WRITTEN RECAP
Eldoria — Episode 4: The City
With the bandit camp cleared and Wenende alive, Episode Four finally turns the Old Dudes back toward Shade Karn.
First, of course, they search everything.
The captured camp produces money, supplies and several items worth arguing over, including a magical scimitar and an unidentified ring. Nobody knows exactly what all of it does yet, which has never stopped an adventuring party from putting mysterious objects into a bag and worrying about consequences later.
The road brings them back through Stonebridge, where one loose thread from the first session has turned into a genuine success story.
Shorg is still there.
The deformed ogre the party spared has settled into farm work and is helping Brewster and the other villagers. He is not stealing livestock anymore. In fact, the enormous former problem is becoming part of the settlement's protection.
For a group that frequently solves problems by hitting them, discovering that their decision not to fight actually worked is a nice change of pace.
The trip east does not remain peaceful.
The party comes upon the body of a courier and a message that was important enough for somebody to die carrying it. Before they can make much sense of the situation, harpies attack.
The fight becomes another messy roadside engagement, complete with the threat of supernatural song drawing people out of position. The Old Dudes survive, recover the courier's note, and add one more mystery to the growing pile.
Eventually the Ruby City comes back into view.
Returning to Shade Karn means guilds, gates, crowds, shops, temples and bureaucracy after days of swamps, bandits and monster attacks. It also means facing Bravaro Glitterhorn with the Jade Fang and a few pointed questions about exactly what he sent them to retrieve.
The party turns over the artifact and reports what happened at the shrine, including the black ichor affecting the lizardfolk.
Bravaro finally reveals more about himself.
He is not simply an eccentric shopkeeper who collects dangerous curiosities. He is connected to the Veiled Vault, an organization devoted to finding, securing and preserving artifacts that could become dangerous in the wrong hands.
That does not necessarily make the Old Dudes feel better about being sent into a sacred lizardfolk temple to steal one.
Still, Bravaro pays them and provides each adventurer with a unique magical reward. The group is becoming more capable, better equipped and, perhaps most dangerously, more confident.
The dead courier's note becomes the next problem.
It is coded, marked with a symbol, and clearly meant for someone who understands the message. Bravaro starts working on the encryption. One phrase eventually emerges from the puzzle:
Turn the bell. Cut the rope.
That means absolutely nothing to the party yet.
Which means it is almost certainly important.
Bravaro also has another job.
Northwest of Shade Karn lies an old ruined temple. Somewhere inside is a ritual censer that the Veiled Vault wants recovered.
This immediately creates one of the evening's longest-running transcription problems because “censer,” “sensor,” and “censor” all sound close enough to turn the objective into three completely different objects depending on who is talking.
The Old Dudes eventually establish that they are looking for the incense-burning religious kind.
Probably.
With supplies restocked and their reward collected, they head out again.
The trip toward the ruins includes another encounter on the road as hostile creatures and distant drums interrupt the journey. The party fights through it and keeps moving, now more comfortable with one another's tactics than they were when they first met outside Bravaro's ridiculous gate.
By the end of the episode, Shade Karn is behind them and the ruined temple is still ahead.
The campaign's shape is changing.
The Jade Fang job was not isolated. The black ichor matters. The courier's encrypted warning matters. Bravaro's Veiled Vault matters. And now another forgotten religious site is waiting for the same group that just demonstrated a strong willingness to touch unidentified magical objects.
Nothing about that combination seems dangerous at all.