The Story Thus Far:
The Goblin Invasion Saga
(The Reader's Digest Version)

Contents

The Goblin Invasion Saga
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The Zinsaber Saga
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Page 2
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Stories from the Great Schism
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The Progeny of the Damned Saga
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It all begins on a dark night, when a young man known as the Guardian is asked by the village elder, a man known in Selvan as the Patriarch, to root out a particular tower recently found in the Vrolok Forest to the west, across the Ned River. He entered, found a nasty ghoul and several other lesser nasties, and disposed of them. He was then sent on to Lindaton with a less than noble dwarf named Jed Goblincrusher. At Lindaton, a dwarven mage (ahem) named Mioken told the group of a mage named Zinsaber living in the lighthouse south of the city. The two were ordered to locate the mage and find out what he had been doing for so long. Just as ordered, the crew braved the lighthouse, its apparent traps, dangers, and secrets, and found the mage wrestling with a rift into another world. Along the way, they found several creatures that had already come through the rift: goblins. Zinsaber warned of an impending invasion, and told the two to warn King Relao of a future assassination attempt. He also warned them to stay far from Mioken.

Enter Mathurin Delaros. Once exiled from Gritton by a dark past, he hailed from the Confederate States of the North to Lindaton, where the elven mage found Mioken and was given the task of finding a few brain moles from Vrolok forest and bringing them to Mioken for the dwarf's experiments. On the way into the forest, along the Ned River Mathurin stopped to refill his waterskins. There he met a nereid, who tried to entice him into her romantic charms. He was able to resist, however, his past at once a reminder and a warning of falling for such charms, though past experience had not been such a deadly threat, for few who endure the pleasureable kiss of the nereids survive.

Such resistance earned the nereid's respect, and she charged him with keeping peace in Fastague, warning him of the incoming goblin invasion. She also warned him of the dwarven mage Mioken, saying that treachery would lie in his wake. With a newfound knowledge and goal, Mathurin found the brain moles he sought, and returned to the town of Selvan, where he sent a courier off with the brain moles back to Mioken, but did not return himself to Lindaton.

In Selvan, Mathurin met with the Guardian and a mighty dwarven fighter named Dittoc Orcsplitter as they received a mission from the Patriarch to solve a murder down at Fort Inundi, a day's walk south of the town, a day and a half from Lindaton. They talked with the magistrate Vivian Zoul in Fort Inundi, they found that the young fiancee of a prominent ranger in town had been murdered, and three bards were wanted for the murder. They had narrowly escaped the town guards and were rumored to be hiding in the woods. The woman was killed by the well outside the fort. There, Mathurin found a spell bauble, a small crystal capable of holding spells, but nothing else of import. Thus, the three adventurers went into the woods and found one of the accused bards, Gaarik DaRuth, who reluctantly joined the group to clear his name. Also, they found the second bard, Erik Dawson, by the Fountain of Bren, a wonderful elven fountain that revitalized and restored characters, and thus the group named the water thereof "Happy Water". After leaving Erik behind at the fountain, they came upon an old dwarven mine and found the third bard, Geoff Linokat, conversing with a few elves, one of which a cleric of Dartal (see the theology page for details), about the murder and payment for said murder. Then Geoff, upon his departure, recognized Gaarik in the party, and a battle ensued. The two elves escorting the cleric were killed, but the cleric and Geoff escaped.

Geoff was later found in a shouting match with Erik by the Fountain of Bren about the murder. It so seemed that Gaarik was the only innocent bard in the group, but he had witnessed the murder his two friends had committed. In a surprise move, Dittoc allowed the two bards to seek sanctuary in Gritton while he explained to the magistrate of the treachery of the Dartalian Elves. Everyone agreed, but as they were about to depart, they were set upon by a small army of elves led by Rillinnither, the cleric of Dartal! The group scattered, heading for Fort Inundi, and somehow, Gaarik, Mathurin, Dittoc, and the Guardian survived to find the fort besieged by a larger army of elves. The heroes immediately went to work and helped defeat the elven army, then informed Vivian Zoul of the elven hand in the murder of the ranger Alexander's fair maiden. Gaarik was declared a free man, and Mathurin, Dittoc and the Guardian became heroes of the town.

A week passed. The gnome mage of the fort privately called Mathurin to conference, and informed him of dire news: King Relao had been murdered and Mioken had taken the throne. Because of the elven invasion into Fastague (heralded by the attack on Fort Inundi), the elves were chief in suspect, but the gnome relayed his suspicion that there was more to this evil event than was apparent. So he sent Mathurin to Great Star Lake, claiming that answers lied within the mists. Gaarik joined Mathurin in this new journey, but the Guardian had seemed to fall into a deep sleep, and Dittoc, trying to wake him, promised to follow Mathurin and Gaarik later. On the way to Fahrnach, the town south of Yuvegar Forest, Mathurin met an old friend of Gaarik's in Selvan's Harp Inn, a woman thief by the name of Diesna. Diesna was the niece of the late king, and had come to the east coast to solve his murder. She was happy to be with Gaarik again, but was enamoured by the handsome Mathurin, just as the nereid before had been. Mathurin quickly decided that he had been cursed, and reluctantly took the young woman with him to Fahrnach.

Fahrnach bordered the Yuvegar Forest surrounding the Great Star Lake, and was at present the resting place of many an adventurer, as Mathurin quickly learned. His persistant questioning of the town's inhabitants soon drew the attention of several adventurers, including the nature-oriented half-elven ranger Irana Starjay, the tough human Dhalsiman cleric Emmaeai, the bold dwarven fighter Muric Goblinslayer, the meek and shy human cleric Renee, the patient and fearless elven fighter Ovarin, the shifty and clever halfling thief Smitty Selinor, and the cautious elven mage Khydras. After a long conversation and inquiry, Dittoc Orcsplitter arrived and rejoined the group, and the unlikely band of heroes made their way north towards Great Star Lake.

With Zaishalla leading the way, the adventurers penetrated the four-story tower, quickly uncovering secrets untold, and as part of the group found the commander of the Saberian Way and convinced him to bring peace to the land, another faction of them were investigating a secret room found on the third floor. Inside, they had found a banshee, the ancient spirit of the elven wife of the first and only human king of the Elven Empire, dating back almost 500 years (see Timeline for details). The banshee demanded of Dittoc that he find her husband's old tabard bearing his coat of arms, which could be found on the second floor of the self-same building. Dittoc complied, much to the others' dismay, and the banshee transformed into an 8-foot-tall creature of enormous power, who then ordered Dittoc, receiving similar powers, to kill the cleric of the Triple Goddess, Renee. Dittoc refused, and a mighty fight ensued. Only by ripping off the tabard and Renee's devastating touch were the heroes able to beat the nearly goddess-like monster.

After the epic battle with the banshee, the group splintered as a new addition, an elven cleric wearing blue robes, joined the ranks. The elven cleric, named Llael, was headed south for Fort Inundi, for he had heard that a great battle was being waged there, and he wanted to help out. A small detachment, made up of Dittoc, Mathurin, Irana, Renee, and Diesna, decided to go with him, though against claims from Emmaeai that they should be heading to Lindaton to gain evidence against Mioken and his conspiracy. The detachment agreed to meet the main group in Lindaton, and departed.

Quickly, the smaller group was thrown headlong into the conspiracy. Llael explained that he had heard from other clerics in his church that elves were meeting with goblins in a mine south of the fort. Diesna exclaimed that she knew of similar transactions being held near Garyknight cavern! The group headed to Garyknight to see if it were true, and were quickly deterred by a large army of elves and goblins at the mouth. Surely, such transactions were taking place. So they went south, hopefully to learn the nature of such transactions, though each knew in their heart that the elves and goblins had formed an alliance.

So the group came to Selvan on their way to the fort, learning that the entire military force of Fastague had been sent to Gritton to defeat the elves, and spent the night at the Harp Inn. However, a good night's sleep was not to be, as several assassins entered the room through the window and attacked. The group was victorious against the dark assassins, but in the fray, Mathurin set the inn ablaze, er, I mean, he saw one of the assassins knock over a candle. Then the true danger of their situation was made known as they were attacked by a group known as the Red Raven Society, a group of terrorists sympathetic to the goblins. The adventurers made their way to the forest, running south under cover of darkness to Fort Inundi. When they arrived, they found more problems: the elves had once again set siege to the fort. Diesna suggested that the fighting be avoided and that the heroes make their way to the mine. Llael agreed, but in the mine, Llael was unmasked as a cleric of the elven war god Dartal! He was the one sent to meet the goblins in the mine! Llael admitted his affiliation, but also told the adventurers that he meant them no harm, that he had had a change of heart and was considering giving up his mission.

Now Llael was watched moment by moment as they entered the mine. As they journeyed downward, their way was blocked by a mimic in the form of a treasure chest. Dittoc and Mathurin had run into mimics before, and the group tried to let the mimic be, but then the mimic bounced down the hall towards the stairs. Convinced that the mimic was retreating, the group went on, finding a large cave in the mine where three goblins and Rillinnither, cleric of Dartal, awaited Llael's arrival. The adventurers forced Llael forward to meet with the goblins, encouraging him to prove his worth by a sneak attack. The meeting was started, but Llael constantly questioned Rill and the goblins, raising suspicions in them, until Llael drew his claymore, the sword allowed by Dartal for his clerics to use, and sliced one of the goblins in two! The other adventurers, recognizing this sign, also attacked, and defeated the goblins, but during the struggle, Rill escaped, much to Dittoc's dismay. Dittoc then swore an oath to kill Rill at all costs.

Rill had disappeared, but the party was still underground. Retracing their steps, they found that the stairway they had descended had disappeared! Instead, a wall stood where no wall stood before. Soon it was realized that the wall was really the mimic, but the group could not defeat the mimic and hope to leave the mine, so they sought another way out. Soon, they found a secret passage that led them to a chamber with a statue which, when rotated, opened another secret passage leading to the surface. In the second secret passage, though, they found a gold and green-speckled dragon sleeping in an antechamber. Renee was instantly awash of knowledge of this creature: Drago the Destroyer. Somehow, she knew the goblins were going to try to awaken him. In a vision, the Triple Goddess showed her three things that must be done to stop the Awakening: assemble the Sword of Kithsteroth, find the Ritual of Drago, and cast the ritual while poking out the dragon's eyes as it awakened with the sword. Great pains were taken to hide this dragon after the group's escape, but all knew deep in their heart that the effort would only be temporary.

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

The party exited the cave and found Fort Inundi a now desolate waste, with an injured Vivian Zoul as the only inhabitant. Vivian told the group of the elf attack, how their numbers masked their strength and skill. The gnome mage had been taken along with several human prisoners, and Vivian had been the only survivor still at the fort, left for dead with a grievious wound in her office. The party healed her and brought her along. Also in Fort Inundi, they examined some of the possessions they had taken from the goblins in the mine. One was a note, which read as follows:

Developments proceeding. Invasion of Lindaton underway, human army sent to Gritton by Mioken, leaving the North open. The mage Zinsaber has not yet been found and captured. Dragon Project in progress; we have the ritual. Find the dragon! Also must find Patriarch of Selvan.

This led to the adventurers' dash to Selvan to try to save the Patriarch before he was captured or killed by the goblins. On the way, they found the goblin patrol sent to invade the town. They ran hard and fast to Selvan, avoiding these goblins, where they found the Patriarch in his tower, a temple of Alfadon. The Patriarch had finished casting a protective spell over the town, and now was willing to flee. The group then decided to find Zinsaber and ask him of his role in the conflict. After the group concluded that the best place to start would be the Lighthouse of Zinsaber, the Patriarch suggested that they head west for the Tower of Despair in Vrolok Forest, which was rumored to contain within its walls a rift that would take the heroes straight to the lighthouse. Judging that the Elven and Goblin armies would have taken the plain between Selvan and the lighthouse, this seemed like a good idea. The party headed west into Vrolok Forest.

The group came to where the Ned River and the Uraine river merged into one. The group needed to cross, and was about to set to the task when Diesna felt the ebb and flow of the tides of time, and the future spoke to her, as it had done once before with the whole group in Yuvegar Forest. She drew a card for each person in the party, then one for herself. Irana drew the Flames, and was told of trials and tests that awaited the party. Renee drew the Star, a sign of change and enlightenment. Dittoc drew the Donjon, the keep, a sure sign that the Tower of Despair would lead them ultimately to their goal. Mathurin drew the Fates, as he had the previous time, with the same meaning: a powerful enemy from his past was coming, perhaps had already come, to seek revenge for a past wrong. Llael drew the Talon, in which he learned that he would also undergo enlightenment and change. Then did Diesna draw for herself. She looked upon the card she drew... and collapsed to the ground, dead. The card of the Void was found in her hand.

The group tried several methods to revive her, all to no avail. In their desperation, they called upon her mother, the nereid, but all in vain. In the process, Mathurin nearly became a victim of a "control water" gem within Diesna's pocket when he tried to touch the water of the Ned to call the nereid. Only with the help of Dittoc and Irana was Mathurin able to be pulled out. They then used the gem to call the prophetess, and she came to them, mute, unable to speak, a result of the damage the goblins had already done to the waters. She could do nothing for Diesna. So the heroes buried Diesna in the waters of the Ned River, and continued morbidly onward.

Then an interesting twist in this story occurred. As the group was trying to find a way across the Ned and the Uraine, Dittoc wished that he had a boat with him. Instantly, a boat appeared upon the water! Bewildered, Dittoc made a second wish, to have a medium shield (a stupid wish as he could not use it). The shield appeared right in front of him! Then did Renee try to wish for something for herself: a three-piece-rod, the trademark weapon of the Triple Goddess... but to no effect. Dittoc tried to oblige his friend and wished for a three-piece-rod for Renee, and Renee promptly burst apart into a smattering of pieces, yet was still alive! Amid painful shouts of petition and prayer to her deity, Renee was restored to completeness, minus an ear, thanks to the "Happy Water" found by the adventurers earlier. After this little fiasco, the party warily climbed into the boat, and began to paddle across, but soon the boat began to sink. In the struggle to reach the shore, Vivian fell out of the boat, and Dittoc dove in to rescue her, finding in the process an underground cave with enough air pressure to keep the water out. When all had returned safely to shore, the group traveled on for another hour, then camped for the night.

That night, on Dittoc's watch, Dittoc fell asleep, and when Irana rose to take her watch, she found Vivian and the Patriarch gone, dragged out of the camp somehow. The group awakened, and followed the tracks to where they simply disappeared in the mud. Vivian was close by, her leg cut off. She told the group that goblins had carried them off, and she had awakened and tried to fight, but was unable to stave them off. The group fashioned her a peg-leg and a crutch to keep her able to move, but Vivian refused to accompany the group any longer, her wound more painful to her pride than her leg. She therefore took a wineskin filled with "happy water" from Renee, and headed east out of the forest. The remainder of the party, Mathurin, Dittoc, Irana, Renee, and Llael, traveled west, fearing it unsafe to camp any longer in the woods, and reached a stone tower at dawn.

The tower stood four levels high, and tapered down to the ground from the top. The heroes entered, and quickly found it to be inhabited by goblins. Friendly goblins. These goblins were part of Red Rose, a resistance movement against the goblin invasion. They invited the adventurers to eat, rest, and restore. Though wary, the party accepted the gracious offer, and spent the morning on the second floor. After a refreshing awakening, they spoke with the commander of the goblins, who, upon recognizing the trade of the characters, updated them on what was happening on the front, and asked that the heroes retrieve the ritual of Awakening from Mioken if they should happen to journey that way. With that, the adventurers left the commander, and found a secret passage in their makeshift bedroom to the third floor, which, as several of the goblins had stipulated, was inaccessible due to the rubble surrounding the stairwell.

The heroes faced down twelve grimlocks, hideous humanoids that feed off the flesh of other races, then found another secret passage in an adjacent bedroom after making sure the other passages on the third floor had been blocked by the rubble of the castle. This secret passage was a tunnel under the fourth floor which brought them to one of the southern chambers, which seemed to be some sort of music chamber at one point, but now was an empty room, save for a few treasure chests which the party opened and plundered. The party exited the room, then were attacked in the hallway by two gargoyles! Only Irana Starjay and Dittoc Orcsplitter had enchanted weapons to fend off the creatures, a need emphasized by the glancing of one of Dittoc's normal arrows from his longbow off of one of the creatures' stone skin. Mathurin saved the day with a burning hands spell, knocking the two gargoyles to the ground, then Irana finished off the duo with her enchanted dagger in a glorious and hard-fought battle.

Exhausted from the struggle, Dittoc found that the gargoyles had come from a throne room, and seeing a throne on the far side of the chamber, he sat down, and the rest of the group cried out, trying in vain to stop him from making another terrible mistake. Sarcasm and insults were soon replaced with awe, however, as the central tiles of the roof lowered and a golden statue of a triple-headed goddess was revealed. Renee, the cleric of the Triple Goddess, bowed down to it instantly; it was a statue of the goddess she worshipped, with the three heads symbolizing Graethor, Staethor, and Bainthor, the trio that made up the Triple Goddess. However, upon closer inspection, the plaque at the base bore the name Anala! Anala was the elven goddess of the forest and peace; was Anala the Triple Goddess? Was the Triple Goddess Anala? Was the sculptor of this fine work of art drunk or confused when he wrote the name on the base? Regardless of the circumstances, the statue seemed to acknowledge and accept the worship given by Renee and Irana. All the members of the group were made heartier and started to glow slightly from seeing this wondrous sight. But Llael, the cleric of Dartal, was most affected by the experience. He instantly forsook all he had known before in favor of becoming Anala's loyal servant, a cleric under Anala's care, protection, and power.

After this grand experience, the troupe traveled on, investigating the one other room on the fourth floor. This room had a stairwell, of which the characters descended back down to the third floor, where they found the study of an ancient wizard, as well as a bookshelf full of books with useful information. Llael, having astrology, was able to read one note lying face up on the desk nearby, but then fainted as he realized that the parchment detailed the exact date of Fastague's destruction: exactly one month from that day. After perusing the study, the heroes exited the room to the south, and entered the adjacent room, as there was nowhere else to go. In this room, they found the rift leading to Zinsaber's Lighthouse... and Zinsaber.

Zinsaber was very helpful to the adventurers, identifying many of the items that they had found on their way, as well as telling the cleric of the Triple Goddess where she could find the materials needed to assemble the Sword of Kithsteroth. He then showed the heroes the horror of the world the goblins called home, which they had to traverse for a few hours before finding a rift to Lindaton, where their friends were waiting...

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