In which Kaster has a rendezvous with raptors in the tall grass, the Talons arrive in Gatherhold, hear the legend of Gwen Twice-Born, follow in her footsteps, are followed by an overzealous halfling warrior, rescue a handful of hammertails, and inadvertently set the world on fire.
Session Recount
The aftermath of the fight with the warforged has left the carriage where our heroes had planned to spend their journey in comfort as a scorched, crumpled and uninhabitable wreck. Yet the train continues steadily south towards its final destination at Gatherhold in the Talenta Plains. The moment the last hostile warforged was slain, the lightning rails protective warforged come back online and begin to assess the massive amount of damage. Moments later, Donnerjack rushes into the carriage followed by an inquisitive looking Dwarf named Gloarm, another passenger on the train who clearly has an agenda to track down a missing exhibition sent from house Vidalis. Whilst Ifrid and Vim begin shouting their displeasure of the service of the protectors of the train, Kaster and Gloarm plan to investigate the now inactive enemy engine getting further and further away from them.
Kaster, immediately after being revived by the good Dr. Arabella d’Jurasco shakes off the momentary unconciousness, calls to Theren to get the Giant Eagle to take him and their newly met dwarf friend to the enemy locomotive. Theren’s Giant Eagle, still perched on the roof of the carriage calls out to Theren that there is moment in the grass and bushes nearby, however Theren fails to see what the eagle does and lets his friends be carried by the eagle to the engine.
Kaster and Gloarm get dropped off on the engine and whilst the eagle keeps watch they investigate the boiler area of the engine to try and discover what was powering it since it was not pulled by an air elemental like all other trains are. They find a dragonshard khyber crystal, suspended by threads in a strange cradle. At that moment, the eagle cries out there is incoming danger, at which point a velociraptor leaps out of the brush directly at Kaster. It grabs him and drags him off the train into the nearby forest line, calling out to his raptor pack to join him in devouring this delicious fresh meat. 2 other raptors surround Kaster and an additional 3 other raptors reveal themselves on the opposite side of the train, surrounding the small party.
Kaster, still wounded from the previous fight with the warforged, does his best to fight off the 3 raptors with the help of his party, but is overpowered by the vicious pack of raptors that knocks him unconscious and he drops to the ground. In a final desperate move, the noble eagle circling just above dives into the pack of the raptors and snatches the body of Kaster out from the snapping jaws of the hungry pack. Knowing the danger of a friend of Theren bleeding out, the giant abandons the dwarf fighting off 3 other raptors to deliver Kaster back to the lightning train moving away in the distance. Gloarm dashes back into the engine compartment with the Khyber crystal, the raptors close on his heels, snapping, clawing at him but too large to get to him. Keeping calm, he disassembles the Khyber crystal from its cradle – hoping that he will not be left to die.
Once again, Kaster is brought back from the brink of death by Arabella without question. The eagle squawks at Theren about what has happened at the broken engine and the current situation. As all other Silver Talons are arguing with the staff of the train about how terrible their journey has been thus far, Theren and Kaster jump onto the back of the eagle in front of Arabella. She looks about briefly and whispers to them that it seems that they are the heroic members of the party, and with those sweet words they take off back towards the trapped dwarf.
From the back of the wounded eagle Theren quickly surveys the scene of 5 raptors scratching and clawing holes into the entrance to where Gloam is taking cover. Weaving a new sign in the air, he summons a large tidal wave killing 2 with the sheer force of water and spooking 2 others to flee. Kaster jumps down off the eagle and faces off against the last remaining raptor who clicks and chitters to Theren that he never backs down from a meatbag. With the anger of being bested by a pack of raptors only minutes ago, Kaster unleashes an attack that wounds the egotistical raptor so badly that it has no choice than to run away, lick its wounds and face ridicule from his raptor buddies. Safe from vicious dinosaurs and with the soon ending summoning of the eagle, the party return to the distance train just in time before the eagle disappears into the ether. Spending the rest of their time recovering from their ordeal they finally arrive at the last stop on the line at Gatherhold.
Disembarking, the party gathers their promised steeds from the local Vidalis stables to track down the missing expedition, meet up with their guide, discover the sanctity the local halflings have for their personal riding dinosaurs and plan their journey into the savage Talenta Plains. With the plan to track down a truthspeaker, a member of a certain clan of halflings who cannot lie, to witness the Silver Talons slaying a gargantuan worm which will include one of them being swallowed and carving their way out from its belly and THEN escorting the truthspeaker safely to the walking islands in the sea of grass – the location of the elemental essence of water to which Kaster and Ifrid will use it infuse a sword to give to the king of Aundair at the royal wedding to gain notoriety for their blacksmith…. it all sounds so simple…. and so they set off on their week long adventure and hope it all works out.
On their first day, their very first afternoon, they witness a dinosaur with a massive hammer on its tail with her babies walking the plains. In the distance a gargantuan bird soars swiftly through the sky towards the happy family. Donnerjack jumps into action, for… reasons only known to him… towards the baby dinosaur that is straggling behind its mother. With the thought that its all about rescuing a baby dinosaur the massive bird attacks the huge mother dinosaur and takes a brief pause before lifting off with its prey.
Combat ensues, Theren summons a giant constrictor snake to hold the enormous Roc to the ground, Kaster jumps on top of it to attempt to slay it with his comparatively tiny weapon, Donnerjack gets squashed whilst trying to push away the baby dinosaur from said baby dinosaur, Vim, Ifrid and their guide all get ambushed by a hungry sentient plant and after a temporary struggle of snake on bird action, the snake is slain and the Roc decides to give up on such difficult prey and takes off – with Kaster riding it. Soaring through the air, Kaster attempts to wrangle the Roc but fails to do so and ends up once again being beaten unconscious. Luckily, Theren and Donnerjack have mounted some freshly summoned eagles to chase after the Roc and catch Kaster midair as he plummeted to the ground. Despite Kasters insistence to chase after the bird, Theren instructs the eagles to return to the battered group to continue on their previously planned, time sensitive journey.
Making camp next to an overhanging scree slope, Theren plants his staff to grow a well covering tree to prevent any further large birds from easily seeing them whilst they rest. Ifrid and Theren ask of their halfling travelling friends to teach them some halfling phrases so they do not feel so unequipped with the natives the next time they encounter them. The night passes with little issue – short of the party discovering that a halfling party is camped quite close to them which Theren feels is suspiciously as if they are being tracked by the halfling tribe they are attempting to curry favour with for the elemental water.
The Silver Talons discover in the morning that the halflings that were camped near them are nowhere to be found and so continue on their journey. Upon reaching a vast field of seemingly endless grasslands, Donnerjack thinks it would be a good idea to set the grass alight – as to discourage smaller raptors from ambushing the group. This idea leads to a catastrophic bush fire that quickly spirals out of control and begins to set the grasslands completely aflame – encouraging a dinosaur stampede and incinerating vast numbers of dinosaurs, baby and adult alike. Theren is extremely distraught by a large group of dinosaurs trapped against a cliff-face and the fire lapping their tails, that he turns back into the fire and summons a wall of water to keep them safe – with no regard for his own life. Donnerjack follows Theren whilst the others desperately try to not be flattened by the dinosaur stampede.
With the dinosaurs safe from the inferno, Theren and Donnerjack realise that they are in immense danger – with the raging flames edging ever closer they escape to a small valley in the cliff. Theren causes an eruption of earth to prevent the fire getting closer, but the heat and smoke of the nearby forest fire threatens to suffocate them, Allrianne and Donnerjacks horse. As the horse passes out, Theren makes the difficult decision to let the wall of water dissipate around the frightened dinosaurs in order to cast a swirling wind around himself to avoid passing out. With the wind blasting away the smoke and heat, he revives the fallen horse and they ride out of the blaze to the safety of an opening of an underground temple.
Session Glossary
The Three Clans
Skoan-Quah – the Clan of the Skull; a halfling clan residing at Gatherhold and at the Shenta Mounds; practitioners of ancestor worship
Sklar-Quah – the Clan of the Islanders; a halfling clan residing on the backs of giant creatures that walk the Talenta Plains; reclusive and hostile to outsiders; wielders of rare elemental powers
Lyrune-Quah – the Clan of the Wandering Moons; a halfling clan residing at the House of the Twelve Moons; explorers and worshipers of a deity known as the Wanderer; known to go on pilgrimages to the Acropolis of the Thrallkeepers
- Micco, Who-Keeps-Watch – a warrior of the Sklar-Quah; suspects all outsiders of foul play; rides a raptor with scarlet feathers
- Drego, Talks-When-He-Should-Be-Running – Arabella’s friend and the party’s guide
- Violet – Drego’s raptor
- “Tshamek” – the halfling word for outsider
- Gwen Twice-Born – a mysterious human who adventured far and wide about 200 years ago; the only known outsider to have been accepted among the Sklar-Quah as one of their own
- Cindermaw, the Clan Eater – a giant burrowing worm with a blazing inferno inside its maw
- The Spherewalker’s Mark – the symbol marking those who have gone on a pilgrimage to the Acropolis of the Thrallkeepers; a mark respected among the Lyrune-Quah
- Truthspeakers – halflings whose word is taken as absolute truth
- The Pool of Tranquility – a pool of “true water” on the Walking Islands; reported to have a calming effect on nearby creatures; the objective of the Talons’ quest
- Almiraj – unicorn bunnies living underground in the Talenta Plains
How to Gain the Trust of the Islanders in Four Quick and Simple Steps
(according to Drego, Talks-When-He-Should-Be-Running)
- obtain the Spherewalker’s Mark to earn the trust of the Lyrune-Quah
- ask a Truthspeaker from the Lyrune-Quah to travel with you to Cindervale
- be swallowed by Cindermaw and cut your way out of its belly
- have the Truthspeaker testify to the Sklar-Quah of your achievement
Turn of the Age 