Episode Zero: “Bleak Hollow: – Bleak Hollow is the home of all the adventurers in this campaign. They came to live in the city for different reasons, but overall its because they want to live somewhere that the rest of the world doesn’t seem to give any mind to at all. The city is a sea port surrounded by a treacherous mountain range. Bleak Hollow got its name from the Bleak Family who originally settled the area and struck gold in a prosperous mining endeavor. Folk flocked to the city which would become “Bleak Hollow” and over time it become a booming town with flourishing mining, timber, fishing, and shipwright industries. But all good things must come to an end, and after several years the mines were depleted and the timber succumbed to a blight, causing both companies to ultimately shut down. After a time, the King lost interest in the declining city, and withdrew his attention and his garrison from Bleak Hollow. He selected five affluent families and named them nobles, granting titles and land. Now Bleak Hollow is a trade hub for seafood, but it is also a secret hub for Spelljammers. The Black Network started it all, seeing the opportunity to benefit from the city’s misfortune. They installed two Crime Families, the Cacuzzos and the Markanos, creating a network for smuggling, labor trafficking, and criminal enterprise. Before long, the Black Network Spelljamming ship called Damnation’s Pride, captained by the notorious pirate Thadeus “The Turncoat” Thundercloud was a regular fixture in port, moving Black Network packages in and out of the city. Word spread, and Spelljammers started frequenting the isolated port, providing much needed supplies to the Merchants of the city, and carrying out transportation for exports not only to cities on Athas but also to planets beyond Black Hollow’s very solar system.
Episode One: “Eldagast Heist” – The adventurers were hired by Halla, a Cacuzzo Mafia Princess, to steal a cache of healing potions from Eldagast, a nearby village. They found the village abandoned, and would later discover that Princess Xendalli contacted them and they fled to the Feywild using a magical portal opened by the village Star Priest. They found a star chart of the Athas galaxy, one depicting it without a planetary alignment and the other with a planetary alignment. They also found an idol of Corellon Larethian, god of the Elves, depicted as an Astral Elf pointing to the heavens. They trapped a gang of Markano thugs in a warehouse, killed them, and returned successfully with the Healing Potions for Halla. While in the village, Zin looted two Ancient Elven Longswords from one of the homes. The adventurers could hear the sound of rushing water, but were unable to determine its source. Nirvana was the closest to solving the puzzle, but did not pursue it enough. The Elven Village has a bound Water Elemental that protects the city and lends its innate energy to maintain the magical effects on the structures that prevent them from age and damage. The sound of water was the Elemental attempting to communicate in Aquan.
Episode Two: “The Search for Sky Metal” – The adventurers were hired by the Bleak Hollow Blacksmith to head into the Eastern Mountains to recover “sky metal” from the comet that was seen falling from the sky and impacting high in the mountains early this morning. Instead of the remains of a comet, they discovered wreckage from a Illithid Nautiloid including an ioun stone, a Lifejammer Helm, chunks of Plating from the hull that resembled aragonite shells, and several shards of obsidian. While investigating the Lifejammer Helm, they saw Illithid Tadpoles ( green worms) swarming on it. They wisely used magic to kill the tadpoles. They witnessed a second comet crash nearby and discovered it was an Illithid Escape Pod. They killed the Mind Flayer Captain and Zin looted its mask and breastplate. Zin also savaged several shards of obsidian from the interior of the escape pod. At that point, Princess Xendalli’s Elven Starmoth ship called “The Starwood” arrived quickly followed by Prince Xeleth’s Elven War-o-Mar ship called “The Dark Moth.” The Dark Moth shot down the Starwood, and then started opening fire on the surviving Astral Elves who escaped the wreckage of their downed ship. Ten Astral Elves made it out alive along with Princess Xendalli (unconscious) and Phrred the Plasmoid First Mate. As the Dark Moth was departing, Zin shot Prince Xeleth with Magic Missiles. The Prince in turn cast Power Word: Kill on Zin, but the Obsidian Shard (now somehow formed into one shard instead of many fragments) in his pocket protected him from instant death, instead placing him in a coma.
Episode Three: “Return to Eldagast” – The adventurers discovered that Zin was in a magical coma and that Princess Xendalli was under the effects of a 9th level enchantment called Slumber. Belisarius led the Starwood survivors towards Eldagast while Cadramar and Breeze returned to the Escape Pod crash site to properly sever the head from the killed Illithid to avoid more of its kind coming to recover its brain for addition to the Elder Brain Pool. Phrred asked for two volunteers to accompany the adventurers to the site, and the TWO SPIES (Elanod and Rehmand) loyal to Prince Xeleth quickly volunteered. Breeze found a magical doorknob in the wreckage and Cadramar collected several more Obsidian Shards (which would reform into a single shard by Episode Four) which were placed into his Bag of Holding. the TWO SPIES decided not to slay the two adventurers because overall it would not help their cause. The four of them headed towards Eldagast one horseback pulling the TWO SPIES on a sled that Cadramar had built out of materials salvaged from the Illithid Escape Pod. They met up with Belisarius and the rest of the group on the road as the noble had called for a rest to eat and refresh. At this point, Khale met up with the group and explained that he had been living in Eldagast the last few weeks. He talked about how the Markano Crime Family and a newly promoted crime boss named Traevus has claimed Eldagast as their turf and literally stole everything of value from the village. However, Khale managed to negotiate with them to leave one residence, the Bakery, and the Blacksmith shop untouched for his use. They returned to Eldagast where the Starwood survivors lodged in the Mandolin Inn to rest and recover. While Khale served the group a feast he had prepared, Phrred explained the dastardly plot involving the Xaryxisian Elves (Astral Elves) and the Light of Xaryxis, a powerful artifact controlled by the Astral King that siphon the life energy from a planet to revive their solar system’s dying sun. Phrred explained that Prince Xeleth has betrayed his sister Princess Xendalli in a cruel bid to depose her and become the heir to the Xaryxisian throne as the Astral Elf King is nearly the end of his life. The Plasmoid explained that Prince Xeleth will utilize the Astral Elven Armada to surround the planets, moons, and sun in this galaxy (he called the galaxy “Athas”) to seed them with Astral Seeds. The seeds are living creatures made of a rare crystal harvested from the surface of the Xaryxis sun that will germinate into huge vines that encase the planet and begin to leech away life force and arcane energy until the planet is a dry husk. The process takes one standard galactic month (28 days) to complete then the vines with discharge the siphoned energy in one powerful blast of light back to the Light of Xaryxis device, recharging their dying Xaryxis sun for a short time. Phrred knows that Princess Xendalli was trying to gather information about Athas to convince her father, the King, that Prince Xeleth was lying about Athas being a proper candidate for harvest, but that seems impossible now as the Starwood has been destroyed and they are stranded on Athas. Phrred says that he needs to get the Princess off this planet before it is seeded and escape becomes impossible. Escape must happen in a standard galactic day (24 hours.) He uses a Ring of Shooting Stars to send a distress signal to Captain Sartell of the Spelljammer ship “The Moondancer.” She will respond to the beacon and come to pick them up for escape off the planet. He suggests that the adventurers join him. However, as they all step outside they see that Astral Seeds are already falling from space. “The prince started early,” Phrred moaned in despair. “We’re doomed. We’re all doomed!”
Episode Four: “Seeds of Destruction” – Zin recovered from his coma as the Obsidian Shard in his pocket absorbed the Power Word: Kill spell and then crumbled to dust. The adventurers decide to flee to Bleak Hollow, recalling that “The Moondancer” was in port recently. At the same time, three more adventurers arrive, having been sent to Eldagast by the Blacksmith: Arlen Strangeways, Koval, and Rayna Mithrow. Phrred becomes distraught and essentially gives up, collapsing to sit down near the Blacksmith shop. Koval proves to be rather unhelpful, mocking Phrred and suggesting he turn into a blob so Koval can carry him around in a bucket. His only adds to the Plasmoid’s dispair making him completely despondent. As Khale, Cadramar, and Strangeways Helper Bot loaded the wagon with Khale’s hoarded provisions, the others realized that something terrible was happening at the Mandolin Inn. The TWO SPIES (Elanod and Rehmand) finally made their move, slaying the remaining survivors of the Starwood as ordered by Prince Xeleth who had used his authority to assign them to his sister’s ship. Rehmand fled after the survivors were killed but Elanod remained, determined to murder Princess Xendalli to gain favor from Prince Xeleth. However, the arrival of the adventurers interrupted him and he fled to the roof where he was confronted by Breeze and Zin. Rayna shot the assassin in the leg, and a well placed shot from Strangeways hand cannon killed the assassin. They realized that one of the Astral Elves was missing, but they didn’t have time to look for him. They loaded up the wagons and rode towards Bleak Hollow. As they left, they saw that Phrred was single0handedly fending off a monstrous Otyugh Astral Mutate. Phrred shouted that they should flee while they could, and they left Belisarius’s horse behind in the hopes the Plasmoid might use it to escape. They observed that the Astral Seeds feel from the sky as intermittent intervals, embedded in the ground, sprouted vines that grew to be 50 feet around and thousands of feet high, sprouted roots that drilled deep into the ground, and then began pulsing with energy. Spider-Things crawled all over the vines, weaving webs that began making a canopy twenty feet in the sky, linking the vines together. More Otyugh Astral Mutates and Humanoid-shaped Astral Blights sprouted from the Astral Vines, seeking out and slaying any living creatures nearby. When the Adventurers arrived in Bleak Hollow, they went to the docks to see that it was a madhouse of citizens trying to load on to the three remaining ships in port. The city was in ruins, citizens lay dead throughout the streets, monsters rampaged in hoards slaying everyone in sight, and Traevus and his Markano thugs were on the docks pummeling people for sheer cruel delight. Belisarius used Command to make Traevus and his thugs rescue a group of trapped citizens from a nearby collapsed building. They fled to the former Watchtower, now a lighthouse, and Belisarius continued to use the Ring of Shooting Stars to call for help from “The Moondancer.” Soon the Spelljamming galleon arrived and rescued the adventurers. There were about 150 bleak Hollow citizens on board along with the cargo of 12 donkeys and a prize winning dairy cow named Daisy which needed delivering to the frontier town of Phandolin on a planet called “New Toril.” They met Captain Elaina Sartell and her Spelljamming Helmsman, Flapjack the Flumph. They rode on “The Moondancer” into Wildspace and met with several other Spelljamming ships that had just escaped from Athas as well: “The Lucille” captained by Solomon Neegan, “The Incorrigible” captained by Daar’Vik a Gith pirate, “The Last Breath” captained by a vampire named Gizmod, and “The Second Wind” captained by a Tiefling named Fel Arda. As the crews of the ships were helping survivors from Athas reunite with their families, the adventurers and the Captains has a meeting. They all observed that the all the celestial bodies (the two planets, their two moons, and its sun) were all being encased by the orange crystal vines which were growing into spheres that encapsulated the entire individual celestial body. The adventurers, the Captains, and Princess Xendalli talked about what to do with the refugees and how to best travel to Xaryxispace to seek audience with the Astral Elf King. Xendalli is convinced that if they gather enough witnesses to testify against her brother, the King will agree to stop the Light of Xaryxis from devouring Athas and its galaxy. They all agreed that taking the refugees to New Toril and the frontier town of Phandolin, then the individual ships will make their contracted deliveries and meet back up at THE ROCK OF BRAL in a galactic week (7 days) but sooner if possible. Solomon needs to get Jarnathan back to Revel’s End Prison on Toril. Daar’Vik wishes to report to the Gith Lich Queen to report the war crime committed by Prince Xeleth. Fel Arda agrees to transport her refugees to Phandolin but says she’s not interested in helping in this mess unless they want to hire her as a mercenary at an expensive fee. She is transporting a cache of Healing Potions to the Black network from the Cacuzzo Crime Family.
Children of the Ampersand 