(Beginning in parallel with Unwelcome in Bryn Shander and numerous adventures until merging with the main group...)
Upon arriving in Bryn Shander, h'Rothgar immediately split from the group "to seek out family" in Easthaven. This began an off-stage side adventure taking him to Caer Dineval, then Caer Konig and ultimately to an entrance to the Underdark. The details of this story will be told upon the dwarf reuniting with the rest of the Sewer-side Squad.
h'Rothgar's Aspirations
Along the trip north from Luskan, h'Rothgar had been fairly secretive regarding many things about himself. Such stoic behavior is not unusual for dwarves, especially ones who might be holding on to something of value. Zaknalimar had cautiously shared there was some sort of threat on the cleric's life, leading to him seeking out distant relatives in Icewind Dale. However, a love of drinking sometimes emboldened sharing - and if nothing else, h'Rothgar truly believed himself chosen by his deity, the dwarven Creation God of the Forge Moradin, called upon to a higher purpose in creating a wonder. The wonder he described brought to the mind of Alyks Askaria the floating cities of The Netheril: a ship that sailed not on water but through the sky. (And when wholly fueled by drink and devotion, h'Rothgar once even whispered, "and perhaps even beyond the sky to the stars!" with a tear in his eye at such a miracle.)
And so the party bid good fortune to the proud (and quite likely a victim of some sort of head wound that did not heal properly) dwarf as he split off, to seek his family and to fulfill this quest to build a bird-ship...
Easthaven: Thieves & Smugglers
The town of Easthaven is a bit smaller than the prosperous Bryn Shander, where h'Rothgar first arrived in the Ten Towns, but still a robust town of almost 800 people - much larger than the small towns he would later visit. Founded by thieves in exile, it has a strange "legal variance" that celebrates its founding into a cultural custom: pickpocketing is legal, and there are many signs about town (in various words "Watch Thy Pouch!" and languages and pictograms) explaining the custom, to caution newcomers to mind their belongings. h'Rothgar's inquiries lead to the town's ferry, which is locked in the ice of the frozen lake. The ferry's cabin has become the residence of a secretive Duergar named Durth Sunblight - theSunblight clan being known to have a fortress somewhere in theSpine of the World, adjacent to the Muzgardt clan, but more north-leaning.
Durth acts with great suspicion of h'Rothgar, and is not particularly helpful other than to confirm the presence of Duergar in the Icewind Dale, his responsibility to oversee the "efficient import and export trade" of goods between Sunblight in the Underdark and the Ten Towns. Reflecting later on his room on the boat, after the events of Caer Konig, it is apparent Durth had accumulated an unusually large quantity of Chardalyn crystals and items.
An opportunity to join a caravan of dwarves to the other lake towns of Lac Dinneshere led to the next destination...
Caer Dineval: Swords & Secrets
En route to Caer Konig is Caer Dineval, much smaller than Easthaven (maybe 100 people). The town is built in a cove of Lac Dinneshere and at the foot of Kelvin's Cairn. The long-standing castle (the Caer) sits on a rise above the town. h'Rothgar accidentally intrudes upon a gathering of men he learns belong to a secretive group called the Knights of the Black Sword. Rather than reacting with hostility, the knights tell the dwarf they have been told by their patron to warn him there is a dark plot by the Duergar to attack and destroy the Ten Towns. The only town with a defensive castle, they are preparing as best they might.
h'Rothgar does not know what to make of this report - delusional and overblown or terrible and foreboding. He continues on with the caravan...
Caer Konig: Deceptions in Darkness
The town of Caer Konig, unlike Caer Dineval, has had its castle - the Caer - fall into ruin, though the town still keeps the name. The town is in rough shape, completely cut off from the other settlements by mountains, lake and snow. Before the everlasting winter, the harbor was its crucial supply line - but now the ice-locked docks and ferry prevent regular trade.
h'Rothgar pulls the small town's speaker, a Dragonborn named Trovus out of a snowbank, where he has fallen asleep after becoming drunk. He is frustrated after the town's already sad situation has become worse with a recent string of frightening events - footprints appearing after increasingly regular visits from unseen thieves - who have been stealing what seem to be almost random items across town. Suspecting this may be the work of Duergar employing their psionic ability for Invisibility (which h'Rothgar did not gain - though he did learn the Enlarge/Reduce ability), he began a careful investigation.
Following up on clues from two human sisters: Allie and Cori Shorard, owners of the town's inn ("The Northern Light"), h'Rothgar is able to track down a hidden Duergar outpost not far out of town, commanded by Durth's older brother, Nildar. Unlike Durth, Nildar is more welcoming of h'Rothgar, particularly when he learns of his relation to Clan Muzgardt, with whom Clan Sunblight is seeking a more formal alliance.
With the great fortune of the darkness provided by the Everlasting Winter, Nildar has been overseeing a group of Duergar, who indeed have been invisibly gathering Chardalyn objects and items - mainly from the towns near Kelvin's Cairn, but throughout the Ten Towns in general. The objects are being sent along to their father (and patriarch of Clan Sunblight) Xardorok through Durth in Easthaven.
(Note the deep-dark dwelling Duergar are vulnerable in sunlight, similar to the Drow , so the lack of daylight is indeed greatly beneficial and a strategic opportunity for the otherwise confined-to-the-Underdark race.)
Xardorok's Aspirations
With tremendous excitement, h'Rothgar learns from Nildar that Xardorok has ALSO received a vision to build a wonder, inspired by the Duergar deity Deep Duerra. Nildar's father has been passionate about this working, but unwilling to share details of it with his sons. Following a naïve hope Xardorok's divine vision matched the vision received when seeing the floating islands outside Neverwinter, h'Rothgar seeks out Xardorok, by assisting a pair of Nildar's team delivering chardalyn to Durth in Easthaven, then continuing similarly, joining the smugglers delivering their combined shipment of the stolen crystals to the patriarch and wonder-maker.
Sunblight Stronghold: Welcomes & Wonders
h'Rothgar finally meets with the reclusive Xardorok Sunblight in his fortress carved from the rocky face of the north-facing side of the Spine of the World. The intimidating structure is well-suited as a portal between the Underdark and the outside world, heavily-shadowed beneath the mountain to the south. The sounds and heat-currents from the forges travel throughout the stronghold, a place of great activity and hard work.
Durth, now less cautious after Nildar's assessment, leads h'Rothgar through the defenses to meet the clan patriarch, proudly introduced as his father Xardorok. The 250 year old dwarf appears wizened but very active, wearing a sturdy functional breastplate heavily-inlayed with Chardalyn, as well as a clever tool-gauntlet of chardalyn, and a handsomely-shaped crown of chardalyn.
The elder takes a long moment sizing up h'Rothgar and considering his story - pausing first at the mention of relationship with Clan Muzgardt, where a great smile waxes across his face and he announces, "Grandopha Muzgardt, the Matriarch, is soon to visit us - your timing is fortuitous!" And though this clearly pleases him greatly, he nearly hops with excitement on hearing of h'Rothgar's divine vision of flying craft, sent by Moradin. Tipping his ear in thought (or what later events would imply to be listening to his patron) he proclaims h'Rothgar welcome into and under the protection of Sunblight Stronghold and offers a position as Crafter-of-Wonders.
Just as foreseen in Moradin's vision, miraculous materials and lore found in the Frozenfar could be the path to rediscovery of wondrous creations. Xardorok had already made great progress working the chardalyn with enchantments, demonstrating a tiny toy dragon able to fly (awkwardly) and follow simple commands. He had wished to improve upon this design and craft a gift for Grandolpha, a pet with simple intelligence and rudimentary sentience, to woo her interests in a closer alliance, if not marriage. The effort would help h'Rothgar learn to work chardalyn and collaborate with enchanters - and observe the seeming genius of Xardorok.
Betrayal: Forges & Fools
Rapid progress was made from the onset, and an elegantly-shaped Unknown of chardalyn was shaped and animated as a precious and unique for the imminent visit. h'Rothgar once again, just as in the prior project (see:Into the War Pit), allowed the excitement of creating something new to overshadow signs that the project might be ill-conceived and lead to a more insidious agenda.
Perhaps the most obvious clue overlooked was that it turned out Xardorok personally lacked much talent himself - he would often clumsily move the project in one direction, then return later with a brilliant insight and stroke of genius, hands and mind guided with sharp precision and skill that must have arisen from another source - perhaps his Warlock patron.
The awkward movements of the toy became nimble and graceful in this new form, following a step in the process only h'Rothgar could provide - petitioning Moradin for the blessing of a Spark of Creation upon the construct. Though only composed of chardalyn and other minerals and gems, its mechanics only enchanted with magics of mortals, the spark lit in its eyes an awareness and a mind far closer to a living thing than the toy merely responding to commands with simple movements.
Delighted with this transformational success, Xardorok vanished for a day, encouraging a feast and celebration for the team at this achievement. Encouraged with the progress, h'Rothgar cut short his revelry to excitedly begin drawing out plans to develop designs for components of the sky vessel from his divine vision. The Muzgardt delegation would soon arrive, and he would appeal to Grandolpha for resources and funds to make this wonder truly magnificent.
But h'Rothgar would never meet the Muzgardt Matriarch. Unbeknownst to the cleric, another project had been secretly underway in tandem with the gift-dragon: a full-scale dragon had been carefully crafted using the pseudodragon as a prototype and template. A full-scale dragon made of chardalyn with heavy armor and weaponry to project the might of Clan Sunblight on Icewind Dale. Now requiring Moradin's Spark of Life to bring this horrific thing the same grace and intellect as the prototype, h'Rothgar was instructed to make the divine petition. Anger rose in h'Rothgar at this treachery and with himself for once more using his own talents, curiosity and creativity for their own selfish purposes, and he voiced outrage, even threatening to have Moradin's hammer destroy the foul machine.
This defiance was short-lived, as he was brought down into the dungeon by the Sunblight's Quaggoth (strong furry humanoid) servants and raised by chain and pullies 50 feet to the ceiling of a tall cell, where a bellows stuck into a severed and discolored arm was worked from another pulley system. A puff of spores engulfed the cleric, impossible not to eventually breathe in. Questions were shouted up and the process repeated five times. While hallucinations followed, the mental state did nothing to compel h'Rothgar's service - in fact, it provided a sort of clarity that he chose to attribute to visions from the Forge Deity, redoubling commitment to the original vision and defiance to this destructive perversion.
Hearing the scratchy Quaggoth voices during these dream states, h'Rothgar recalled something from a tenday or two ago, which he had only momentarily considered curious, then moved on to the next thing in his busy schedule... it was a glimpse down a side corridor of the mining area where a small army of what appeared to be goblins and quaggoths standing perfectly still in rows, awaiting orders, zombie-like.
Abandoning the use of mind-altering spores in the face of h'Rothgar's resilient constitution against poisons, the bellows were replaced by the crystalline spark-vessel itself and three Duergar "Mind Masters" (*) linked minds at the foot of the cell, projecting their will to bludgeon the cleric's mind into submission. Mentally softened and manipulated into uncertainty in what was real and what words he would even speak, the compelled Spark was finally given to the crystalline monster-mind, just before the entourage of Grandolpha Muzgardt was arriving from Gracklstugh via the Underdark. Now disposable, h'Rothgar's cell was locked and the chain released, his body dropped to the cell floor, breaking his manacled arms and left for dead as the entire fortress engaged in important welcome ceremonies.
(*) Mind Masters are adept in the "psionic" mind-controls notoriously taken from the Mind Flayers by the Duergar deity Deep Duerra.
Necromancy: Death & Something Else
Indeed, it should have been the dwarf's death at this point, but for the miraculous intervention of a Master Necromancer of the Arcane Brotherhood, also imprisoned by the Sunblights, in the adjacent cell. Slowly reviving from a state of coldness, stillness, and darkness unlike anything he had ever experienced, Moradin's cleric became morbidly aware of every broken bone and torn sinew in his body, the sticky pool of his own blood, and the cruel bands binding his arms. The constitutional fortitude that propelled him through the mega-dosing with spores now tenuously held him a hair's breath on the side of resisting shock drawing him back into death's embrace.
h'Rothgar became aware of a voice speaking to him in hushed tones - but the powerful and commanding voice of a human woman. This wizard introduced herself as Vellynne Harpell and calmly explained to him she had very few spellcasting options with her forearms bound within the same manacles as h'Rothgar, but her expertise with the Spare the Dying cantrip allowed her to not only prevent his death from the fall, but also to eventually coax his body into consciousness. She warned him to continue to play dead and regain what strength he could. She patiently told him stories to lift his spirits during the healing process - many from her childhood growing up in a well-off house in the quiet and peaceful Lords Alliance town of Longsaddle, which lies inland of Neverwinter, east of Neverwinter Wood. (And hosted among other cheerfully-sleepy town things a tavern-inn run by her family called "The Fuzzy Quarterstaff".)
Vellynne was also very aware of both the despair and the anger churning in the recovering dwarf, reassuring him that hope remained, to persist and remain focused on the gains being made no matter how small. h'Rothgar had lost any sense of the passage of time at this point, critically fragile and vulnerable but not alone. At some point, he gained the ability to pull himself to kneel and shuffle around. His fallen position memorized, he would resume that position lying still in the rare moments a guard's patrol would look in. Vellynne shared her food, and water as best could be shared between iron bars. Sharing his own story, h'Rothgar learned that Vellynne knew Dex Shadow, had once been one of his instructors in Luskan. Vellynne revealed she had one more trick to play - she could send h'Rothgar out in a sort of spirit form, but he would need to know where to go first.
A wager was made whether Vellynne's associate (a wizard named Dzaan) or one of the dwarf's travel companions would first come to their aid, another tool to nurture hope. h'Rothgar would win that bet on the day the voice of the tiefling wizard Alyks Askaria spoke into his mind through a Sending spell. At first he thought it a hallucination, but gathered his wits and responded.
Alyks (25 word limit): Greetings, friend h'Rothgar, we have learned much about the everlasting winter mystery. Might we meet with you in Bryn Shander or Easthaven and catch up?
h'Rothgar (25 word limit): Moradin be praised, friend Alyks, I must warn great danger will soon come to Ten Towns. Come to Easthaven. I will try to meet you. Beware of Duergar Grey Dwarves.
Vellynne then talked the cleric through the process and strategies and dangers of the magic. Vellynne's eyepatch concealed a magical orb called the Eye of the Grey Realm, which could still lend her certain powers - one of which was to shunt a willing spirit from its body into a form capable of "riding" on simple creatures, and preserving ability to speak, spells requiring only verbal components, and some other properties of the original spirit (in some ways similar to Wild Shape from Druids). The cost to do this, however, would be tremendous to Vellynne - and she warned it would not last more than 5 days - so time would be of the essence.
- h'Rothgar lets go of his mental defenses, readying his body to fall limp inconspicuously...
- and looks into the strange eye, shifting his spirit to the Ethereal plane...
- and moves with a sluggishness, like underwater - to ride a rat...
- that scurries carefully across the forge to climb a rope to land atop the elevator...
- and jump from it when reaching the very top, to squeeze out on the landing...
- to make itself the target of a hunting owl, who on touch becomes the new ride...
- and flies, after eating the rat, across the icy plains to the town of Easthaven...
- where it stealthily dives to brush against a carrion-distracted crow, the new ride...
- more suited for being inconspicuous in the town, circling, waiting for the party...
- spotted just as they enter a tavern, a tavern well-protected from intrusion...
- they are feasting inside, tap the window, tap-tap, hey guys! tap-tap...
- shooed away by the waiter, drat, swoop and ride instead a cat...
- still eating - now sweets? how long will they be there? staring, waiting, ...
A roughed-out map of the Sunblight Stronghold layout from h'Rothgar's memory can be found here: (Sunblight Map)
(Next: To the Shadow of the Spine)