Thank you!

In the Irondrake Rock area, myself and another player have had fairly potent monsters (ettin savages and orc groups) spawn right near the caravan exit such that upon arrival, you get killed.

Forgive me if I am posting out of turn, here, but Byron has mentioned that the ward in Bospir is tied to miss Viktoria and his own life essences, neither of them apparently fully understood or agreed to this when it was done. He simply did it, like they were jugs of wine to be tapped for- what I choose to believe in his mind- was a greater need.

If it had been someone close to me, I would have killed him for such a reckless disregard of humanoid life and the sanctity of such things.

It is not my place to say where he should or should not be, but he is not the first talented arcanist I've run into who has no concept or concern for their effects on the world or the people in it.

Respectfully,

Misa Leonalloud

Seekers,

Hello!

I hope the information contained in this file will be of some use to the ongoing problem of the Lady of Bells and her growing influence in the region. For the sake of sanity, I’d urge you to think twice, thrice, and yet again before turning this document over to the Council of Twelve in total.

They cannot be trusted and parties within the Council will use the information contained within to spread their master’s influence, or go off on some half thought out crusade against someone who’s more likely a victim than a perpetrator.

If I am missing things, or you have questions, please don’t hesitate to let me know. This is a document compiled on my own research and foot work, so it may be out of date or have holes in it.

Respectfully,

Misa Leonalloud

---

What I am lacking in all of this is motive or understanding of the Lady’s goals. Though I have some ideas, they’re half formed at best and actively nebulous at worse.

My working theory is that there is something on, under, or around Immersea that the Lady wants; most of her efforts have been focused on isolating the port and fortifying it with people loyal to her. Her grander goals may be along the lines of taking hold in the Prime since no god or avatar could stop her during the Silence; a humanoid among ants as it were.

Timeline:

Eveningstar.

Incident 1

A young militia member is given a book of angel summoning by a red haired woman who claims it will make him a hero. This goes horribly awry as the man cannot fully grasp the intricate bargaining required when casting these spells and a portal to the upper planes is opened and an angelic host pours free.

Incident 2

The same day, a necromancer is fiddling around in the South Horn using some kind of cobbled together ritual that empowered the curse in the region, weakening the Veil. Further into the tower in the region, we find the necromancer intentionally attempting to breach into the Plane of Shadow.
When questioned, she said that she was given the ritual by someone we’d not expect and that she wanted to fulfill a dream of shadows reaching out to her. She had been prepared to undo the ritual once her goals were complete, she went in expecting to survive it. Whether that was intentional or not on the part of her benefactor isn’t known. But it does fit the motive of the previous encounter; planar breach, offered a chance to fulfill a dream.

Hullack Forest

Incident 1

Next, a fortress in the Hullack overrun by fishmen. A lot of food is sacrificed and some form of ritual circle is discovered. This will become important later.

Incident 2

The incursion (and later native hosting) of Slaadi is introduced to the area, presumably initially by the Lady of Bells. I do not have confirmation of this
There are a few other incidents of folks getting their hands on things they shouldn’t have and causing havoc, I don’t have specifics for them as I only ever hear about them fifth hand; not being a member of the Council of Twelve, I’m not privy to their information.

---

Hillmarch Mines

Incident 1

Another planar breach was found involving a Pit Fiend, apparently the ritual devised was conducted by ogres but they were slain before it could be completed. A sorcerer, knowing full well what he was doing completed the circle and ritual which brought the Pit Fiend into existence and weakened the Veil from the sheer power of the breach.
To my way of thinking, this represents an escalation of the power of these rituals being offered and composed. Or it could merely represent a more earnest familiarity with opening holes into the lower planes- not unreasonable considering the nature of the Lady.

Incident 2

An incursion by creatures of the lower planes into the mine was fought (and continues to be fought, I’m told) by beings from the upper planes. This breach seems to have been spontaneous, an odorous malaise of sulfur permeates the area and lesser creatures of the lower planes (such as Vrocks!) wander the mines unchallenged. I am building a ward to seal this tear.

---

Irondrake Mines

This occurred in a cave near a place known as Irondrake rock where a demon had helped a Frost Giant Shaman raise her dead companions and the dwarves who went in to kill those giants as undead monsters. The creature said that it was helping the giant get what she wanted.
Attempts to even harm the creature weren’t thwarted so much as outright ineffectual. It crushed a gem and disappeared, presumably back to its home plane. Again with that motif.

---

Immersea

Finally we come to Immersea. Months of bad fishing, progressively worse attacks on ships, and so forth. Some of this could probably be attributed to the sahaguin being what they are. Apparently a leader arose among them and has been orchestrating a lot of attacks on the port. This creature has been killed recently and the attacks, as I understand, have died down.

Incident 1

Months ago, attacks upon shipping begin by the sahaguin fishmen, storms ravaged the port town and sent as many as three ships to the bottom of the Wyvernwater for every one that got into the port. This lead to the mayor taking out loans from the other major factions within the region so she could continue to seem like the trade hub that Immersea should have been.

This went on to the point that even the inn had to go to half rations since fishing was so poor.

From here, the mayor sought out help of the Wolf’s Head, a group of pirates that have a long reputation for taking over ports they come into. It’s not known where she got this contact, her daughter doesn’t know and she was cagey when asked directly. The mayor sold her port to the Admiral for relief of her debts.

Incident 2

During my first encounter with the sahaguin down there, when we recovered some supplies from some of missing vessels, we also found a circle that was abyssal in nature and, while crude on the face of it, was still much more advanced than anything they should’ve been able to produce.
They were attempting to commune with, or summon their abyssal god, Sekola. They’d stacked offerings of good, valuables and the corpses of the crews of these ships, using their blood to create this circle.
We captured one and interrogated it under magic thrall, didn’t learn much. I don’t think anyone’s followed up investigations with the big chief before killing it, sadly I wasn’t there to do so.

Incident 3

During our attempts to deliver the coin provided by the Wolf’s Head to the various debtors around the region we have been set upon by bandits and all manner of other folk attempting to stop us. One of those bandits offered to give us the name of the one who sold us out-- that bandit is dead now. We dropped the ball on that, I don’t know why it wasn’t followed up on faster. We wanted to, we couldn’t get timing right.

Other interactions with the Wolf’s Head has shown that Zhentarim may be part of the crew and the second in command is a bit of a strange case that pings a lot of people oddly.

Incident 4

An attack by fish men upon the village apparently destroyed a copy of the village’s ‘ledger’, this has later been rumored (confirmed?) to possibly be a book bound in humanoid skin containing the True Names of many powerful creatures. The whereabouts of this book seem to be in the Seeker’s posession.

Incident 5

The road south to Immerse has been flooded by undead, presumably lead by the tiefling necromancer that the Lady of Bells is sponsoring. Byron Burke of Ilmater has had two encounters with him, apparently the tiefling was speaking about a queen of the dead coming back to kill an ancient dragon.

Possibly related to the bleeding statue of the queen in Aunaria?

---

I played a gamble to see if it’d happen, and to my bemused delight, it worked exactly as predicted; I sent a letter of my findings to the mayor’s daughter, Marlene, I was informed by her that her mother is exiling me from ever entering the village again. I touched a nerve. But Merl informed me that she thinks the Admiral is in the clear, that her second in command might be the one helping push forward the plots of the Lady.

[Enclosed]
Letter to Marlene: https://nodebb.cityofarabel.com/topic/55798/letter-to-marlene-arcerak/3
Letter from Byron: https://nodebb.cityofarabel.com/topic/56352/byron-burke/2

I have a theory that the ‘woman in blue’ might actually be a blue dragon in disguise, drawn here for some purpose. The ‘queen of the dead’ doesn’t strike me as particularly apparent, but I am open to ideas. Were I able to get in front of her, I could utter something in draconic and see if she bites (hopefully not literally!), but I think there are better ways to skin this cat.

I am open to ideas.

I realize there are some elementals on quests, but once you hit 10 the quests that have elementals on them can no longer be accessed. There's plenty of reasons to want them for RP purposes now that sap elemental essence works.

It'd be cool to have those old fashioned and terrifying elementals wandering about appropriate biomes.

Issue Location: Eveningstar Lonesome Tankard
Quest Name:
Store Name:
NPC Name: Dunman Kiriag and Charlotte Laursen
NPC Location: Lonesome Tankard
Server Version: 7448
Screen Shot:

I'm being offered free room and board, but I'm unable to actually rest there. Not sure why either of these things is happening. Misa's an IC Eveningstar native, but I don't have my spawnpoint set there and I don't know of any reason I'd have this perk. :)

Thanks, Echo!

Agreed. 100%

Add to this idea, that DM loot can be made more enticing by giving them scripted properties that do something cool. My favorite PC had a sword that when activated gave them an incredibly cool visual effect and a simple emote.

It was also d6 lightning damage, yes, and it was super thematic to the character, but I remember most fondly the journey to get there and the cool thing it did.

This is also because Spiffy can be as incredible a storyteller as he can a troll, and was very gracious with his time.

You can make this simpler for DM's, too, by creating a library of scripted effects and attaching those properties to the item(s) in question. So not every single piece has to be one off, but can be give one of a wide array of 'unique spells'.

@acemvi said in Orc head bounty system:

I sort of thought that was the whole point of this quest. It’s otherwise a mindless slog where you just go from room to room in a fairly linear fashion.

I don’t know if this is intentional design (surely not) but very few quests have reasons to do them outside despite difficulty or length due to standardized XP and gold rewards. Getting rid of the heads entirely instead of putting a simple cap on them just makes it more likely people will never touch it instead (like Ants).

The questing experience in CoA is already dire, let’s not artificially lengthen the time needed to invest in it by needing every source of XP.

My recommendation would be to reduce the number of mobs (and therefore heads) but make them tougher to compensate if need be. I’d still do this even if I was only getting 500 XP for turning in the heads (after all of them are funneled to my PC).

I agree with basically everything in this post.

Area name:
Issue Location:
Quest Name:
Store Name:
NPC Name:
NPC Location:
Server Version: 7437
Screen Shot:
Time: https://www.timeanddate.com/

Issue Description: North Dialect regional language isn't given to the PC that selects it. Nor can it be chosen through dot commands (presumably for the same reason). It still takes up a language slot, though.