Story Hour and Poll Error! (Patreon)

The Sentinel Marshals of House Deneith are the finest law enforcers in the Five Nations. Though Galifar was broken by the Last War, the Sentinel Marshals hold the trust of every monarch and have the power to pursue criminals throughout Khorvaire. In his years as a Sentinel Marshal, Rolan Harn faced countless deadly threats. He pursued a Karrnathi warlord into ancestral crypts haunted by generations of warrior ghosts. He clashed with Tairnadal elves in the deserts of Valenar. And he hunted deserters and fugitives across the length of the Barrens, matching wits with minotaurs and learning the ways of worgs. Rolan was stripped of his rank, and no longer has the authority of a Sentinel Marshal. But he’s still driven by a desire to see justice done.

It was this impulse that led Rolan and his friends into the hills above Threshold, to investigate the disappearance of local kobolds. A settler, Kaine Agran, had found a curious subterranean chamber on his land—a room filled with ash and ancient skulls, containing an altar that drains the life forces of those killed upon it and uses that power to transform the killer. Kaine Agran had fallen under the sway of the altar, and it was he who’d killed the kobolds. There was no reasoning with Agran, and in the battle Rolan and his allies found that Agran was turning into a creature of living stone. There was rough stone beneath his skin, and his eyes had become jewels. Though Agran was defeated, the altar remained—and neither Rolan nor his companions could find a way to destroy it.

Rolan wanted to alert the sheriff immediately, but his companions urged him to wait. There was a door in the chamber of skulls, and the group wished to explore the mystery further. Rolan agreed to wait one day. When these adventurers returned to the chamber, others were already there—people who might have been villagers, whose faces were hidden by flat masks of red stone. These cultists were carving stairs down to the chamber of skulls, using some sort of magic to sculpt the stone and soil. Battle broke out, and like Agran there was no reasoning with these strangers. When the cultists were defeated, Rolan and his companions found that they weren’t wearing masks; the stone was fused to their faces.

The scholar Ink opened the sealed door in the chamber, and the group explored the ancient tunnels beyond it. The halls were filled with the petrified remains of orc and goblin warriors, seemingly frozen in the midst of battle. Further in, they found a chamber containing a pool of clear water and the perfectly preserved corpse of a Gatekeeper druid—an orc woman whose hand was in the water, and who appeared to be sustained by it. Ink believed that the druid had been in the midst of a ritual when she died, though the dwarf had no idea what the unfinished ritual was supposed to accomplish. After clashing with strange, shapeshifting gargoyles and the remaining cultists, the group returned to town with more questions than before. Who was the dead woman, and what was the nature of her unfinished ritual? Who were the red-masked cultists, and what did they want with the altar? What of the shapeshifting statues that seemed to have been guarding the dead druid? While these questions remained unanswered, Rolan felt that this wasn’t something a rag-tag band of friends should deal with alone; it was time to bring the matter to the sheriff.

The festival of Bounty’s Blessing is well underway when the adventurers return to town. There’s a lively farmer’s market in the Square, along with an assortment of games and other forms of entertainment. Three-Widow Jane takes an interest in an illusory shooting gallery. The goblin tailor Deven Sar’kaas heads off to find his family, and the smith Bel goes to see how her sandfruit tarts faired in the baking competition. But Rolan is not easily distracted when he sets his mind to a task. He walks directly to town hall, the fortified keep on the edge of the Square. There’s a single guard at the gate, but the town hall is a public facility; she looks Rolan over, shrugs, and allows him to enter.

What is Rolan’s goal in speaking to the sheriff? Does he want Constable to seal off the Chamber of Skulls, or does he simply want to alert the sheriff to this potential threat? Will he mention the red-masked cultists or does he leave that out? Will he mention the Gatekeeper druid or not?

This is the beginning of the new Threshold Story Hour, which will play out in the THRESHOLD/STORY channel of the Eberron Discord. 

Meanwhile, I realize that I made a mistake on the poll for game time, listing Tuesday afternoon twice but NOT listing Tuesday EVENING. Just in case that makes a big difference, I'm adding two more possible times in a quick poll. These are IN ADDITION to the times on the previous poll -- I just want to make sure we have options, since we haven't done weekdays in the past. 

Thanks for your support!