WRITTEN RECAP
Eldoria — Episode 1: Well Met
The Old Dudes begin a brand-new adventure in Eldoria, and before anyone can start causing trouble, Jay has a world to introduce.
The campaign opens in the Third Age, the Age of Renewal. Eldoria is a world built over the ruins of older ages, forgotten gods, vanished cities, celestial wars, and the destruction of one of its moons. Divine magic has returned with the rise of the Resplendent Court, ancient knowledge continues to resurface, and new discoveries are reshaping the world.
Our story begins in Lethadia, an empire where guild membership is more than a professional credential. If you want to work, you belong to a guild. If you don't, Lethadian law may have opinions on the subject.
More specifically, the adventure begins in Shade Karn, the Ruby City.
Four travelers have independently made their way there looking for opportunity. They do not know one another yet, but each discovers the same magnificently over-written invitation from a man named Bravaro Glitterhorn, curator of the curious and proprietor of Bravaro's Baubles and Bafflements.
Bravaro wants daring souls of “notable panache” for a potentially dangerous expedition. There will be glory. There will be gold. There may also be death traps.
Naturally, everybody shows up.
The group meets outside Bravaro's shop. Fars arrives looking every bit the performer, armed with instruments, confidence, and no intention of remaining quiet for long. Zayon Von is an enormous stone-skinned Goliath cleric, heavily armored and carrying a war pick engraved in Giant with three simple instructions: Hold. Fix. Or break. Wenende is another towering Goliath, a heavily armed paladin. Zewor rounds out the original group as they converge on Bravaro's peculiar establishment.
There is, however, an obstacle before they can even begin the adventure.
A gate.
A four-foot gate.
With no fence attached to it.
Naturally, somebody simply steps over it.
That turns out to be the wrong answer. The invitation specifically said to use the gate, and anyone who bypasses it discovers that Bravaro's front door mysteriously refuses to cooperate. Once everyone gives in and walks through the completely unnecessary gate, the shop allows them inside.
Bravaro's Baubles and Bafflements is exactly what its name promises. Floating lights drift through the room. Strange relics fill display cases. A stuffed pseudodragon seems to follow visitors with its eyes. There is a lute with no strings, suspicious bone dice, a preserved frost giant finger, an ancient ring, a humming ritual mask, and a mirror that immediately insults Wenende when he looks into it.
Fars finds a chair, puts his feet up and begins playing music.
That finally brings out Bravaro Glitterhorn, an elderly elf dressed in brilliant silks, covered in rings, baubles and feathers, walking with a cane and accompanied by a red bird named Mr. Finchworth, who seems considerably less enthusiastic about their partnership than Bravaro does.
Bravaro wants the party to recover the legendary Jade Fang of Zarn Quill. The artifact is guarded by lizardfolk in the Slobbering Glades, several days west of Shade Karn. According to the legend, Zarn Quill carried a truth so dangerous that she bit out her own fang to silence it. A shrine was eventually built around the fang, and the lizardfolk have guarded it ever since.
Their warning is concerning: if the fang is taken, forgotten things may begin listening again.
Bravaro's reaction is essentially that it will probably be fine.
He offers five hundred gold and suggests negotiation, barter or deception before stabbing anyone. Because this is Lethadia, there is also paperwork. Everyone must join the Adventurers Guild and surrender one percent of monetary treasure recovered. After checking that the contracts do not secretly transfer ownership of their souls, the party signs.
Bravaro supplies several ridiculous objects that might be useful for barter and lets each adventurer pull a random trinket from a bag. Zayon receives a coin that always lands on its edge. Zewor receives a Badge of Questionable Authority from a forgotten bureaucracy. Nobody is entirely convinced any of this is useful, which of course means it probably will be.
The party leaves Shade Karn the next morning and reaches the farming village of Stonebridge. Fars offers to entertain at the inn in exchange for lodging and immediately learns that even tavern performers need the correct guild badge.
While sorting out dinner, the group hears about livestock disappearing from a nearby farm. The farmer's dogs were sent after the thief and never returned. Tracks lead toward an abandoned windmill.
Inside the ruins they find animal remains, signs of something very large, and then a frightened voice asking them to leave.
The creature is a badly deformed ogre named Shorg. One side of his body is twisted and stunted. He explains that he was born that way, driven from his clan, and has been stealing livestock because he is starving.
This is where Jay's simple monster problem becomes something else.
Instead of killing Shorg, the Old Dudes start negotiating. Fars points out that a farming village could probably use an ogre's strength. Wenende argues that Shorg should make restitution rather than die for being hungry. Zayon remains ready to apply the “break” portion of his philosophy if negotiations go badly.
Then another ogre arrives, and this one wants a fight.
The newcomer attacks, the party responds, and Shorg chooses a side. He smashes through the ruined structure and joins the heroes against the other ogre. Together they bring the attacker down.
Now comes the harder part: explaining to Stonebridge that bringing an ogre back to town is somehow the solution to its ogre problem.
It should not work.
Somehow, it does.
The villagers reluctantly agree to give Shorg a chance. There is heavy work to do, empty shelter available, and an ogre willing to defend the settlement might be useful. Wenende even tries to heal Shorg's birth deformities. The magic cannot change what he was born with, but the gesture matters.
By the next morning Shorg is already working in the fields.
And somebody has given him a farming guild badge.
The Old Dudes may have created Lethadia's first unionized ogre.
Back on the road, the party finally resumes Bravaro's actual mission. Before they can get very far, a stranger steps into the road with a weapon drawn and demands their gold or their lives.
Fars offers a counterproposal: walk away and continue having a life.
The bandit declines and whistles for reinforcements.
Crossbow bolts tear through the trees. Fars discovers the disadvantage of being the most noticeable person in the party, spending much of the battle getting shot, healed, shot again, and insulting the people trying to kill him. Zewor answers with magic, Zayon and Wenende move into the melee, and the ambushers discover that four newly licensed adventurers are substantially more dangerous than they look.
At one point a badly wounded bandit is effectively finished off after Fars informs him that his mother is embarrassed by him.
It is difficult to imagine a more appropriate first-session kill for this group.
One by one the bandits fall. Their captain goes down, the remaining archers are hunted through the trees, and the road is theirs again.
The party began the session as four strangers answering a ridiculous advertisement.
They finish it as licensed adventurers carrying questionable magical trinkets, employed to steal an ancient fang from lizardfolk, responsible for finding an ogre legitimate employment, and standing over the bodies of bandits who badly misjudged their choice of victims.
They still have not reached the Slobbering Glades.
But Eldoria has officially begun.