Marvel Civil War Scavenger Hunt

NOTE: Marvel and all characters herein are copyright and trademarks of Marvel, Inc. I hope in the spirit of imagination young and old that they understand the intended use is recreational and NOT commercial use of these characters in this party game.

For my son’s first birthday we did the Gummy Bear Pirate Captain Treasure Hunt, essentially due to his love of the Gummy Bear Song:

An annual series of inopportune family weddings have made celebration of his birthday a smaller event for the last few years. This year my wife and I decided to plan another scavenger hunt, using elements of the Amazing Race using the world of the Marvel Civil War. We sorted our son, nephews, and their parents into two teams, Team Captain America and Team Iron Man. Each team got a T-shirt as a party favor and team uniform. They were gathered to get a briefing from Agent Maria Hill (my wife) and myself, S.H.I.E.L.D. Executive Director Mick Fury (Samuel L Jackson’s brother from another mother). I told them that they had to find the missing Avengers and whichever team found the most would win. There would be three missions, each mission would cause the losing team to have a time penalty on the scavenger hunt that followed each mission.

My wife’s Maria Hill was accomplished with black workout gear. As props I bought a pirate eye patch and some Halloween military insignia. Combined with black EMT pants, shirt, and a trench coat round out my Mick Fury costume. Which I wore in public. But hey the little guys were wearing luchador masks, so I blended. Each mission came in a manila folder with the S.H.I.E.L.D. logo on the front. Each clue that Director Fury handed out came in a S.H.I.E.L.D. emblazoned envelope..

Mission #1: Escape from the Red Skull

The first mission occurred at a local park, each team member had to accomplish a task. The cumulative time giving one or the other the advantage in the scavenger hunt to follow. The tasks were:

1. Across the balance beam
2. Back across the balance beam
3. Across the monkey bars
4. Up the cliff wall
5. Down the escape slide

Back the house the teams got 25 minutes to solve their first clue:

Of all the things in the world, I am the shortest and the longest, the swiftest and the slowest. I am the thing people waste the most. Yet they need more than anything else, for without me nothing can be done.

The answer of course is “time”, which lead the teams to an alarm clock, under which their next clue lay:

Round and round I run, but nowhere do I go.

The answer for this clue was “treadmill” under which they found three figures from Cap’s side: Winter Soldier, Falcon, and Hawkeye. Of course this was misinterpreted as “fan” so they accidentally found a clue for Mission #2, which forced me to change the location of this later clue while everyone was distracted with another mission.

Mission #2: Secrets of the Submariner

My nephews and to a lesser extent my son, love fishing. The second mission was a competition between the two teams at who could catch four fish first or the most fish in 30 minutes. The fish weren’t really biting so only my father-in-law caught one, giving his team a one minute advantage. Back in the house the scavenger hunt continued with 25 minutes to solve:

Wind does not make me go, yet I spin round and round to let it blow.

The answer being “fan”. I moved the clue previously spotted in the last mission from one of our ceiling fans to one of the bathroom exhaust fans. Hilarity ensued when both teams ran to the original site and then accused each other of stealing their copy of the next clue. The clue here was:

I have eyes, but I see nothing. I have ears, but I hear nothing. I have a mouth, but i cannot speak. I always will look just as I look now. If I am young, I will stay young. If I am old, I will remain old. Nothing can change me.

The answer being “photograph” and behind one of our family photos they found three members of Iron Man’s faction: War Machine, Vision, and Black Panther. After this challenge the teams were neck and neck.

Mission #3: Action at Avengers Headquarters

The last mission utilized my son’s favorite toy, his electric Jeep, in which he raced for time in a lap around the outside of our house. This was followed by 10 baskets for time (dropped to 5 because of the aim of the players involved) and carrying an egg on a spoon around the outside of our home. The last event was the three-legged race using two members of each team. The team with the winning time got the difference as a time advantage for the next 25 minute scavenger hunt challenge. Previously, the S.H.I.E.L.D. logo bedecked envelopes they came in were without text but this time:

Inside the teams found this mysterious photograph:

Which is actually the “X” from the APEX logo on one of our television, the remainder being the bottom edge and television table. Underneath the base they found their last clue, a famous riddle from J.R.R. Tolkien’s the Hobbit:

A box without hinges, key, nor lid, yet golden treasure inside is hid.

Which of course is an “egg” (or eggses per Gollum). This clue was supposed to lead our staunch Avengers in-training to the egg cartoon in the fridge, inside which the last the figures could be found: Captain America, Iron Man, and Black Widow.

Both sets of little boys got gift cards and to keep the figurines they had found. Everyone got to keep their T-shirts. And fun was had by all…except complaints about the last riddle as being inaccurate. Which I attribute to geek illiteracy. All in all it took about two and a half hours to complete the missions. I fell victim to incorrect answers leading to clues again this time, something that is easier to correct in a role-playing campaign than it is in real time.

Chapter the Seventh, Part the Second: Completing the Cast Dungeon or Why Does the Cockatrice Cross the Room?

While recuperating from their ordeal with the sahguin shaman, Tyrian and Ulmo, began humming then reciting an old riddle-rhyme from their childhoods:

Look to your corners and you will see Drouss and Pharthas in familiar skies,

Lady Luck and her love have longed to gaze into each other's eyes.

The Great Mother, ever vigilant of her children’s plight, peers upon her spawn,

The Young Sun with haughty eyes cast high, sees not the love that begins to dawn.

Days of dungeoneering works on the mind in odd ways.  Despite the danger to their sanity, they explored the other half of the dungeon, wading into the flooded chambers at each end.  Once entirely submerged, Grey found a dim green light emanating from a tunnel in the center of ceiling.  Tyrian scaled the rusty metal ladder, past increasingly verdant but alien foliage previously seen when the party had explored the cast of the Queen of the Wilds.  The chamber they entered was overgrown with lush, emerald foliage, a warm but sickly light emanating from the smooth surface 15 feet above their heads.  The stirrings of animals could be heard and Background Snakes slithered away into the foliage.  At opposite corners of the room, the roots of trees, creepers, and vines had been woven into stairs curving up.

The party took to the left stair, ascending into a chamber similar to the one they had exited, except that here an abhorrent collection of animals, somehow unnaturally mixed together, as if the Queen of the Wild in a moment madness had taken a mixing spoon and bowl to her servants.  The monsters many eyes swiveled madly as multiple snouts babbled maddeningly.  The cacophony confused Grey leaving him to growl at a nearby wall. Ulmo threw magical bolts at the disturbing beast as Tyrian hewed it with his blade.  It’s acidic spittle flew but Tyrian was able to dodge and then the gibbering mouther reached its end.  After the abomination fell, Ulmo spied a fist-size sphere of an unnatural purple gem stone, four notches oriented in the same direction where a deliberate blemish upon it’s surface.

The Spectator Key

Two exits were woven in the vegetation in the corners perpendicular to the corner our heroes had entered from.  These stairs brought them to a level much like the previous two, except in the ceiling above a tunnel stretched to a room above, red flames casting off shadows from above.  The brave trio climbed the ladder only to find a room whose walls were wreathed in flame, standing too close led to burns, and they heroes remembered that they had to run from room to room to avoid being burnt alive in the passageways connecting them.  As they plotted their next move, the giant but familiar flaming skull of Probably Grigor appeared.  As benign but unhelpful as before the demented undead indicated that more of his brethren awaited them.  Tyrian and Ulmo began making noise in attempt to draw the more malignant flame skulls into battle in the relative safety of the middle of the room. First two flaming skulls then five more came hurtling down the passageway sloping into the fiery reaches of these hell spawned chambers.  The flaming skulls fell to Ulmo’s spells and Tyrian’s sword in seconds, and the party ran to the next room, with Ulmo getting singed along the way.  The next room they ran to was occupied by a humongous flaming skull, big enough to swallow Probably Grigor whole, but too big to escape the confines of the room.  Suicidally brave the party faced the behemoth burning cranium, and when Tyrian nearly died from the flaming assault of the creature, his Mark of the Efreet flared, healed him, and vanished.  In the end their valor prevailed and the dust of the shattered skull fell upon them.  They exited the room only to find another trapdoor in the next chamber leading to an antechamber built of skull and bones.  They entered the adjacent room and climbed the long ladder through thousands of grinning skulls, on one of these levels they found a slim bar of the same purple stone as the orb.  This bar was rounded of edges and had a small bump at one end, a rune for “1” was inscribed deep within when it was held up to the torch light.  The end opposite this quarter orb slid firmly into place on the purple sphere.  They ascended from this chamber only to exit back to the dicing room.

Back in the dicing room, Tyrian cast the dice three times again to obtain four of a kind.  They were transported to a room of multi-colored tile, a voice spoke:

Use the number that unlocked this room, join all the colors and escape this doom.

Above each tile was a silver bar, flat with the wall, of the right size to fit into the sphere.  Tyrian attempted to break one from the wall without success.  Guessing that four lines could connect all the colored squares and based on Ulmo’s knowledge of numeracy they connected light blue (9, wind), brown (10, earth), blue (11, water), green (12, “wild”), red (13, fire), and black (0, death).  They walked four lines along the colored tiles to find one of the bars pop free and small notch at one end of the bar.  They reappeared in the dicing room.

Four of a Kind Challenge

Their next cast yielded three kings and two queens, and a vast sum of gold fell cascading from the ceiling.  The adventures marveled at their luck and set about gathering their loot, before casting the dice once more.  This time they obtained a series of four and reappeared in a room built of skulls and mortared by bones, hanging from a ladder in the ceiling was a tall, predatory, ebon skinned fighter who appeared to be a vampiric version of Uncle Morgrin’s secretary, S’sabis!  He held his attack when they called him by name and revealed that they had met him a thousand years from now.  Intrigued and convinced by their argument that without them he would not escape, S’sabis joined forces with our heroes.  However, Tyrian was not at ease with the thought of an elder vampire, free to walk the days under a dying sun, at the right hand of one of the most powerful men in New Roeblini City. They had to traverse two rooms of flame before climbing the heights of an overgrown arboretum some 80’ in height.  As they did so they were attacked by two sentient combinations of vine, root, leaf, and stalk.  One they slew as it descended the wall, the other they drove back mortally injured and dripping a putrid gore.  They found a wet cave opening to a pool, and breathless S’sabis was sent to investigate the dark waters.  He returned without finding a foe, but as the party swam the dark waters multiple tentacles attached to an abominable piscine came tearing through the waters.  It’s foul mucous stirred in the waters but our heroes were able to repel its attacks until S’sabis dominated the beast and it let them pass. They escaped the pool and climbed through a long slopped room of earth to a tall chamber of blowing winds, in which floated a pentagonal rod of gold with a small spherical profusion at one end.  They exited back to the dice room.

Their next cast brought them three of a kind and they were teleported to a room with three suspended platforms backed by the blackest patch of midnight.  On one of the platforms lay a slumbering cachectic cross between a panther and an octopus, a bell hanging from its neck.  The next platform a great ugly featherless chicken with a snake’s tail lay sleeping, it’s tail suspended above the last platform bearing a large chest.  Investigation of the platforms showed that they could be moved one at a time, but that moving chest would ring the bell and moving the displacer beast would drop the cockatrice’s tail on the chest.  Opposite where three cones of silence.  They moved the cockatrice then the displacer beast and finally the chest.  Expecting the chest to be their prize, Tyrian and Ulmo were surprised when it turned out to be a mimic and struck at them with great clawing hands.  It fell moments later to Tyrian’s blade but yielded up a golden triangular rod with a quarter orb at one end.  They reappeared in the dice room.

 

Three of a Kind Challenge

With Ulmo’s halfling luck they received four casts to reach all five of the same, but were unsuccessful.  The dicing table vanished replaced with a door with a half-sphere receptacle and four deep notches.  Using the riddle-rhyme of their youth and Ulmo’s knowledge of numeracy they aligned the prongs of the Spectator Key and were about to unlock the door when S’smuliss appeared.  He was temporally our of phase and alternative futures spun all about him.  He thanked them for saving him from being fooled by the Master’s of Truth and dying at the hands of Orb Worshippers, and had taken up a new mission of protecting the time stream. He warned them that they could wait to unlock this door until their own time but that it might be difficult to find a portal to accept the key.  He told them that if they opened the door now, Korlo, the boy they had saved would never have existed.  Tyrian and Ulmo weighed this council but believed that their mission to save a god and end the decay brought on by Pharthas’ death outweighed the existence of any mortal even themselves.  With their decision made, S’smuliss came more into phase and the door clicked open.

They found themselves leagues within the world, revealed to be hollow with floating, orb-like creatures with four eye stalks awakening throughout the global cavern space.  An elder spectator, named Ordus, welcomed the group and asked about the Aberration War.  He told them that his kind had come to this world during the Third of such wars and made it a Hiveworld.  He did not know who had put them to sleep but when the acts of the illithid on the surface was revealed he deduced that they had some how infiltrated and incapacitated the spectators in their home.  He rewarded the group with magical items for freeing them and S’smuliss transported them back to the future, outside the weathered ruins of the Monastery of the Masterminds, two bright sun’s in the sky.

The Gummy Bear Pirate Captain Treasure Hunt

Pirate Captain Gummy Bear Green designed at www.heromachine.com

I have played role-playing games for many, many years.  One of my favorite parts of role-playing games is the problem solving, typically in the form of puzzles, riddles, and other brain teasers.  So it was only natural that I suggested a treasure hunt for my son's first birthday party.  Regardless of the fact that his guests, his cousins, 2, 3, and 5, can't read.  And have the attention span of a gnat on methamphetamines.  My son's own inability to walk and lack of real interest in anything but food, sparkly lights, and sleep precluded him from actively treasure hunting in any other capacity than napping through it.

However, in the true spirit of gaming groups I figured that solving the clues would entertain the adults who could direct the boys to near the next clue which they would have fun finding.  Like entertaining the problem solvers, min-maxers, and hack-n-slashers there would be problem solving for some, loot for others, and the shared joy of discovery.  I designed the challenge to be non-competitive, each boy had their own set of clues.  I didn't count on the eldest being able to solve most of the clues himself and the middle one to be lazy to the point of turpitude.  So much so that when he found his final prize, he made his grandfather "Get it!" despite being two feet away.  The youngest just had fun running around, the goodies being transiently enjoyable.

The birthday theme was Gummy Bears.  So I designed three pathways, Blue, Red, and Green.  Each team received an envelope color coordinated with a Gummy Bear Pirate Captain logo (see above) on it with their first clue.  This sent them to their first prize, a pack of Marvel Heroes Popping Candy With Lollipop.  As each color now had an associated character, Spider-Man, Iron Man, and the Hulk, respectively, the next prizes were an action figure and a vehicle.  In order to increase the difficulty, there were two clues to get to each prize.  The candy and action figure had word balloons containing the next clue.  Thus there were five clues (a total of fifteen) to find three prizes.

Some design notes:

• Do not have two clues for the same person be in the same generic classification as the other.  Two of my answers for the Red/Iron Man path was a tree (albeit different trees), which I thought did a good job of describing geographical location but instead described a tree.  Thus, the eldest cousin simply walked around looking at trees, missing the action figure and it's attendant clue, but accidentally stumbling upon the final prize, the vehicle.
• The innate familiarity with my yard made the answer to clues much more obvious to me than my victims...er...players.  Thus I wanted to have one group find the largest tree in the yard, which they had figured out, but they completely missed it, they were so busy looking for it they did not even see this tree in the front yard.  A blue rock was apparently not as blue or as obvious as I thought it was.
• Things are a lot more obvious when you hide them, than when you are looking for them.  It is hard to hide bright colors, such as yellow and red, however despite that items that I thought were ridiculously obvious were invisible to people as they searched.
• Clues that describe an object such as the green clue "I am a strong machine, but I do not smash but cut so clean" (lawn mower) or the red clue "In your teeth or where to cook that is your clue for where to look" (grill) were superior to those describing geographical locations, e.g. attempting to describe a specific tree.
• Children are easily satisfied, they were happy after finding the first prize.  So sometimes bigger is not better.

Things to consider for next year...

The Apocalypse Stone or "Lemme Tarrasque a Question"

Following Boris, Dorune, Goldune, and Warrick's retrieval of the ornate egg from Castle Brave and turning it over to Gareth, the world went mad. It rained soup, then frog demons. The village near the adventurers' keep was decimated by plague. Someone (or something) slaughtered the retainers of our hero's keep and stitched them back together into horrific flesh golems. Dwarves and elves started living together. The city of Greyhawk was sucked into a massive sink hole. In all the end was upon them.

At the doughty explorer's keep, our party was attacked. Invisible fiends lashed them with magics that froze all but Boris in place. Spells were spun from the empty air while unseen talons and transparent fangs gouged the party. Brave Boris was, despite censure of his divine might, able to break the enchantment, freeing the party. Immediately the dwarf-troll hybrids went to work, one-by-one disassembling the pit fiends as Warrick lashed them eldritch might. Boris imploded the demons with his divine powers. In the end one pit fiend hovered, still invisible, above the party, punitively striking the heroes with sorcerous talents. Goldune grabbed his creche-brother and threw him at the demon, Dorune grabbing a hold and raining axe blows upon the floating fiend. The pit fiend's overlord, Maloubaub, then unmasked himself...only to be summarily destroyed by Boris' dweomer craft.

That night the party shared a dream of a snowy vale with a trail of blood leading to a distant castle. They awoke in that same vale, except no castle or bloody trail. Convinced that this was a sign of further trials they journeyed in the direction of a tower of smoke roughly in the direction that castle should have been. They found a ruined village and there were beset upon by an old knight who terrasque'd them to fight a great horned beast. Much debate occurred within the party, in the end the benefits of stopping one marauding beast versus those of stopping the apocalypse, could not be outweighed. They politely declined the knight's offer, who rode off fuming. The party was joined by a young boy, Ned, from a neighboring village who guided them on their journey.

As they journeyed further they were caught between warring factions of centaurs and wemics. Each side bemoaned their woes at the hands, hooves, or paws of their foes and each side offered a king's ransom for the adventurers to join their cause. The brothers Warbreed derided both sides as having great financial wealth which could be used to solve their problems rather than fighting over scraps. The party left the cowed lion men and horse men in their wake.

They journeyed on, coming upon a frozen knight kneeling before a forgotten, holy spring, a hidden altar to the god of justice. As they approached, the massive armored form began to move, and the skeletal visage of a death knight peered down upon the party. A deep, sepulchral voice emanated from the lungless mouth, "I am Lucius".

This Lucius turned out to be the same Lucius of legend, who with advancing age had faltered in his quest, who became jealous of his two squires' youthful prowess and struck them down, the god of justice cursing him henceforth. Remorseful, Lucius had tried all means that he could to lift his curse, to no avail. In the end, centuries ago he had come to his spring where he had remained in thoughtful prayer and contemplation. The spring's curative waters had not then or now, had any reversing effect on the justice god's curse. Hearing that the party intended to recover the Apocalypse Stone, Lucius begged to join their quest. The brothers Warbreed drank from the spring and felt invigorated. Boris took a flask of the spring's sacred waters for future use.

Their final trial took them to Ned's village, where the party interrupted the villagers from hanging an old crone, an herbalist who lived near the village. The villagers believed that the crone had kidnapped a child and sacrificed him to a demon as well as engaging in mutilation of cattle. Halting the lynch mob with a demonstration of whole body flossing using the mob provided rope, the party investigated. They found the missing child, Timi, who had fallen in a shallow well. However on investigating the crone's hovel they found the remnants of a mutilated steer. Cleared of murder, but guilty of consorting with demons, the witch was executed as a planar traitor.

Having successfully solved the challenges put fourth by the God of Justice, they were spirited away to the ruins of Castle Brave. There they found the naked and butchered corpses of many people, corpses that bore the mark of familiar ax and spell craft. Deep in a crevasse they found the madman who they thought they had killed during the last battle of Castle Brave. Although gravely injured and his body broken, the madman gibbered on. Using the healing waters of the spring, they healed the man, not only in body but in mind.

The man, speaking in a sonorous wise voice, revealed himself to be Parshawn II, who had been ruler of Castle Brave. He told our heroes that Gareth was his brother, a man twisted so by jealousy, that he had made demonic allies and cast nefarious spells to bring down Castle Brave and wrest the Apocalypse Stone from its environs. Gareth had cursed his brother with madness and polymorphed his retainers into the beasts that had attacked our heros when they raided the castle. The removal of the Apocalypse Stone from Castle Brave had started the destruction of the terrestrial plane, knocking it off its axis and severing the connection to the other planes.

By restoring Parshawn II, Boris regained a measure of his divine might. Then the disciple of justice, Parshawn, Second of His Name, transported the party to Castle Craven, Gareth's twisted replica of the now shattered home of the Apocalypse Stone. The party approached the gates, carving through the giant guards at the gate like a razor through a gelatinous cube. Inside the castle they found a team of mercenary adventures, sworn to the service of Gareth. These they dispatched with ease, despite having to face the untapped reserves of Gareth's powerful guard. In the end, they cast down the twisted half-god and liberated the Apocalypse Stone.

This object of creation was hurriedly returned to Castle Brave where Parshawn could contain its planar warping powers. He offered the heroes positions to help guard the Stone from further depredation, for he who controlled the Apocalypse Stone, controlled the stability of the planes. And so the strange band was sundered, the Warbreed taking up a new task as guardians while Warrick and Boris continued back into the world looking to greater understand eldritch and necromantic craft.

And so our tale ends...for now

You Found A Scroll: The Half-Made World by Felix Gilman

The Half-Made World by Felix Gilman is a steampunk recreation of a Western. The world is literally half made, the East being like old Europe staid in its ways, while the middle is full of mixed and actively warring ideologies, and the West is unmade, i.e. animals are not animals and land is not land. It describes, through its protagonists and antagonists, the war between the two major factions; the ordered evil (i.e. lawful evil) Line and the anarchistic evil (i.e. chaotic evil) of the Gun, as well as smaller less puissant sects and the Hill Folk the original natives of the land. Although initially I thought these were silly names, the names are actually clever plays on each foes background. The Line is actually a collection of by the book demonic train engines that have subdued men to their mechanical bidding, while the Gun are devil possessed firearms whose bearers (hosts?) gain superlative powers. Due to their fundamental difference in worldview they are at war. In the immediate past the Red River Republic tried to raise man as a self-determining power not needing these greater powers, the Republic has been crushed, but apparently the last General had a secret that would bring both the Line and the Gun to their knees. Into this are thrust Liv a psychologist from the old East, Creedmore a disgruntled Agent of the Gun, and Lowry a dedicated soldier of the Line. Their actions will dictate who obtains the Generals secret and to what purpose it is used.
Gilman has skillfully developed not only a fantastic and original world, but unique, living characters who are taken through a complex story. For me each character had a baseline "likability" which Gilman managed to change throughout the novel. There were some slightly stagnant periods that were necessary to establish more background, but did sometimes slow the story down. Overall an enjoyable and worthwhile experience, I look forward to the sequel.

Castle Brave

After defeating Azerack, Boris the necromancer, the wonderous Warrick, and the brothers Warbreed had semi-retired to a suddenly vacated large keep near the village of Bump. The villagers appreciated the more laissez faire tax laws of their new landlords and threw them a festival. At the festival a minstrel sang of Castle Brave, a mystical palace of marble and onyx created by the gods to test mortal heroes. It stood inviolate for centuries despite the gods sending their own champions to hoist their pennants over its contrasting roofs. In the end a mortal man named Parshawn who bore no weapon and rode without saddle defeated the castle and was crowned king of Castle Brave by the god of justice himself. Parshawn ruled for three centuries before finally crowning his eldest son king and vanishing in the wilds. Heroes had sought the castle for millennia since as it contained a treasure of unimaginable richness. The last knight to quest for this treasures had been one named Lucius with two squires, they had vanished thousands of years ago searching for the halls of Parshawn's heirs. It is unknown if Lucius fell before finishing his quest for whether he found the treasure and was elevated to demigodhood. The minstrel said that his mentor Dinar Fireharp had been told the story in a dream as one of the gods whispered it in his ear, and that he had in turn passed it onto his students.

The group decided to pursue rumors of Castle Brave, eventually locating an ancient sage of folklore named Thermose in the neighboring village of Rump. Thermose was doing his research from a foul smelling hovel rented for him by another group of more savory adventurers. Thermose allowed our brave companions to peruse his notes for 10000 gold ducats before he turned them over to his original employers. His notes expanded the tale of Castle Brave including that it appeared in random locations for a day before appearing somewhere else, and its terrors had to be defeated within that day or the heroes would be left behind. It further explained that only the bravest heroes would be directed to Castle Brave's location. As our companions left the hovel they encountered the three original adventurers who had hired the sage for his lore. The meeting was unpleasant but not lethal.

Eventually our doughty lads were contacted by the ethereal Prince Gareth the Kingfisher, Sign of Parshawn, who presented them with a diamond ring that contained his emblem. The ring glowed showing the bearing of Castle Brave. Gareth warned them that there would be many creatures within and around Castle Brave whose only mission was to stop them, with quarter neither given or asked. This did not concern the party oer much.

With the ring to guide them, they used magics to wind walk them to a far island upon which Castle Braves white and black walls acutely resided. Smoke rose from the island and as they flew over it they found two mated black dragons prowling the isle. They also saw a herd of gorgons chasing and consuming the petrified remains of a yuan-ti cult, fleeing their burnt temple. The party engaged the gorgons, dropping from the heavens like divine missiles. The bull abominations were no match for the cleaving waraxes of the clan Warbreed nor could they face the necromantic powers or eldritch might of Boris and Warrick. The nearly extinct yuan-ti informed our heroes that the gorgons along with the two black dragons were recent arrivals from the castle and that a third dragon, an ancient red was on the opposite side of the isle.

Concerned that the dragons would attack them on their way to Castle Brave or be strategically summoned once inside the castle walls, the brothers Warbreed, supported by the magic users sought out the ebony wyrms. They found them in their nest, slumbering, after having gorged on the local pteranodon nest. As Boris tried to use his command of fire to cow the dragons, the brothers Warbreed engaged at point blank range seeking to carve their way to the creatures acidic hearts. The troll-dwarf hybrids took incredible punishment from the acidic spittle of the creatures as well as their teeth and talons while the spellslingers chipped away at range. The twisted pair was dispatched and the party sought a greater threat under the fiery gaze of the great crimson beast.

They found the ancient red dragon devouring a seafaring folk who had discovered the island. Bolstered by Boris' protective spells the Warbreed charged the gigantic scaled horror absorbing the full holocaust of the beast's flaming breath, maw, talons, and bulk while returning hellacious axe strokes of their own backed by the spell might of Warrick and Boris. The titanic dragon was hardy and cruel but the brave band was hardier still eventually triumphing. After the fell dragon was laid low, the remaining seafarers told their tale, relating how they came to island only to be captured by the yuan-ti or slaughtered by the bird-women after scaling the cliffs to Castle Brave. These few had escaped the yuan-ti the rest had been trapped in the cauldron of flame created when the red dragon had incinerated the yuan-ti temple. The brothers hewed a small forest creating rafts for the stranded seafarers and wished them on their way.

They scaled the cliffs to Castle Brave, before its midnight and alabaster walls Boris summoned a series of increasingly powerful fire elementals. Through the destroyed portcullis they spied a despicable mew of harpies within the gatehouse. The first summoned set of living fire were dispatched against the harpies within and the two monstrous groups slew one an another. Passing through the gatehouse they came upon the castle proper, a destroyed tower, and the stables. Three more fire elementals were summoned by Boris' earlier spell and guarded the exit and other doors as our bold bravos explored the stables. As they opened the doors to the stables they were charged by four huge nightmares while nine trolls burst from the castle proper. Two of the fire elementals were extinguished but not before immolating the trolls. Meanwhile Boris forced three of the nightmares back to their own hell using his necromantic might while the Warbreed dispatched the last beneath their grim axes.

The nearby damaged tower saw the sudden demise of yet another fire elemental at the eye stalks of three macabre beholders. Boris retaliated with mystic might while the twins of chaos incarnate distracted the foul orbs with a dwarven thrower and crossbow bolts. Warrick attempted his vitriolic blast only to be nearly smitten in return, so he retreated from the fray. The ocular affronts were dispatched and the quarrelsome quartet turned their attentions on the castle proper.

They entered the halls passing up floor by floor through facing a dispatching a manticore in the boudoir and another unnamable horror in the privvy. Finally on the third floor they reached the master bedroom above which a voice cackled and paced. The adventurers took the stairs toward the sounds above and found no living thing. Inside an ornate casket held a great inlaid egg, presumably the treasure that Gareth had charged them with finding. Suddenly the Warbreed were struck by invisible magics, but they scented out their foe, who Warrick was able to see using his sentinel goggles. He described an incredibly ancient madman casting spells. He rapidly fell beneath arcana and axe. As he died the castle shook and began to self destruct. The party fled in their windwalk and returned home. As they departed the island they saw the yuan-ti raising edifices to their four new gods.

They returned to the main land only to be met by Gareth. However suspicious of his motives after seeing Castle Brave, they questioned him and they noted he emanated no evil. They gave him the ornate egg and he vanished telling them that they should expect their next challenge to be one of character, but was otherwise nonspecific.

Of Eleves and Dweorgs

When old was new and ancient young, the Elemental Forces collided and the World was made. The World was fertile and rich, vegetation and plants grew. Over ages, one of the plants began to walk and millennia later gained sentience, they called themselves eleves. As these eleves became wise and powerful they sought more knowledge in the depths of the earth. However dependent on the rays of Father Light, the eleves could not delve deep in the earth. They used forbidden sorceries to mold a figure of rock into whose carbon veins they poured magma and the dweorg woke. The dweorg dug deep into the earth and found treasures untold, soon surpassing their creators in the makers craft. The eleves were initially proud of their servitor creations but pride turned to jealousy as the dweorg made more and more beautiful things. Out of pride the eleves turned to more life crafting, trying to make more beautiful things by forming the beasts of the land and the birds of the air. After eons of slavery and haphazard elevish life crafting the dweorg learned to craft themselves and rebellion ensued.

Both sides accuse the other of making the most horrible of weapons during the centuries of war. Foremost among these horrors were the drakes, for which no agreed upon description has ever been made. Many agree that they were great beasts whose scant parts not covered by fangs, claws, horns, and spikes dripping with venomous ichors, instead bore blade-like scales while traveling on silent wings. No one knows for sure, as all who have seen them are either slain or their faculties are so cowed by the drakes fearsome physiology that they recall only fragments of what they think they saw. Both sides deny responsibility for the gobelin-kind, a horror lesser in scale but greater in number, a humanoid plague. Foul and deformed the gobelin can only breed through shedding of its blood which carries its infectious seed. Woe be to the living thing exposed to the gobelins' vital fluid, for they become rapidly infected growing great buboes from which spring more rapacious gobelins. Both sides failed to conquer death, in their wartime experiments crafting instead a solution worse than the problem in the undead magics that brought a half-life back to the fallen. In this way the animate were born, to serve again and again on both sides of every conflict since the dawn of time.

In the end bonds between plant parents and stone sons were broken, the two first races never to align again. The war made free but forever bound both races to paths apart.