Deepmountain Campaign

Upon reaching Stonewall Keep the dwarfs of the party confirmed the structure was of an ancient dwarfen construction. However as the group approached the walls a swarm of ice like creatures burst from the snow banks, a battle ensued and the creatures were joined by a large ice gliding beast. The party fought them off and slew every last one. Finding an ice lair behind a frozen waterfall the party invaded the lizard like creatures home and silenced every last one. Inside the party found a shrine to the dragon god Tiamat and a burrowed tunnel into the courtyard of the keep. However upon some poor scouting by one of the party members the keep was alerted and the tunnel collapsed allowing the party to nearly escape alive. Escaping from the lair the party rushed across the snow field to a sewer grate while under a constant volley of arrows from the walls themselves. To their surprise the party realized with horror that there were two catapults mounted atop the towers of the keep. The war machines rained stone blocks dipped in tar at the fast moving party. The flaming blocks crashed into the snow field around the party and to their surprised they realized they were standing on a frozen lake. Many members perished below the ice, including the Knight Nal?bir. A few survivors made it to the sewer grate and forced their way up into the drain, the last of them scurrying in as a flaming block impacted the side of the mountain causing it to collapse upon the sewer entrance.

So the adventures led by Nal’bir and backed by Lou the Pelorian cleric helped to clear the ancient keep. There they recovered some lost dwarfen artifacts and destroyed an obelisk to the deity Thyrm. The dire winter abated in the general vicinity but as a whole it continued to rage on. The small group soon trekked the many days to the town of Two Oaks where they found the wizard Isaac, but were unable to secure much information. Yet the group decided to take on a quest for the local duke of the town to recover a stolen dwarfen artifact. After research the group located a crypt in a mountain called Firepeak or in older text, White Plume Mountain. They soon set off; however do to lack of planning they were soon stranded at the base of the volcanic mountain.

One of the Fallen Heroes Back-story.

Morand's Personal History by Todd K

Morand's clan made their living trading amongst small villages and camps. When Morand was but a child the clan had their most successful year ever and was overburdened with goods and slow to make their way back to Trailsend where they wintered. The first heavy snows came early that year and further delayed their progress.

Their bounty and presence attracted the attention of an orc raiding party. They fought valiantly and with great courage but were overwhelmed. What was a defeat became a slaughter as the last man fell and the orc's began killing the women, children and feeble of the clan. Morand escaped, running into the woods. Cold, alone, frightened and with desperate pleas to The Great God Moradin for salvation, he would have died that winter except that within days he stumbled across a small band of dwarfs that had fallen into savage barbarianism. They treated him roughly, but they allowed him to survive and live amongst them.

He grew tall and lanky by dwarf standards. His barbarous companions taught him to use both ranged weapons and traps to hunt game. As a gift for his contribution to the party he was given a rusty, dull, old and chipped dwarfen battleaxe. As soon as he was of age he left the savages and struck off on his own, moving quickly, silently and living off the land, his range, speed and lethality with the crossbow improved. Practicing daily with his battleaxe he imagined over and over taking revenge on the orcs who had so cruelly butchered his family.

His ranging took him further and further until at last one day he reached Trailsend and found that he alone was the sole survivor of the trading party that had been ambushed that cruel winter so many years ago. Distraught, he held onto the stories that his father had told him around the campfire. That Clan Morand had been sworn and stalwart defenders of Realm Norgirn. They had fought valiantly and with great courage against the coming darkness alongside the great Fardann at Farak. These things were the stuff of legend and myth by this time, but Morand felt something stir within him. He saw the townsfolk as cowards living in shabby squalor, the illiterate barbarians of the wild as lost and beyond saving and he longed to restore dwarfen race to its former glory.

Viewed by the elders of Townsend with suspicion and disdain as being tainted by the wilds and unable to return to the barbarians who had imparted their cunning and survivalist instincts in him, Morand was set apart. Using his faith in The Great God Moradin as a shield in these forsaken times he let his rage against the orcs build. He now wanted to expunge every evil that had befallen the land and robbed his family of their true lineage as warriors. As an outcast orphan raised by savages he was unable to gain an audience for these views with the elders or townspeople who seemed content to live in their mundane existence in relative peace.

Morand soon became bored and disillusioned with town life and in his frustration he fell into long periods of dark moods, until a group of adventurers entered into town and found a tome that described what Morand already saw as his fate. To battle tirelessly and until his last breath against the forces that had plunged the once mighty dwarfen kingdom into darkness.

The Great God Moradin had indeed forged a weapon for Morand, not of metal but in spirit.

So this was the last that was heard from the small fellowship. What ever did happen to them? Maybe another group of youngbeard will search out their destiny and in the process discover their legacy…………..