blackstonekeep.com

The Awakening

Travelers have started to speak of strange dragon sightings. Could they be real? Except for a few, dragons have not roamed these lands in hundreds of years...

Lemli while on one of his many foragin expeditions for precious stones..entered the area known as the Oasis.

There a sight befell him of what could be described as the 4th pit of hell....bodies kay strewn where they had been struck down ..scortch marks blistered the sand.

Returning to the Keep to fetch help he ran into two adventurers there they embarked back to the oasis to find what had hap[pend and to seek survivors.

After much searching through the charred remains and the bodies they came upon the body of a man ..mortally wounded he was soon healed and after a time was able to tell his story of light coming from the skies and the screams of the dying as the Oasis was attacked.

Upon hearing this Lemli and his companions began a thorough search of the area where he came upon a sapphire stone..but it wasnt the usual shape and seemed harder than many he had found..this puzzled Lemli as he had found many a rare stone and had never seen one like this..after chatting with his companions they decided to consult Foxmore upon what they had found ....perhaps he would be able to tell them what the stone was and where it may have come from ..............

Stomping through the swamp, Hodishnak sings very badly. “Lizards me go kill…lizards me go kill…run, run, lizards…lizards me go kill.â€

Beldin Porfeneld was delivering another message. Master Luthur had been explicit in his instructions, and his master had written both the message and separate instructions to the scatterbrained gnome.

Beldin loved delivering messages, and had grown to like the task almost as much as he loved to sweep away dust and dirt.

As he walked down the road from Blackstone Keep, he had his sword and shield drawn in order to destroy any wandering undead that attempted to stop him.

A large half-orc zombie crawled its way to the surface on Beldin's left. The gnome whistled at the size of the beast, but was not as pleased as the abomination let loose a spray of greenish bodily fluids from its mouth.

Beldin recoiled in disgust, momentarily stunned. The zombie shuffled quickly toward the gnome and was about ready to grab him.

As Beldin began to recover, he looked toward where the zombie had been a moment earlier and was shocked to see that it was no longer there.

Puzzled, Beldin continued to wipe the grime from his formerly glistening armor and scan the surrounding area. As he looked above the trees into the late morning sun he saw a sparkle of light hitting a metallic surface.

"Ooooooo!" Beldin stated with open mouthed awe as he saw a large golden colored wyrm flying away, the half-orc zombie held in its talons.

"I'm going to have to remember to tell Master Luthur about that!"

Beldin sat on a nearby rock and pulled out the instructions, turned to the back of the parchment and began to write in scrawling text:

"Must remember: Tell Master Luthur about a big golden lizard flying around collecting undead."

He paused for a moment, quill tip to his tongue that had slightly slipped from his mouth in contemplation.

"Note to self: How does something made of gold fly? Must consider the possibility of gilding parasols with gold or a precious metal in order to make flying machine more presentable to Master Cairn."

He put his writing implements away and continued on his way, restarting his whistling as he skipped along, sword and shield still in hand.

The sun was just beginning to set over the western wall of the Keep. Shadows crept longer and longer, and soon the sky itself was filled with a soft violet color. Soon, stars by the thousands poked through the cloud cover, and the celestial bodies of the galaxy became more clear in the night sky. Some torches were lit and the area around the Great Tree was illuminated enough for folks to have a decent conversation.


Soft robes skirted along the ground, and every few cobble stones were tapped with an old oaken staff as Luthur made his way towards the tree. There was something on the air, he could feel it as tiny goosepimples formed on his arms.

After listening to a woman sing of warfare and deaf gods, he was about to offer her a long-term job, however she hurried off... perhaps driven away by the other mage, some dragon-kin welp, trying to catch her eye. Luthur sighed as he looked around for a moment. There was something amiss, but he could not put his finger on it.

Across the way, two commoners were having their paranoid chats of mystics and strange happenings. Luthur strided over to them and inserted himself into the conversation..

"--trange things, I tell you, like I was saying to George by the gate," the one man said.

"Strange things?! Ek-gads! Pardon me good sirs, I couldn't help overhear your conversation over yonder," Luthur piped in with his usual overly-friendly manner.

The three of them discussed what the one gentleman, a man by the name of D'ar, had witnessed several adventurers going towards the Bridge of Doom in search of some red and green dragons.

Dragons! Luthur thought to himself. What a delicious topic for his next paper... among other things.

Even Beldin, his right-hand gnome, had witnessed a gold dragon off the Blackstone Road.

Soon, those same adventurers came and Luthur took the opportunity to question them.

"Aye, laddy, we took the dragon piece to Foxmore. He still has it, aye!" a dwarven warrior boasted.

"Dragon attacks have been happening all over the land," Commented one young woman.

This might prove very promising...

Lemli being his usual stubborn self set out across the land in search of these infamous Dragons.

Thinking to himself(which for a dwarf could take a while because they have never been known for their brain power)...he wondered where they would turn up next and even if they did in what numbers.

Setting his thoughts aside he continued on his quest to seek them out...reaching the swamps he ran into two well dress figures the Lady Chiffawn and Qui Chang seeing them both he began to ask questions in his usual brash manner if they had seen anything of these illusive beasts ..


Coversations were struck up and much information was shared amongst the small group as they discussed what had progressed that day in the swamps and thus a small alliance was set into place to seek these beasts out and see what was going on and why they were appearing around the realm ......

//had to summarize post -- stuck at work -- sorry for not going into detail or including names of others//

Although he wanted to believe the rumors, Dunabar thought them just that, rumors. He'd only seen one dragon in his life and that was a tired white in the frozen lands. Nothing like the gold dragon on his shield that was supposed to represent the greatness of the dragons from ages past.

He thought he could not trust the word of Beldin, figuring the gnome likely had received a blow to the head whole trying to build a flying machine. The other sightings, he had attributed to a shifter with a passion for pranks. But now, he had seen for himself. Dragons ... well dragonlings.

While walking through the keep he overheard a plea for help in finding baby dragons who had strayed from their caretaker. He volunteered to help and was torn between wanting to squash the rumors for good and actually finding dragons.

A group of about 6 headed out in search of the baby dragons. The first stop was to find the caretaker. She ended up being a HUGE red named Kia. It was all Dun could do to not run in terror as she spoke to her. She explained that entrusted to her were 6 hatchlings, 2 gold, 2 silver and 2 greens. Of the actual mothers, no information was gleaned but the fact that here was a live dragon filled Dun with excitement and a little trepidation.

Kia explained that she left the dragonlings with the druids of Ebonwood for safe keeping when she had to leave for a bit but a mage had taken them. It was discussed that the dragons could be protectors of the Keep or enemies and that they had to be found. While no one verified it, it seemed that Kia was interested in the former. The group heard her concerns and went to find the dragonnapped hatchlings.

Three were found rather quickly, the 2 golds and a silver. The silver was particularly aggressive to hostile creatures and was a bit hard to lead back to Kia. Thankfully there was a bard whose music they followed. The 2 greens and the other silver were a bit harder to round up but in the end they succeeded. It seemed the mage was quite powerful and had allies from other planes blocking the path of the searchers. Dun himself was felled when rushing headlong into a battle after being grieviously wounded.

They called Kia to them and she thanked them for saving the babies. On the way back to the Keep Dun thought about the day's events. He was thrilled that dragons had clearly returned to Blackstone but he had concerns.

Who was this mage that took the dragons?

Why the druids to watch over the dragonlings? They were none too friendly to the Keep's denizens in the past.

How did a gold and silver come to trust a red with their offspring?

The same could be said about the green for that matter? This all flew in the face of what he knew about dragonkind.

He convinced himself that those trying to help he-who-took-the-dragons were all evil and that proved they did the right thing but deep in the back of his mind, he wondered if saving these dragonlings was really the best thing for the Keep. Time would tell.

OOC : I did not mean to have the Kia event part of this... but if it works, then great! This was simply an event because one player saw and responded to a baby dragon... This was an event made up as I went.