Quartz 5

10 min read

publish: true
created: 2026-03-08T20:35:46.825-04:00
modified: 2026-03-15T18:10:46.708-04:00
published: 2026-03-15T18:10:46.708-04:00
cssclasses: ""
Party:

Events

  • Begins on a cart passage to The Unnamed City
    • Starting at Zar’Vasha in the morning, the 5 party members getting onto that caravan
  • A few hours into our travel (still in the desert), a hooded, masked man join us
  • A few hours later again and the cart stops abruptly
    • Roz puts the man to Sleep
    • Yharov takes the masked man’s bag
    • Blood from the driver’s cabin splashes into the back of the cart (the driver was killed)
    • We step out of the cart and it immediately goes up in flame and turns to ash
      • The masked man appears unharmed, yet still asleep
  • A second masked man with red eyes appears
    • He walks up to the sleeping masked man, puts his hand to his temple, and turns his body to ash (killing him in the process)
    • He then steps up to us and with a deep, demonic voice asks, “where are the contents of his bag?”
    • He rips the mask off the original masked figure, revealing a young sorcerer roughly 19 years old
    • The new masked figure puts his finger to the old one’s head and eviscerates him
    • He claims the bag contains 1 of 12 items he needs
      • We know there were 12 dark artifacts that were created by The Unknown during his reign of terror
    • He takes a massive red diamond out of the bag and puts it in his own
      • “Enjoy life while you still have it. When the moon shines red, as the color of this diamond, all Hell will begin to break loose”, he says in his demonic voice
    • We could tell that he was a human but corrupted by something. He was bearing a symbol: he was a member of The Awakening (group that tried to awaken The Unknown)
    • He simply walks away; everyone is afraid to stop him
  • The dead body of the first masked man (the 19yo boy) had:
    • 1P, 35G
    • A broken (requires repair; not just attunement) ring-of-spell-storing
    • A note
      • “You must hurry. Bring the artifact to the Kingdom of Caer Thalor so that we can lock it in the vault. We have more to collect before him. He is the last one”
      • Signed the Minister of The Council of Coldvale (from that cold city at the top right)
      • TODO: Create a quest for this
  • Yharov collects the dead man’s mask and bag
  • We follow after the scary masked man at a distance
  • He stops and pours a vial of liquid on a sapling which causes it to grow into a new plant
    • We know the plant as a Velvet Thorn ( a plant of beauty that existed during the reign of the unknown that used to bloom everywhere but is now extinct. People used to view these plants as a sign the unknown was defeated)
  • Because we have cover and high ground, Raelor secretly attacks him using Concealed Shot
    • The shot moves his mask, revealing that he may just be a normal man (also a 15 hit)
      • This gives us the courage to fight him for real
    • When a thrown dagger hits his left leg, it falls off as if it was simply stitched on
    • Roz casts Command to make him take his mask off, revealing that he has the face of a 16 year old Human boy
    • Avenj begins interrogating him (during combat)
      • He takes the man’s satchel
      • The man Thunderwaves Avenj away and takes the satchel back
      • Raelor shoots his right arm
        • It, too, falls off as if stitched on
  • He surrenders (Theodore rolled a nat 20 on his intimidation check) and we interrogate him
    • Each of his limbs on the ground appear to be of a different species, are purified, and are still moving despite not being attached to his body
    • He claims he was created to kill The Unknown and claims he will not pronounce the name of his creator in front of mortals
      • We (IRL) are skeptical of this claim given The Awakening symbol he is wearing
    • Roz tries to use Sending to get the creator’s name nonverbally, but it caused him to make a CON save and he couldn’t comprehend the name despite succeeding
    • He has TONS of random spell components
      • So many that we all now have all the components we need to cast any spell levels 0-3 once
      • Interestingly, the components are for multiple classes
        • Brad later said he doesn’t like dealing with components, so this may not be worth reading too deeply into as it could just be his way of taking care of that
    • Behind emblem he carries is a coin
      • Scratched on the front is abyssal writing
      • On the back is a lock
    • He implies he plans to somehow leverage the fact that many are at war to achieve his evil goals
    • Roz uses Mold Earth to bury his torso and head alive
  • In his bag is:
    • A notebook with a sleeping face on the cover
    • 3 vials all containing different liquids:
      • A purple one that transformed the plant
      • A silvery one with transmutation magic
      • A green one with necromancy magic
  • Theodore takes the spell components and mask
  • Someone plucks the plant and it is still alive and moving post plucking
  • We arrive at the Unnamed City (the southeastern corner)
    • In the center is a small, prospering city that grants passage to the other side
    • The water isnt very deep; we could swim through in a day
    • Roz pays a little lizard girl a copper to find us a place to sleep
      • She brings us to a cave hideout at the southeastern beach with some cots and toy
        • Clearly this where she lives
      • Her name is Theratina
      • When asked if we should stay at an inn, she shakes her head and says “bad people”
      • The girl leaves despite us offering for her to stay with us
        • She is not very trusting
  • We begin investigating the notebook with the sleeping face on it
    • There are multiple riddles to unlock it
      • The first riddle we correctly answer “death”
        • The lock shifts slightly
      • The second riddle we incorrectly answer “time”
        • A red line appears, likely indicating one of a maximum allowed number of failed guesses
      • We correctly answer “the unknown” on our second try
        • The lock shifts more
      • The third riddle we answer correctly on our first try: “hope”
        • The book unlocks
    • The pages of the book are blank
    • In the back of the book, we see a drawn diamond with blurry words underneath it
      • As we move the red diamond closer, the words become more visible
      • We touch the diamond to the page and it absorbs into the book; text appears
        • “The diamond of 20 monsters: This artifact was used by The Unknown to bring 20 hideous monsters (its army) only to be slain by GrindleDarks”
      • The diamond is removable still if you stick your hand in the page
    • Another page appears/renders
      • It looks like a crooked staff with blurry text below (we probably need some crooked staff to proceed, if that is even desired)
  • We take the diamond out of the book and decide its best to store them separately
    • Theodore hides the book amongst his other books in his bag
    • Roz puts the diamond in his bag
  • We search the hideout and find:
    • 10 GP (we do not take it; it clearly belongs to Theratina)
    • A map of Evermore with Mazcatan circled; Theratina seems to want to go here
    • Three of her poorly rendered drawings:
      • Her with two older lizard folk
      • A dark evil shadow with dark, amethyst like eyes
      • Her walking alone
  • Because Roz is carrying the diamond, he has a nightmare in some dimensional blue arena where some large demon with red eyes says to him, “Give me back what is rightfully mine!”
    • He declines and succeeds on a CON save before waking
  • The Alarm spell goes off as a guard named Bobloro Fawnhore walks in
    • Evidently he was just doing a patrol and noticed us
    • He offers to take us to the Border City
    • The south part and north part of the world is feuding
      • Generally the center city stays neural in these conflicts
      • The source of the conflict is that The Council of Coldvale did some experiments, causing the ice rift to spread further which led to Karvok Thuldor to not have its natural lava season
        • They are gearing up for war
    • He said a man walked into the city without a head and walked out with one late last night
      • The head is gone from Avenj’s bag, but the diamond and book remain
      • This is obviously the man we buried alive
  • Roz finds the little girl on the beach and asks her where the nearest library is
    • It is in the inner city
    • When asked where her parents are, she simply leaves (touchy subject)
  • She later returns
    • Yharov gives her a doll he knit and she offers to take us to the library
      • She claims they just wont let her past the border bc she is too young
      • She does want to pass the border bc she is “going somewhere”
        • We know this to be Mazcatan from the map we found
      • We offer to help her pass by vouching for her
    • She gathers her things:
      • The things we found
      • A small rapier
      • A canoe
    • Everyone (except Theodore who is too heavy and swims alongside) rides the canoe to the docks of the center city
  • Two people at the dock offer to take our canoe to the water on the other side of the passage in exchange for 5C
    • We pay 10C and tell them to fix the dent Theodore left when trying to enter it
  • She takes us to the courthouse
    • We go in and the line moves quickly
      • A small gnomish man with glasses sits at a table with a massive amount of scrolls surrounding him
      • He tells us passage costs 1S per person
      • He does not want to let the little girl through
        • He claims she committed crimes in the north in the past
        • She owes 10 gold pieces for her past crimes
        • We pay it from the bag we recovered from the original masked man
      • Once through, she tries to pay us her 10G
        • We decline
  • We make our way to the north port.
    • We stop by a shop with a giant Bugbear working at the counter
    • Everything in there is hundreds of gold or platinum
    • Theodore eats a magic mushroom (reluctantly) in exchange for 2 free pouches of premium tobacco (worth hundreds of gold)
      • He rolled well and now has advantage on strength checks for the rest of the day
  • Our canoe is at the dock and repaired
    • As we begin to depart, we notice some elvish spellcasters on the way by

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