1. Locations

Mesk

Village
Seren in Argonnessen

Dragons dominate the lives of the Seren barbarians. Warriors pierce their lips and septums with bone rings carved in the likeness of a wyrm eating its own tail, and the palisades fencing a Seren village are carved with images of ferocious serpents. It is no surprise, then, that the dragonmarked houses have had the most success in trading with the heathen. Nor has it escaped the notice of Seren and Argonessen scholars that the one professor to deal successfully with the Seren was accompanied by a thunder guide bearing an aberrant dragonmark. Houses Lyrandar, Orien, and Tharashk have established a joint trading outpost—nothing more than a thatch hut on stilts roofed by broadleaf palms— on the beach just beyond Mesk’s stockade.

Lands: Mesk is located on the southern tip of Seren. Totem Beach and its famous monoliths are less than 50 miles away, across the storm-tossed Dragonreach. It is not unusual to see the silhouette of a dragon flying in the south skies.

Getting There: From Sharn, the journey to Seren is almost 4,000 miles across the Thunder Sea and the Dragon reach. In a sailing ship, the journey takes half a year or more with a competent captain. In a House Lyrandar airship or elemental-bound galleon, the trip can be completed in four weeks. Pylas Talaear in Aerenal, a popular layover port, is approximately halfway between Sharn and Seren. The jungle surrounding Mesk is all but impassable; sea and air are the only practical approaches.

Appearance: Palms, jungle hardwoods, creeper vines, and ferns press close against the 2-foot-diameter wooden poles staked upright in a defensive perimeter around Mesk. Each 20-foot-tall pole is tipped with a woodcarving depicting a chromatic or metallic dragon with realistically sharp and effectively angled claws and teeth; anyone climbing over the palisades (Climb DC 20) takes 2d4 points of damage, or half that amount with a successful Reflex save.

Inside the palisade, four longhouses and two dozen thatched huts shelter the barbarians. Paths of seashells, quartz pebbles, and driftwood connect the homes. At night, watchfires blaze at 50-foot intervals around the palisades, but their light does not penetrate far into the jungle surrounding the village, where the constant cries of apes, yrthaks, and shambling mounds echo through the trees. To the south of Mesk is the beach, where the swells of the Dragonreach break against a natural sand harbor. Two to four Seren longboats lie ashore at any given time.

When a group of outlanders first sets foot on the hot equatorial sands of Mesk’s beach, a low chanting arises inside the barbarians’ stockade. Shortly, the new arrivals see human skeletons on pikes thrust above the stockade wall. The barbarians shake the skeletons, and the rattling bones, frenzied chanting, and deep drumbeats are quite intimidating: characters must succeed on a DC 15 Will save or be shaken for 2d12 rounds. As the flesh-bound drums drive the chanting to a crescendo, the stockade gates part. A figure emerges, completely obscured from view by a scaled veil draped over its head that trails all the way to the ground. This barbarian is known as the Shroud of Scales, and its ceremonial robes are fashioned from the dragon scales that fall over Seren like feathers from the sky.

There might be multiple ways to peacefully treat with a Seren village’s Shroud of Scales, but the dragonmarked houses have only found one. While conversing in Draconic or Argon (a mutated form of common), for those are the languages of the barbarians, the visitor must display a dragonmark on at least one living member of his shore party. A Shroud of Scales gains a +6 competency bonus on its Spot check when detecting a fake dragonmark. If an outlander cannot display a dragonmark, the Shroud of Scales shrieks in Draconic (“Forsaken!”) and the village’s braves pour forth from the stockade to attack. If the party does display a dragonmark, the Shroud of Scales allows them to use a hut on the beach built to house visitors. Within hours, the chief and his son emerge to begin trading.

Features

The locations described below are among those that will be of most interest to visitors.

Stilted Hut of the Shroud of Scales: Mesk’s Shroud of Scales is a talented young woman named Hartha (CG female human). While she is covered wholly by the shroud whenever she is in the presence of outlanders, she is renowned as a beauty within the tribe. Her hair is a cascade of red, and her ankles are ringed with tattoos resembling dragonmarks.

Hartha’s frustrations are more profound than the typical Seren’s anger at the cruel indifference of her dragon-gods (the barbarians’ name for their people is iargodrenne, which translates as “abandoned” or “forsaken”). Hartha has two worries: the chief, Goln, and the chief’s son, Feak. She suspects that Goln and Feak were hexed by the cataclysm mage being held in the leech pit. If she has time before Goln calls his flock, she asks the characters to talk to the chief and reverse the changes in his behavior.

Leech Pit: A wooden yoke suspended from a gallows dangles above a pit of mud alive with squirming leeches. In the yoke hangs a haggard young man with an overgrown beard. He is dipped to his neck in the leech pit. This unfortunate soul is Rebalte Mastafarl (NG male human wizard 5/cataclysm mage 1), a cataclysm mage from Karrlakton. His personal prophecy proclaimed that he seek a wedding with a Seren witch, and in the end he came here to ask Hartha’s hand. Foolishly neglecting to bring a dragonmarked companion with him, Rebalte was captured by the Mesk barbarians before he could even speak to Hartha. Anyone suspended in the leech pit takes 1 point of Strength damage per day. Rebalte’s Strength is currently vacillating between 2 and 3; Goln keeps him in this state by raising him out of the pit on alternate days.

Chief’s Longhouse: Goln, the rightful chief of Mesk, is dead. Masquerading in his place is Messal’thirokktan, an agent of the Chamber (LE male young adult silver dragon; Monster Manual page 87). Messal’thirokktan is not especially cruel, but he is focused exclusively on the draconic Prophecy study that brought him to Mesk. Messal’thirokktan is intrigued by the argument that Vvaraak, the Scaled Apostate of the Shadow Marches, impeded the Prophecy fifteen thousand years ago when she warned the orcs of the coming daelkyr war (and possibly worse yet to transpire). To study this important aspect of the Prophecy, Messal’thirokktan has been looking for an opportunity to arrange his own private war between the denizens of Xoriat and the champions of the lesser races. When the PCs arrive, he could seize his chance (see Adventure Ideas, below). The tribe is unaware of the switch that has been made.

Goln’s son, Feak, complicates matters. Feak (NE male human barbarian 4) is actually his father’s murderer. After spearing his father in the back and tossing the body into a patch of quicksand, Feak returned to the village planning to seize power. He was dumbstruck by his father’s continued presence in the village (Messal’thirokktan observed the son’s treachery and found it amusing and convenient to enter the village at just this time).

Shocked by his father’s perceived supernatural abilities, Feak has been living in fear for the past month. When the PCs arrive, he may ask them all sorts of veiled questions about resurrection, gods walking the earth, and the undead. He might even encourage them to try to succeed where he failed, telling them that his father sacrificed his younger brother on Totem Beach to win the chieftainship from the previous village leader.

If Messal’thirokktan ever leaves the village (for example, after intiating the cloaker war; see below), the villagers will recognize Feak as chief. Feak’s first order of business would be to kill the threats to his power, starting with Hartha and the PCs, if they are still in Mesk.

September 20th, 2019

Adventure Ideas

  • Messal’thirokktan uses an amulet of Khyber to open a fissure to the underworld. The earth shakes, many thatch huts collapse, and a crack in the sand opens in the middle of the village. One by one, eight cloakers flap up from the depths of Khyber, moaning in their disturbing language. Messal’thirokktan believes he can learn about the prophecy by watching the PCs battle the cloakers.

    If one of their number dies in the initial fight, the disoriented cloakers flap off into the jungle, their moans echoing in the trees. Because of the amulet’s powers (treat it as an eldritch machine), however, the cloakers do not leave the village alone. Each night they return, preceded by their haunting bass vibrato that seems to emanate from everywhere in the jungle at once. They engulf a villager, feast upon her, and leave only bones and gruel behind as they flap back into the cover of the trees. The panicked villagers beg the PCs to aid them. If the PCs help the villagers survive the cloaker siege and eventually slay all the aberrations, Messal’thirokktan assumes his dragon form in the middle of the village, smiles at the PCs, and wordlessly takes flight south toward Argonnessen.

  • The fissure to Khyber remains in the village after the cloaker siege, periodically belching forth a nightmare aberration. To close the gate, someone must retrieve the linchpin of a Xoriat sphere-plane from a draconic orrery and drop it into the fissure. Rebalte offers to accompany the PCs; he hopes to impress Hartha. Alternatively, a PC cataclysm mage with a personal prophecy requiring the favor of a Seren witch might undertake this quest for his own reasons. A draconic orrery can be found in an Argonessen observatory (see page 115).

  • After the black dragon departs, Feak moves quickly to consolidate power. If the PCs do not intervene, he slays Hartha and Rebalte. He establishes a regular schedule of sacrifices on Totem Beach and harbors a deep and unreasoning hatred for the PCs. Which of the dark powers that watch Totem Beach might hear his cries and lend him occult power?

September 20th, 2019