible fate.
When the sounds of battle subsided, Priscilla looked on in anguish as the door of the chamber slid back. There was Ares, broken on the floor of his Goddess's shrine. Releasing Priscilla was his final act.
Alone and full of grief, Priscilla made her way to the enchanted pool of her friend Roswen, the Nereid, who blessed her and nourished her with enchanted berries. From there she returned to the Citadel of Griffon's, and convinced the Knights of the corruption and danger that was growing in the North. Delivered on the back of a Griffon to the doors of Bard's Gate, Priscilla set out to notify the High Priest of Muir of the failure of their expedition.
But first, she would get to the bottom of something. She thought back to the events that started this all. Lucia had come to her, asking her to obtain an "art object" that was in transit to a buyer outside Bard's Gate. That object had turned out to be the head of the statue of Muir from the shrine in the valley. What had Lucia gotten herself mixed up in? Who was the buyer that the head of the statue was in transit to when it happened to fall off that turnip truck and into Priscilla's hands? If only Priscilla had paid more attention to these things. She would have to ask Lucia's friend Lilia Stinisen. Boy was Lilia going to be sad that Lucia was dead.
Lilia has attended the Midnight Masquerades at the Vinewood Estate.
Lilia only:
Ayn takes pride in the quality of the grapes she and her family have grown for six generations here in the Lyre Valley, although of late she has become almost maddened with a family scandal that she feels has rocked her reputation within the city she loves to serve.
Cairenn likes to visit the City of Ashes during daylight hours. So far, he has never spent the night there.
Cairenn only:
Cairenn sometimes lingers at the cemetary after the Caretaker's Guild has finished work and headed back to Bard's Gate. On such occasions he has seen a mysterious woman with blond dreadlocks standing on the banks of the Hand of Fate beyond the cemetery walls.
While receiving martial training at the Temple of Freya, Urrnir learned of a strange tavern in Bard's Gate called the Maiden's Cross.
Urrnir only:
Maidens Cross was founded by a female order of paladins. They opened this tavern/shrine to further their cause and draw away suspicion from their goals.
Ronen has long made a practice of visiting the City of Ashes to offer last rights to the dead and nameless interred there.
Ronen only:
Ronen recently saw a distinguished looking craftsman arrive at the City of Ashes with a small escort, to meet with the Caretaker's Guild. This craftsman behaved secretively and hurried inside when he saw Ronen observing him.
Before the quest to the Valley of the Shrines, Priscilla was hired by Lucia Moonshadow to intercept a piece of a statue in transit to a location outside Bard's Gate.
Priscilla only:
Priscilla doesn't remember the name of the buyer, but the seller was headed out of Bard's Gate on the road to the City of Ashes when Priscilla stole the statue.
Ares was raised with tales of great paladins such as Alaric and Gerraint, Justicars of Muir.
Ares only:
His father told him that Alaric is entombed in the Burial Halls north of the Valley of Shrines, with the artifacts the Stone of Tircople and the Chalice of Elanir.
Woman: "Hello old friend, how is your work coming along?"
Man: "I haven't done any work in years, I have been focusing on my collection."
Woman: "Oh, a collector? How nice. Have you come across anything of interest recently?"
Man: "This week actually. A piece of the idol of one of the old gods from a shrine in the north. The head in fact. Acquired on behalf of our mutual friend. It ships off come morning, to the City of Ashes. Someone should tell the priests their goddess has lost her head, they haven't been up to that shrine in a decade!"
