Sunblight Fortress
The fortress of Xardorok Sunblight. He and his remaining children are planning a siege of Ten Towns, collecting chardalyn to forge weaponry in preparation.
Happenings
| § | Details |
|---|---|
| 37 | Pacifying Spores ~ Myconid sovereign in Sunblight Fortress ~ Gadget |
| 35 | #battle #ADuergarPlot While others probed the bedchambers, Oona glared warily at a set of armors in the training quarters near the east elevator. The armors looked alive. Tetro lit the room with faerie fire, catching several aglow. They were indeed alive, but left alone they stayed inert. In the meantime, the elevator descended, and on it was a witless duergar who fell to the party. Looking up and down the elevator shaft, as well as out through the arrow slit windows, the party suddenly froze as the clanking of chains began on the floor overhead. The top level's ice gate was open. What then sounded like a freight train of glass and iron roared through the central shaft of Sunblight Fortress, descending into the forge level below. There was no doubt in their minds. This was the dragon. With the elevator taking off, the group committed to descend. |
| 35 | a decorative ruby saber, valued at 75 gp ~ Sunblight Fortress ~ Fern |
| 35 | Hat of Disguise ~ Sunblight Fortress ~ Fern |
| 35 | Talltree's Griffon Horn ~ Sunblight Fortress ~ Oona |
| 35 | Yeti rug ~ Sunblight Fortress ~ Tetro |
| 35 | 12 stoppered gourds filled with rare fire lichen liquor ~ Sunblight Fortress ~ party |
| 35 | a gold Drow mask, valued at 750 gp ~ Sunblight Fortress ~ party |
| 35 | a silver Drow chalice with an obsidian eyed spider, valued at 250 gp ~ Sunblight Fortress ~ party |
| 35 | 350 gp ~ Sunblight Fortress ~ party |
| 35 | Wand of Web ~ Sunblight Fortress ~ Gadget |
| 35 | Cloak of Elvenkind ~ Sunblight Fortress ~ party |
| 35 | an amber headdress with pearl inlays, valued at 2500 gp ~ Sunblight Fortress ~ party |
| 35 | a false eye made of moonstone, valued at 75 gp ~ Sunblight Fortress ~ party |
| 34 | #battle #ADuergarPlot The trapdoor led to an alcove behind Xardorok's Black Ice throne within Sunblight Fortress, sitting in a long, desolate great hall. Black dust and soot covered the upper walls as smoke hung below the tall ceilings. A set of high windows set in the brutal architecture hinted at two scenes outside the hall: the cavernous expanse of the Underdark to the west and the red bellows of a forge on the east. Two duergar entered from the west doorways at the rear staircases, leading to a scuffle that was eventually settled as a misunderstanding. These two were Olpha Muzgardt's men. They retold how a manic Xardorok had taken made preparations for Olpha to dine on the central Command Level of the fortress. The throne room was on an isolated side of the lowest level, the Forge Level, though direct access to the forge would require breaching a fortified portcullis from the outer yard. Instead, the duergar named Bruvo warily suggested they hurry to the elevators. He was worried because some of Xardorok's newer recruits were only a room away: quaggoths, low intelligence, hyper-violent humanoids from the Underdark which Xardorok was able to subjugate. The heroes took his advice, heading to the lift. |
| 34 | Platinum Star Sapphire Hookah worth 2500 gp ~ Sunblight Fortress ~ Fern |
| 34 | 100 gp in gems ~ Sunblight Fortress ~ Gadget |
| 33 | #ADuergarPlot The escape route into Sunblight Fortress's throne room was found. Its door lay locked behind a dwarven passphrase puzzle. While the party tried their best to avoid attracting a lumbering chardalyn bulette, the beast eventually sensed them. Cracking the code and uttering the word THRESHOLD, the party tumbled into the open passage just as the bulette erupted into a beam of searing radiant light in its death throes. |
| 31 | #UnderdarkExpedition Mev Flintknapper told the party they're crazy to head towards Sunblight Fortress, but, as they stood on one face of a chasm spanned by a lone bridge spanning a river of lava, he did warn them to take heed of awakening any stirges. Stirges, they recalled, are rat sized flying bloodsuckers, and the far cavern walls seemed to be pocked with their nesting holes. Across this bridge was the duergar mining colony where Sloopidoop, Aruk Thundercaller, and Sensei landed when teleporting away from Sunblight's prisons. There, the party was told, was a Duergar princess from the Muzgardt clan. Xardorok Sunblight had summoned the woman to court her, but the rumor in the mining colony, which sounded like a somewhat open city for Underdark trade despite the presence of the Sunblight clan, was that the princess was of an independent mind. |
| 30 | #ADuergarPlot Sloopidoop and his colleague Pleuruta, a myconid and another Society of Brilliance member, had been captured by the duergar while they were on a field trip in the Northdark. Sloopi was able to teleport out of Sunblight Fortress, but his escape should have landed him back at the Society. Instead, he was hurtled through ice and snow beyond belief before landing outside the fortress near a duergar mining colony. While his colleague was still detained, his teleportation brought along Pleuruta's former aide, Sensei, as well as Aruk Thundercaller. Both Sensi and Aruk were inspired by the party, deciding to join them back towards the fortress to rescue their companions. Sloopi wished to remain to study the phaerimm and hesitantly considered exploring passage towards the now twilit Icewind Dale. |
| 29 | #ADuergarPlot #UnderdarkExpedition Over several days, the Heroes of the Cairn took care to prepare for the forthcoming expedition, a journey into the Underdark to infiltrate Sunblight Fortress and apprehend the duergar warlord Xardorok Sunblight before his army marches on Ten Towns with chardalyn siege weaponry. Gadget used her time to research the capabilities of the duergar military, while others convened with members of the council. Fern found a local stylist to polish and primp her horns. Azgul wandered off, then returned after picking up several potions of healing. Tetro was overheard chatting to three kobolds in a trenchcoat about fungi of the Underdark. |
| 29 | #TheRimeoftheFrostmaiden On the third day, Crank was taking inventory and noted that of their two diamonds they created in the Lost Spire, only one remained. The other had moldered into a black ooze. Piecing together that their illusory items may be fraying, the party looked things over. Fern's studded leather seemed intact. Sparks was okay, tail wagging happily. Oona's great axe couldn't be found, though. Worried that their diamond may disintegrate, the party paid Copper a visit. The gnome, assessing the gem, believes he could repair the Summer Star, consecrating the chardalyn core and providing at least another charge. He would need a tenday. Thus, it should be ready when the party returned from Sunblight Fortress. |
| 29 | #UnderdarkExpedition #ADuergarPlot The party stabled their dogs in Termalaine. Accompanied by Oarus Masthew and Copper, they made their way into the mines, whose central shaft was now known to connect to the Underdark. A crude kobold map was given to them, barely decipherable, but containing a marker for a "glow tree", another for "grey folk village," and several dots warning for "bad things." On descending via a pulley, the temperature rose to a comfortable cool and the air went from icy dry to moist. Minutes later, they reached soft earth. At their feet were two kobold corpses, seen alive weeks ago, and now blooming with fungi. In front of them laid a fissure. Beyond that an endless cavern. It would be 20 miles to Sunblight. |
| 28 | #TheCouncil #ADuergarPlot Sunblight Fortress has been located, and leading an army there looked grim. Scouts have identified an imposing fortress and signs of duergar warrior deployment were seen. In related news, supposed dragon attacks destroyed a homestead, setting it ablaze in Dougan's Hole, as heard but not seen by Edgra Durmoot. This dragon cannot be Arveiturace, a white wyrm, and seems linked to the duergar activity and scorch marks witnessed across the southern tundra. Eight ballista have been commissioned by Bryn Shander. At the party's behest, four were diverted to Easthaven, and a potential evacuation plan was concocted for the greater Ten Towns. |
| 28 | #TheCouncil #ADuergarPlot When considering the approach to Sunblight Fortress, Oarus Masthew suggested the Underdark. It seems that mining activity has determined that the central shaft of the Termalaine mine, once thought to be a bottomless pit, opens up into the vastness of the deep. While duergar activity has not been spotted there, a pathway to their supply lines ought to be inevitable. |
| 19 | #BlackSwords #ADuergarPlot Kadroth was a middle-aged tiefling man in well-kept garb. He assuaged the party that he was the right hand of Speaker Crannoc Siever, that the poor speaker had kept to his bedchambers due to a malaise of the mind. Insight proved that he was indeed acting as the right hand to an extent, but that his "care" for the speaker was a equivocal at best. Nevertheless the party heard him out, as his men had indeed tracked the Duergar menace and located an outpost. Kadroth, clutching his black sword chardalyn pendant and extolling the virtue of stopping the duergar threat, was happy to arrange an alliance. He boasted that he had a wizard named Avarice under his command - though the insightful could tell he feared the conjurer - and that he would gladly assist the party if Sunblight Fortress's whereabouts were uncovered. When pressed about the "faith" of these apparent cultists, Kadroth praised the Archdevil Levistus, Lord of Stygia, the 5th level of the Nine Hells. Levistus spoke to him, he claimed. Levistus, patron of the desperate and forgotten, had brought salvation to most members in his fold. Kadroth was merely his envoy. The cult was named after their lord: the cult of the Black Swords. |
| 19 | #BlackSwords Kadroth had gleefully urged the party to speak with their soothsayer, the old and heartlessHethyl Arkorran. Hethyl knew each party member by name. She had dreaded this day, as she knew it would be her last. She was to die, and her soul was bound for the Nine Hells. She did so only after prophesying carnage at Ten Towns at the hands of the Duergar and the party's role in mitigating it. "Try, try, try... amidst countless screams." With a deep-set hatred for Duergar, she envisioned Sunblight Fortress nestled in the mountains: one entrance by ground, yet exhausts open to the sky as well. The fortress hosted a forge powered by a red dragon's still-beating heart, and a great weapon was being forged from black ice for Xardorok Sunblight's paranoid campaign to raze and conquer Icewind Dale. Hethyl's near-blind eyes grew dim after the conversation. Her heart stopped, and she fell dead. |
| 18 | #ChardalynCaper #ADuergarPlot The two standing duergar were coerced into talking. The mind master that the party just killed was named Durth Sunblight. He was one of the remaining sons of Xardorok Sunblight, a duergar lord with a mountain fortress in the Spine of the World. The duergar race, known for having lived in the Underdark for centuries, were descendants of dwarves turned grim and having developed psionic abilities after eons of influence by mind flayer colonies. Xardorok's intent is to bring his people to the surface, raze Ten Towns, and establish a footprint for his own people to live in the dim twilight of Icewind Dale. He has dispatched two of his sons, Durth and Nildar Sunblight, to scout ahead. Durth is now dead, and Nilder is in charge of an outpost on the eastern face of Kelvin's Cairn. The stolen chardalyn from East Haven Town Hall was meant to be hauled back to Sunblight Fortress to be forged into siege weaponry. After confessing, the two duergar made a getaway, narrowly avoiding an axe to their necks as they turned invisible and bolted. |