As is typical of Pathfinders, each of you is off pursuing some other area of interest while awaiting your next assignment. Scattered to the winds across Golarion though you may be, a letter from the Society manages to find you. This missive turns out to be from Urwal, the iruxi leader of the Verdant Wheel. As Pathfinders, you know Urwal by reputation, and some may have even worked with him before. He’s one of the newest leaders of the Pathfinder Society, an iruxi stargazer who simply showed up at the Grand Lodge the previous year and made himself at home, correcting labels on Mwangi artifacts, sorting insect collections, and painting murals of the night sky as seen from central Garund. He’s considered odd, even by the flexible standards of the Pathfinders, but he’s clearly committed to the Pathfinder cause, and he and his supporters have proven their worth where the preservation of nature is concerned.
Further, you are also aware that the Pathfinder Society was involved in a major operation in Finadar Forest in the last year, 4718 ar. An ancient cyclopean ritual was accidentally triggered by a group of goblins living in a dragon’s graveyard, causing a massive fire. With help from the Pathfinders, the local centaurs and druids managed to stop the fire, and since then have been working on the forest’s recovery. The goblins in question have since emigrated west.
With this letter in hand, the various Pathfinders set out to travel to the town of Mishkar, in Iobaria in the far northeastern reaches of Avistan.
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When the messenger arrives at the Lake View Tavern in the Kyonin settlement of Greengold and asks for Farzin Maaravi, a blond half-elf woman at the bar stiffens in surprise, although she quickly catches herself and concludes her transaction: selling a vial of enchanted rose water, a cure-all and a specialty of hers, a formula she learned while studying at the Erages Academy, of course.
She bids her client goodbye, pockets her silver, turns to the messenger, and in a voice much deeper than before, she says, "I know Farzin Maaravi. He's my husband."
With her charms, she persuades the messenger to hand the letter over to her. Of course she'll deliver it. Of course she understands it's urgent, and of course she knows that no one else is to read it. Don't be silly.
Letter in hand, she quickly rushes out of the tavern, too hurried to heed the calls to come back and pay her tab.
Later, walking along the docks, reunited with his magpie familiar, Papayo, and his disguise long faded, Farzin stows aboard a merchant ship headed up the Glass River, and thus his journey to Mishkar begins.
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The letter finds Obad'of by way of an Animal Messenger. He was off exploring the untrodden paths of the Isle of Kortos. An intense desire to see all of Golarion's nooks and crannies has become his quest....
Obad'of stands tall, easily 2 hands past 6 feat. His body's scales are a consistent and muted sage, the ridges on his back slide into a green so dark that they're essentially black in all but the brightest light. His belly scales are the only hint of brightness, a chartreuse shade common in his line. His chosen profession, coupled with his natural musk are a melange of peat and pine. It's not unpleasant, but it stands out when in the trappings of civilized lands. By training an herbalist and Aspirant of the Storm Order spent some time guiding a Pathfinder party. His curiosity was piqued after listening to their campfire tails of biomes far different than the Hool Marsh. He left for Absalom after reaching the age of majority.
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Darlinger had just recently left the River Kingdoms, wandering his way south a bit. He likes the River Kingdoms. They seem lawless and there seems to always be something he can get into. He makes his way by a combination of performing for the locals and trying to make some underworld contacts.
He's average build for a Vudrani, but does tend to wear bold colors.
Upon receiving the note he thinks "Ah, I've met him before in Absolom at that big party."
He then starts his way to meet the other Pathfinders.
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The messenger is breathing heavily when he finally reaches Brynn Bear-Talker. The trip to the Storval Plains is long, dangerous, and... one heckuva workout.
The tanned half-elf has her black hair tied back as she turns a pheasant on a spit. The hunter spies the messenger and waves him over to join her. "Take a load off, and turn this for me. I'll search for some herbs while it cooks to give it some flavour."
The messenger holds out a letter which she waves off. "After. First, dinner. Robb guard our guest," she says this last bit to a young bear that's lying by the fire.
The bear doesn't even bother to move. It instead closes its eyes and goes to sleep.
Brynn returns after an hour or so, holding a small bag filled with berries and herbs. Some of what she has found is used to season the meal, others are edible and accompany their dinner, and the last bit she mixes with water for flavour. It's a lean, but very tasty meal for the two of them.
"Okay, let's see that letter," Brynn says without preamble. She opens and reads it, taking her time to make sure she doesn't miss any details. Finally, she nods. "Alright, I'll leave for Iobaria. Help me clean up the camp site."
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Deep in the cellar of a shabby, decrepit building in Magnimar, a disheveled elf is poring through a pile of tomes when a faint rap on the door snaps them from their reverie. Even though patience is thin, the sigil of the Open Road borne by the visitor brings a small smile to their face.
Iobaria...? Flamel muses. A far distance, but what an opportunity! That the missive comes from Unwal is odd, but not altogether surprising. Flamel shuts the door and hurries back to the basement, to pack and prepare.
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As Brynn makes her way east, moving cautiously and quietly through the Hold of Belkzen and across Ustalav and Numeria, she reflects on Urwal’s references to spirits and primal worship. From her own training, she knows that Iobaria’s dominant religion is the worship of various nature spirits, who protect harvests, prevent forest fires, and so forth. She’s also aware that it should be a welcoming place for her, as most religious figures there are druids.
Elsewhere, Obad’of is well into his longer journey from Absalom. To his great delight, he’s able to make nearly the entire trip on the Sellen River, where he can swim daily. As he paddles along in the glassy waters of Hooktongue Slough in southern Brevoy, he thinks about Urwal’s peculiar comments and references to rituals. To the best of his knowledge, the Green is the planet of Castrovel, associated with fey, and the Stranger is one of the constellations of the Cosmic Caravan, linked to evil magic.
At more or less the same moment, Flamel is traveling from Magnimar, across the Mindspin Mountains and then by boat across Lake Encarthan and the River Kingdoms. Their thinking is also on Urwal’s references to ritual, but the conclusions are rather different – that the Green is the planet of Castrovel, but is associated with fertility, while the Stranger is one of the constellations of the Cosmic Caravan, and properly associated with ill magic and typically depicted as a single, staring eye. Further, they know that the Child is another name for Golarion, while the Mother is another of the Cosmic Caravan, associated with protection.
The charming, changeable Farzin and the enchanting Darlinger have much shorter journeys to make, and they set out a bit later than the others. By coincidence, all of the Pathfinders arrive in New Stetven, on the shore of Lake Reykal, on the same day, and seek lodging in a simple but comfortable lakefront inn. Realizing they are all traveling to the same goal, they travel together the last few days, arriving at last at their destination.
Sprawling on a hilltop overlooking a broad caravansary, the town of Mishkar is an eclectic mix of steeply pitched Varisian houses interspersed with the occasional red-tiled Taldan roof. The scars of the recent fires are still visible if one cares to look, seen in the town’s smoke-darkened rooftops and sooted doorways. Mostly, though, the Pathfinders see evidence of new construction and repairs both finished and in progress; it seems that Mishkar is decidedly in favor of putting the past behind it. Today, it is a city of paint buckets and ladders, of carpenters and surveyors and masons, smelling of sawdust and sounding of workers’ cries.
The caravansary at the foot of the hill is equally bustling. A large caravan of merchants from Brevoy has just arrived, and the building’s yard is crowded with clerks and guards, horses and grooms, with curious children darting between the wagon wheels. Just about everyone seems to be at the caravansary today, except the person Urwal directed the party to meet. Jaldan is nowhere to be found.
Farzin finds that people are interested enough in his magpie that they crowd around him, and he can’t really see past them to spot anything at all, much less a particular centaur. His colleagues have much better fortune, however. As Obad’of looks up from his tracking and says he’s found the tracks of a young, red-headed, female centaur heading east, that have been there for less than an hour , Darlinger talks to one of the grooms at the caravansary, who mentions he saw a teenaged centaur girl out by the east wall perhaps twenty minutes ago.
Following these leads, the party heads in that direction. Just past the east wall of Miskhar is the peculiar sight of a freckled, teenaged centaur yelling at an apple tree. Upon closer inspection, it is clear that she is actually yelling at a pair of human children who have climbed the tree: a boy and a girl, each about ten years old, with matching red hair and homespun clothes. The girl nonchalantly eats an apple while the boy rifles through a decorated leather satchel.
“You little demons, give that back!” the centaur yells, flicking her tail in profound irritation.
“Hmm. Nope,” the girl in the tree says, munching on the apple.
“Not until you show us how to make those dead squirrel monsters!” the boy calls down.
“Sure, I’ll show you! Come on down, I’ll make two dead monsters! Little devils, with red hair!” the centaur yells, then spots your approach. “... Oh no. You’re… did Urwal send you? Oh no. Um. Can you just... I’m sorry, could you come back in a half hour? Please?”
“Umm, well, to start with, I’m Jaldan of the Redpine Clan, as you already figured out,” she responds. ”I’m going to be the Redpine clan’s new shaman!” Her expression falters. “Eventually. Someday. If Cenenviel doesn’t kick me out for this mess. Oh no, I’m dead. Kill me.”
Gesturing hopelessly up into the tree, she continues, ”Those little twerps stole my bag! It’s got my books and my tools and my food and it’s got the money I was supposed to give you for travel costs, and... and...” Jaldan trails off, then puts her head in her hands and moans. “This is a disaster.”
”She’s a forest witch, see, and we want her to make us one of those scary squirrel monsters. Or show us how to make a scarecrow walk,” the boy says, as if this is the most reasonable request in the world. “Then we’ll give the bag back!” The girl adds simply, “Yeah, we’re not thieves.”
“What do we call ourselves? Well, I’m Alayn!” retorts the boy, brightly. “And I’m Linnit,” the girl adds. The siblings beam. It is unclear if their misunderstanding of Flamel’s question was innocent or purely willful.
“It’s not lame and boring!” Alayn objects, “It’s like, a dead squirrel, with a bunch of branches stuck in it, and it moves kinda like a centipede, and it’s got burning eyes with bloodpine sap, and it’s the awesomest thing I’ve ever seen!”
“I think they maybe saw one of the polluted nature spirits, ” Jaldan says to the party, quietly. “And before you ask, no, I can’t make one. Not that I would. If I could.”
At Darlinger’s promise of something even more interesting than a squirrel monster or a walking scarecrow, the children toss their half-eaten apples aside and scramble down the tree. They stand shoulder to shoulder, leaning against the tree's broad trunk with the bag held behind them, as Linnit says, ”Okay, show us! What’s this thing we’ll never forget?”
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"Come, little ones. I will show you the power of nature, of the elements."
Brynn closes her eyes and communes with nature. She taps into the volatile wellspring of the elemental plane, first producing a ball of flame in her hand. "This flame holds power. It can cook our food, keep us warm, or shine light in a dark place. It has the ability to serve us well."
She places the ball of fire on the ground, and it begins to burn. "And though it is not anethema to Gozreh, this flame can do great harm. It can spread as a wildfire, burning down our homes, and even take the life of others. Fortunately, we have this," she points imperiously, communing again with nature to draw from another elemental plane. A violent ray of frost bursts from her outstretched finger, rapidly snuffing the flame and leaving a few snowy particles on the ground.
"We have balance. Ice to fire. Night to day. Predator and prey. It is this balance that makes our lives have meaning, that makes our world real. And I," she smiles, giving the children a wink as she pauses for effect, "I have learned to call these forces through my dedication to that balance. Neat, huh?"
Alayn and Linnit’s eyes go wide in wonder as Brynn produces a fiery ball from her hand! And when she sets it down and extinguishes it with a magic ice ray, the children gasp in amazement! Dropping the satchel on the ground before them as if they’ve completely forgotten about it, they scamper away talking volubly to each other. ”That was so cool!” Alayn shouts, ”She made a ball of fire!” Linnit responds, ”But the ice zap was even better!” As they move away, their excited voices fade, and Brynn turns to look at Jaldan. The teen centaur’s eyes are dewy with admiration as she stares at Brynn, and Jaldan says in an intense whisper, ”You. Are. So. Amazing! You can make the forces of nature move as you wish them to, pushing and pulling the elements to serve your needs but keeping all in balance…wow. Just...Wow.”
She stares at Brynn for a long moment, then says, ”One day, I’m going to be able to do that. I’m going to be a true shaman, in tune with nature…Wow, that was amazing.”
Jaldan eventually collects herself, and realizes her bag is on the ground before her. She spends a few minutes sorting through the pack, making sure that the children haven’t stolen or broken anything inside. Finally, she relaxes, closing the bag.
“I might actually survive,” the young centaur says. “Thank you. Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you!!! You just saved my hooves. Uh... when we get back to camp, could you maybe, uh... not mention this to anyone. Please?”
”Oh, thank you, thank you!” Jaldan replies, clapping her hands together in excitement that maybe her clan and her mentor won’t banish her for life. She leads the way back to Mishkar proper, explaining the situation as she walks, “So, here’s the story. Over the last few months, something really weird has happened to the local forest spirits. They’ve always been a little cranky, but now they’ve gone from ‘Auntie Kaana before she has her morning tea’ to ‘We will bake bread from your bones’. They’re not talking to the druids or the shamans, and when Cenenviel tried to do a big ritual to ask them what’s wrong, a tree animated and tried to kill him.”
“So that’s bad. Worse, the spirits have started making bodies for themselves. You know leshys, right? Well, as you might know, normally only druids can make one. They grow a little plant or mushroom body, nicely ask a spirit to come inside, and poof, leshy. Except now the spirits are making their own bodies, and they’re really creepy, and also violent. I had to smash something that looked like a dead skunk crossed with a thorn-bush when it tried to eat my face last night. These things have been attacking people, starting fires, and trying to burn down the forest. I don’t think anyone’s gotten killed yet, but it’s probably going to happen sooner rather than later.”
”If they do start a big fire, I know some magic that might help. Well...” Jaldan trails off, suddenly finding something above and behind your head incredibly fascinating. “I know a magic. A spell that makes water! Most of the time. Once I conjured very weak tea instead, but I don’t know what I did wrong, and Cenenviel won’t tell me till I’m further along in my training. No help at all.”
“Anyway, the trouble with the local forest spirits is what Cenenviel, Kaana, and your Urwal are trying to figure out now at the Redpine camp. They seem to think you can help. So! Get your stuff and let’s get going!”
Once the party has gathered their belongings and reconvened, Jaldan gives them some money and supplies from her bag, advising them that the journey to the Redpine camp should take about a day and that they should prepare for trouble ahead.
”Wow, I guess you don’t get out much, if you don’t know who they are,” Jandal replies to Brynn, oblivious to how her remark sounds. ”Ceneviel’s an elven druid who watches over the forest nearby. Nice old guy, lives in the woods and has a pet wolverine named Berry-Eater. It’s really cute. He’s been teaching me a little magic, so I can be a great shaman later.”
”And I call her Auntie Kaana, but she’s properly called Chief Kaana Korag of the Redpine Clan. She’s the best warrior in the clan, and the wisest leader. She’s not really my aunt, but she and my mom were war buddies way back when. If you all are ready, let’s go!”
The bubbly young centaur leads the Pathfinders into Finadar Forest. It is much like a typical evergreen wood, except for the fact that, rather than being deep greens and browns, everything is in shades of red. The branches overhead are crimson, and scarlet needles crunch underfoot. Jaldan explains that this is because the forest is home to a rare species of highly flammable conifer known as bruorsivi, also known as blood pine. Because of this, the forest has always been prone to brief, intense fires that burned out naturally or were contained by elf druids as well as centaur shamans from the Redpine clan – until the big fire recently.
In addition to a useful source of information about her forest home, Jaldan is an enthusiastic traveling companion, spending the trip peppering the Pathfinders with questions about the world outside of Finadar Forest. ”Farzin, where is your bird from? What’s its name? Did you find it or did it find you?” she asks, but doesn’t wait for a response before tossing out more questions. ”Obad’of, I’ve heard of beings like you, but never met one – I didn’t even know if they were real! Can you tell me what your people call themselves? Where are you from?” Darlinger’s blond hair catches her eye and she spins in his direction and asks, ”You seem like you’ve maybe done more traveling than the other Pathfinders? Are you the chief of this clan? Will you marry one of them, so your children can be chiefs too?”
It is clear that for Jaldan, the trip to Urwal’s camp is the equivalent of a summer stroll in the park, so while she keeps an eye on the forest out of habit, she’s clearly not expecting trouble.
After a few hours, the party enters an irregular clearing, where a band of absolutely bizarre creatures crawls from the forest, chirping and hooting as they go. A moss-covered human skull scuttles along on six branches like a spider. A dead raccoon slinks along on a fungal mat that bleeds sap from a hundred crimson ‘eyes’. A twisted mass of weeds topped with pulsing flowers staggers forward, leaving trails of burning sap. As they draw near, the oozing, crawling plants give out a plaintive shriek in some otherworldly tongue.
As the tiny monsters approach, something odd happens. One dreadful creature, a rotten gourd walking on three rabbit feet, lunges forward, only to trip and smash itself against an upraised root. Some kind of hot sap splashes around it, and in seconds the bruorsivi needles catch fire and begin to burn!
“Spirits of woe and weal,” Jaldan swears softly, watching in horrified fascination. “They’re going to set the whole forest aflame!”
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"Robb, help Obad'of! Bite!" Brynn orders her companion. The bear, for his part, ambles forward and tries to take a bite.
Brynn then begins to commune with nature, drawing from the coolest depths of the elements. She gestures at the same creature, and sends a ray of frost from her outstretched finger!
Obad’of rushes forward, slashing into one of the unnatural creatures! Darlinger begins to play a rousing tune, while Farzin rushes forward and stamps out a patch of burning bruorsivi needles! At Brynn’s urgent entreaty, Robb saunters forward and bites half-heartedly at the closest plantstrosity, but his heart just isn’t in it. Brynn, on the other hand, manages to zap the thing with an icy ray!
Byrnn’s ray freezes the plant’s vital internal structures, killing it but also causing it to release a burst of toxic energy!
Flamel fumbles a moment with a waterskin, then just decides to stamp out the fire – but doesn’t quite execute the plan.
The remaining moss-skull leshy steps next to Obad’of, then causes a burst of tangling plants to sprout all around itself!
The pink-flowered leshies begin to hurl toxic fruit at Farzin and Flamel! The flames spread, and their heat also burns the Pathfinders nearby!
Critical Success The target is unaffected and becomes temporarily immune to all plum leshys’ bitter harvest for 1 hour.
Success The target is unaffected.
Failure The target is sickened 1. Once it succeeds at its save to recover from the sickened condition, it is immune to all plum leshys’ bitter harvest for 1 hour.
Critical Failure As failure, plus the target also takes a –1 penalty on all saves to recover from the sickened condition for 1 hour.
Jaldan hurries toward the fire! She concentrates and says a few words in her people’s tongue, conjuring a splash of water on part of the fire!
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"Soon I will get him out. For now, he helps."
To the bear she points and says, "Kill."
Robb bites and claws at the monster.
But of course he just doesn't care. He does look over at Brynn, as if he is looking for a signal.
Brynn reconnects with the natural forces to pull forth a second ray of frost that she fires at the same target.