Session 3 Recap

Session 3 — Shrine of the Fallen Star

What Happened

The crew spent their downtime at Hearth. Vorik read Age III lore in the library and visited the orphanages, Sylvia trained her dire-wolf pup Ghoul, and Bivel finished recovering from his Session 1 injuries. When they were ready, they went to Selka Driftmantle’s shop off the Engine hall and took a three-days-of-travel contract off the mission board: the Shrine of the Fallen Star, an Age III temple to the east, rumored to hold “weapons of light and shadow” and a candle that had never stopped burning.

Short on coin, the party crossed the market and met a visiting trader. It turned out to be Galil and Gully Tandava-Giri - Vorik and Sylvia knew Galil from Session 2. Gully gifted Sylvia a bag of dire-wolf treats for Ghoul. At The Blue Flame, the party ran the guild’s new negotiation process and hired the giant Heavy Hodor as a healer and pack-mule. They talked him down to half his fee, paid after the job.

The road out took three days. On the way they returned a dropped supply crate to three Hearth travelers, siblings, bound for the ruins of Cydonia, Crip (gnome), Snip (orc, adopted), and Lip (gnome), and learned that Snip owed Vorik a life-debt from years past. A whiteout and a pack of already-fed dire wolves passed without a fight. During a night prayer, Vorik was approached by a strange mystical traveler with an offer; he declined the deal but kept the traveler’s card. A failed navigation day left the party wandering in circles until Galil and Gully’s band sledded them the rest of the way. Gully shared some of his people’s history: the White Maw of Clan Baghuman, de facto led by Galil “Camel toe,” with the shaman Mother Filar, were steppe natives before the Frost, when the Wastes were farmland.

At the Shrine, the party found the front gate bashed open and two bodies: a recent scavenger whose journal named the temple, and an ancient priest clutching the Testament of the Fallen Star. Sylvia read the Testament aloud. It told of a temple built around a sleeping god, a corridor that bends space, and the “words of quieting” carved on the courtyard lintel.

Inside, the party moved quietly and gathered what they could while a Polar Owlbear slept in its den among the bones. When it woke, they did not fight it. Instead they ran the space-bending corridor and spoke the words of quieting, snapping the passage short and stranding the owlbear behind them as the distortion reset. They cleared into the Chancel without a scratch, where they recovered Dawn and Dusk and the Mourningsteel Ghost Candle. Bivel briefly phased into the ethereal plane through the candle and returned baffled at what he saw.

Deeper still lay the God-Breach: the interior of a crashed Age II Skylord vessel, and the source of the whole mystery. The temple’s “god” was the ship, worshipped by the Age III priests who built around it. There the party found a Skylord navigator fused into marble-like crystalline wall, hand extended with the Necklace of Adaptation, which Bivel took, along with Skysteel fragments on the ground of the room and a crew ring. The skeleton of a second owlbear lay before the door here too; both beasts had forced their way in on their own, one pushing deep inside somehow while the other stayed out in the hall.

At the ship’s core, Vorik took the half-fist-sized gravity-drive crystal. It offered one last aid, and the party accepted. Its final breath wormholed the whole group, Hodor and Ghoul included, straight back into the Hearth guild room, to Governor Luthor Shrike’s surprise. The crystal was spent. Back home, the party sold their salvage for coin, and Vorik fed the Felling Greataxe from Session 2 to the Hearth Engine, buying another week of warmth and earning a boon still to come.

Notable Events

• The party picked the Shrine of the Fallen Star from the mission board and hired Heavy Hodor
  through the guild’s new negotiation process.
• On the road they were hosted by three Hearth travelers, siblings Crip, Snip and Lip,
  bound for Cydonia. Snip turned out to owe Vorik a life-debt from years past.
• A failed navigation day was salvaged when Galil and Gully Tandava-Giri’s White Maw band
  sledded the party the rest of the way.
• The temple’s corridor bends space. A pass-phrase from the Testament of the Fallen Star
  (“the words of quieting”) resolves it. The party used it to slip past the resident Polar Owlbear
  and never had to fight it.
• They recovered the temple’s sacred weapon and candle and, deep inside the God-Breach, the
  remains of a Skylord “navigator” and a strange crystal core.
• The truth of the “fallen star”: the temple was built around a crashed Age II Skylord vessel;
  the Age III priests worshipped the ship as a god.
• Back at Hearth, the party fed the Engine and banked their pay.

Discovered this session

• Locations: Hearth (hub), The Wastes (eastern road), Shrine of the Fallen Star: an
  Age III temple built around a crashed Age II Skylord vessel, its inner corridors bend space.
• People met / returning: Crip, Snip and Lip (Hearth travelers; Snip owes Vorik a
  life-debt); Galil and Gully Tandava-Giri (White Maw, Clan Baghuman);
  Heavy Hodor (hireling); Selka Driftmantle; Nyla Vexorian (Guild Seer); Luthor Shrike.
  White Maw shaman Mother Filar named in Gully’s account. Denizen: a Polar Owlbear (avoided, not slain).
• Discoveries / Relics
  • Dawn and Dusk (Rare, Age III): a weapon that shifts with the day, a radiant mace from dawn
    until dusk and a necrotic sickle from dusk until dawn, shedding dim light in both forms. Recovered
    from the Chancel pedestal by Vorik.
  • Mourningsteel Ghost Candle (Uncommon, Age III): a candle that burns forever and cannot leave
    its holder. Once per dusk its bearer phases into the Ethereal Plane and commands a will-o’-wisp;
    will-o’-wisps stay indifferent to whoever holds it lit. Taken by Bivel.
  • Necklace of Adaptation (Uncommon, Age II): a sky-steel chain that lets the wearer breathe in
    any environment and grants advantage against poison. Recovered from the Skylord navigator’s
    remains; taken by Bivel.
  • Lesser loot: Skysteel fragments + a Skylord crew ring (sold, ~65 GP), tithing-bowl gold, a healing potion.
• Manuscripts: Testament of the Fallen Star (Age III), Scavenger Journal (Age VI, names the
  dead scavenger Stark Harvig).

The Hearth Engine

• Fed: the Felling Greataxe (Vorik’s Session-2 relic).
• Result: another week bought; a temporary boon is owed to the feeding character (Vorik). Specific boon deferred to Session 4.

Links

• Previous: Session 2 - Showdown at the Cabin · World Timeline: Events Timeline