The Shifting Tides Sessions 1-7
Session 01 – The Beginning of the Rabbithole
The party delayed departure from town following a disagreement. Aelar and Faye insisted on making additional purchases, pushing back Talon’s intended early start.
Travel to the target village was uneventful. Arrival matched Levi’s timeline.
Upon reaching the outskirts, the party used Aelar’s crow familiar to scout ahead. Patrol routes, and bandit numbers near the town perimeter were loosely confirmed. Entry through the main road was unchallenged, with only scattered patrols in the open.
Combat engagements began nearly immediately. The first encounter was a group of eight bandits—standard gear, poorly coordinated. A second group of four followed shortly after. Fights were staggered, allowing the frontliners to prevent being overwhelmed. Both groups were neutralized. All party members remained standing.
One brute surrendered during the skirmish. Identified himself as Hesel. He was taken prisoner for potential interrogation. Several other bandits fled the fight, heading in the every direction.
With the majority of the town assumed cleared, the party took stock of remaining threats. The barn, assumed to house hostages, now stood un guarded. There has been no contact from anyone in the manor.
Session 02 - Bandits, Barns, and Brutes
The party engagement with the bandits outside loudly drawing attention. Didn’t quite reach the manor. One of the bandits who fled eventually informed those inside that there was a fight and Lockjaw and his companion head out to fight. The party slays them and the rest of the bandits flee fearing for their lives.
Hesel, captured during the previous encounter, remains alive and under guard. No additional interrogation has been conducted.
During the fight, Aelar’s group located the three individuals they were tasked with rescuing. They were hiding in a nearby smokehouse—an elven druid, a dwarven barbarian, and a halfling sorcerer. None were injured. They were freed without resistance. Initial behavior was cautious but cooperative. Their background and intentions remain unclear.
The surviving villagers were escorted south under Talon’s supervision. There were no further incidents during exfiltration.
Once the area was cleared, the party buried the dead. Lockjaw, his guard, and all fallen bandits were interred in shallow graves outside town. The effort was methodical, meant to prevent complications with the locals and erase signs of the battle.
Talon commends the party of a job well done and offers a Bag of Holding containing basic provisions and offers them a new job. The party can to travel to Genth, retrieve a package, and deliver it to Redlin. Payment was promised at five thousand gold. Hesel is taken by Talon and his associates. Levi’s interest in the prisoner, if any, has not been disclosed.
Session 03 - Carriages and Mountains
The party returned to Kolderfall to acquire a carriage. Initial inquiries with the local carpenter revealed a six-month backlog on orders. The request was dismissed without deference—no exceptions made for adventurers or mission-critical needs. The party was directed to Balen, an old half-elf stablemaster operating on the outskirts.
Negotiations with Balen began at five hundred gold and escalated quickly. He was openly distrustful of adventurers and unwilling to haggle. Failed persuasion attempts hardened his stance. Final price landed at eight hundred and fifty gold. The party paid in full and secured the carriage.
With the new carriage tied to their travel plans, the party made preparations for scroll crafting during downtime. Travel began immediately along a lesser-known southern route through the mountains, chosen specifically to avoid trade road traffic.
Two weeks passed without incident. By then, the party had crossed roughly 490 miles—an average of thirty-five miles per day. Genth remained over 1,600 miles away.
Approaching the mountain edge, the party encountered a skirmish between local rangers and a creature identified as a Chaos Wyvern. The wyvern’s body was translucent, rainbow-scaled, and hollow—its interior a dark, starless void. The rangers shouted warnings before being cut down mid-sentence. Three were killed instantly. Two remained alive when the party engaged.
Despite the creature already being bloodied, the fight was difficult. The remaining rangers were killed in the process. The party managed to bring the creature down.
Upon death, the wyvern’s body unraveled—folding inward like fabric pulled loose. It collapsed into nothing, leaving behind seven scales. Most shattered during looting. A few brittle fragments were recovered—glasslike and likely valueless, though arcane energy was faintly present.
The ranger corpses were stripped of useful gear, but no identification, notes, or satchels were found. No sign of a nearby camp. Their presence, uniforms aside, was entirely context-less. No one knows who sent them or what they were doing there.
Session 04 - Bird Eater Tower
The mountain path split at a fork—one road curved east around the range, the other climbed westward. Neither route offered an obvious advantage, and the party chose the western ascent. The trail narrowed as it wound upward along the edge of the mountain, eventually revealing a ruined watchtower perched above the pass. Its walls were cracked, the first floor open and quiet.
The party explored cautiously. The lower level was empty. Stairs to the second floor had collapsed, but the group improvised a way up. They cleared the second floor and pressed on. At the top, inside a crumbling turret, they encountered a mimic—unusual, even among its kind. It spoke, and offered no threat. Its manner was calm but alien. It claimed to be born of chaos, but stable. When asked its name it asked for meaning of the word name. When explained that it’s what defines someone it proudly called itself “Bird-Eater”.
Conversation was brief and odd. As a gesture of goodwill, Bird-Eater gave the party three ancient coins from the Kingdom of Caldarra. Each one was in perfect condition, untouched by time. The coins raised more questions than answers, but the party accepted them. They made camp in the tower.
That night, Bird-Eater attempted to steal rations and was caught by Jack. A mild confrontation followed. The mimic backed off, only to return again and again throughout the night, pestering each watch. By the final shift, Slick took a different approach. He spotted an owl in the woods and fired from the turret window. He couldn’t descend normally, so he leapt from the second story and crossed the clearing.
The owl was gone. In its place was a chaos scale— iridescent, glassy, and near identical to the wyvern’s, but smaller. There was no blood, no feathers, no trace of the owl’s body. Slick returned with the scale and finished his watch. Bird-Eater retreated to its turret and did not return.
The next day, travel resumed. The new scale was added to the collection. When held near the originals, both began to vibrate at an unnatural frequency—high, invisible, and sustained.
The road narrowed again before spilling into a dead basin—flat miles of brittle grass and skeletal brush. The only break in the horizon was a shadowed cut between two mountain shoulders. The party made camp. During final watch, Slick spotted a figure in the dark—too far to make out clearly, but unnaturally large. It moved with erratic pacing: leaps, twitches, bursts of motion with no clear direction. As dawn neared, a group of rabbits tore through the camp, sprinting from the same direction.
Slick roused the others. Weapons were drawn. The shape was still distant, but closing.
Session 05 - A Brush with Chaos
The party’s rest was interrupted by Slick seeing strange movement near camp. Slick roused everyone just before sunrise. Jack investigated, but the trail vanished—only to reappear near camp. Meanwhile, the rest of the group spotted a young chaos wyvern—kin to the alpha they had slain before. Smaller, it was drawn past the camp but didn’t attack. It locked eyes with Aelar, who carried the elder wyvern’s scales, through the opaque nature of the tiny hut. But then wandered off.
The creature began shadowing them at a distance—watching but never engaging. On the first night, Aelar tried to lure it closer with food. It observed but didn’t approach. On the second night, it ventured closer. When Aelar revealed one of the elder’s scales, the young wyvern reacted—drawn to the scale. It nudged Aelar, then presented him with a rabbit, its own offering, before vanishing again.
The third night brought wolves. The party handled them easily, but the wyvern was spotted again afterward, silent and possibly protective. As the terrain shifted to a narrow crag-path and opened into a new valley, the wyvern became bolder. It dragged a deer into view of the camp—a clear gift—but remained skittish when approached.
Near distant, ancient ruins, it returned again. Alaric fed it. Aelar, sensing an opportunity, invited it within the space where Leomund’s Tiny Hut would be cast. When he activated the spell, the wyvern was trapped inside but didn’t seem disturbed or aware of its predicament. It got the zoomies and smacked face first into the wall. It paced the edges but eventually curled around the chaos scale and laid down to rest, humming with energy.
During fourth watch, Jack offered it whiskey. The wyvern was not amused—hissing, and knocking the bowl aside. Jack began yelling, startled it and causing it to panic. But it was trapped inside the hut. When the hut was dismissed, it fled at an impressive speed. The next day, the ruins loomed. The wyvern didn’t return—but its absence felt temporary.
Session 06 - The Ruins of Gresmarc
The party spent half a day traveling to the ruined city of Gresmarc. Initial exploration began at a large barracks structure near the edge of the ruins. Inside, they found a stash of old alcohol. Connie after taking a large drink got very drunk, and shortly wandered off alone. It was around this time that the group realized Gresmarc was far more than a few ruined buildings—it was a full urban settlement.
From aerial surveillance, the layout showed the majority of the city was made up of barracks and apartment-style structures. The party decided to investigate the most distinct buildings first.
While Connie moved off on her own, the rest of the group explored a large foundry. One section held the remains of eight blast furnaces. Another featured a massive capstan over an even larger flywheel, connected through a network of large iron axles, gears, and power hammers. The entire complex appeared to have been part of a single, interconnected industrial system.
Afterward, the party moved north and entered another large building. Exploration revealed various secrets and hidden spaces. The building contained mostly unassuming loot and a number of minor mysteries.
Session 07 – Same Old, Same Old
(Except it definitely wasn’t.)
The party ventured forth into the ruined city. First, we followed Connie on her ventures through a couple of buildings on the second terrace—her great and noble quest to find more alcohol. She rummaged around, eventually turning up a bottle of very orange drink that was definitely not old, spoiled rum that had been watered down and then refermented into something vaguely drinkable. Whatever it was, she drank some and promptly passed out on a bench outside.
Meanwhile the rest of the party was exploring the old forge structure and a nearby administration building. With nothing dangerous or noteworthy found there, they regrouped and started heading further into the city. On their way back toward the second terrace, they discovered an old cold storage tunnel. It gave them a decent shortcut but popped them out farther away than expected. The tunnel led them into a dormitory building—small internal kitchen, lots of sleeping space. They swept the place (no threats), regrouped, and moved on.
Connie was still napping at this point, the rest of the group started making their way toward a building near the edge of the terrace. But along the way, something caught their eye—a structure that didn’t match the look of everything else around it. This one wasn’t decayed or ruined. It looked...new. Intact. Suspiciously clean.
Naturally, they investigated. No signs of magic, no traps. Inside they found a chest, and inside the chest? More booze.
But the really strange part was the condition of the place. The chest, the furniture, the whole interior—it all looked brand new, like it had just been constructed. Spotless. Unsettling.
Eventually, they reconnected with Connie and set up for a long rest.
That night, during third watch, Maren spotted something. A big... something. Too far away to see clearly in the dark, but it was definitely there. She woke Aleric and went to check it out alone. She found nothing. No creature, no noise, no evidence—just empty ground under a very quiet sky. The rest of the night passed without incident.
In the morning, the full party went to investigate the area where the silhouette had been seen. There, they discovered large, widely spaced depressions in the ground—like something massive had been through there. Walking. Or watching.
Curious, and just a little uneasy, they made their way back to the strange pristine tavern-like building… only to find it changed. Now it looked like the rest of the city—crumbling, weathered, abandoned. Same layout. But Aelar, out of curiosity, checked the same cabinet as before and found a similar chest. Same size. Same booze.