Session Twenty Five: Assault on the Smuggler's Boots Tavern An untamed frontier. Dark cults. Fickle fey gods. Ravenous fiends. Nothing black powder and sorcery won't fix... . Timberlands Campaign Diary The Smuggler’s Boots Inn and Tavern was cast into darkness and compromised by eldritch forces. Strange stickmen (reskinned/buffed Scarecrows) molded themselves from the building’s wooden doors, windowpanes, and rafters. The lurching figures were covered with pitch-black bark that was molded over by screaming faces, their faces featureless save for large, hollow sockets full with pale witchlight. The heroes and civilians scrambled to draw their weapons or cover as the assault began. Riley, the changeling dervish, dashed for the backdoor where three stickmen spawned. They were unprepared for the mystical dread that sparked within the figures’ eyes and froze up, only to be shortly assailed by claws made from razored roots. Sykes, the eladrian rogue, suffered too and found he

The marrowborn partisan is a near-absurd miscreation. Its upper half is the skeleton of the warhorse it was born from, the mottled bones scribed with alien runes. What remains if its pilfered organs hang like ruptured pupae beneath swelled ribs with a grinning-humanoid skull where a heart should be. The partisan's head still retains an equine shape as well, though it is one smooth plate of osseous matter with a jaw fused shut by opaque cartilage. Instead of a horses hind, the marrowborn's vertebra have expanded out and resemble something close to centipede segments complete with appendages made of skeletal, human legs. Cadaverous Cavalry. The marrowborn partisans are born from both a warhorse and a humanoid, often its rider. The marrowborn hive slits open the poor beast and stuffs the cyst-implanted humanoid into its core. As the horror gestates, the two creatures fuse together before tearing free of the hosts as one chimerical undead. The Marrowborn Empress. deploys the

Session Twenty Four: Bulette Time An untamed frontier. Dark cults. Fickle fey gods. Ravenous fiends. Nothing black powder and sorcery won't fix... . Timberlands Campaign Diary After freeing Inniscrone from the scourge of flying weapons, the heroes decided to stay for a few days in the town. They watched as the common people who survived came out of their homes and cellars, started to clean up the mess and try to get back to some semblance of a normal life. Thankfully, a greater population of the town lived than previously expected. Edvan Reeve, the owner of the Broken Bough Inn and a former adventurer, let the heroes stay at the inn for free. Their ally, the tax collector Wren Holdfast, thanked the party once more for their services. She reiterated her plan to travel to the Grim-Faced Bridge and deliver the conman responsible for all this carnage, Gerwald Knapp, to the proper authorities. Once there, she pledged to talk to the paladin Ser Silvercrown and convince him to

The marrowborn cardinal's name derives from the deep-red coloration of its bones, forever stained by the bloodiness of its profane creation. The undead abomination's frame is slim and armless. Only the ribcage and spine remain, along with a few shriveled organs sticking to the bone. Its skeletal legs dangle lifelessly, clacking like windchimes as the marrowborn cardinal floats along. The creature's head is a conical mass of bone, unevenly bisected by a fleshy slash one might call a mouth. The orifice contains too many teeth and serpentine tongue that cannot fully retract into the solid cranium. The marrowborn has no eyes to speak of, nor does it need them. Abhorrent Arcanist. The marrowborn cardinal is a dedicated spellcaster for the undead brood. With no hands to weave spells, the horror animates its desiccated organs for the task. The leathery meat undulates into arcane shapes within the cardinal's ribcage whenever it casts a spell while its upturned mouth s

When motionless, the marrowborn rook may be mistaken for a monolith of carved bone worshipped by a mad, alien cult. However, as the horror comes alive its hulking forearms peel away like a beetle's wings to reveal its grotesque entirety. The rook resembles a giant's ribcage filled with rancid organs floating on a squirm of cartilaginous tendrils. A few of the ghastly pseudopods roam past the framework's boundary, ready and eager to catch other marrowborn on the move. Its head is a crenellated growth of petrified keratin with an anemone-like bloom of sensory apparatus nested in the top and the lower jaw of a giant as a foundation. Sprawling out of the bottom of the anathema, the thickest tendrils propel the marrowborn rook along in a manner not unlike an octopus. As with all of its vile species, the undead's bones are scrawled with blasphemous, undecipherable runes. Unliving Rampart. The marrowborn rook is designed to be a siege engine, a mobile fortress, and con

The undead anathema's skull bears little resemblance to a humanoid save its general shape. Its 'face' consists of a bone plate etched with sharp-angled sigils and ends with a toothless upper jaw. From the abrupt terminus dangles a thick, long tongue dotted with bonespurs. The top marrowborn consort's skull is ruptured by a cross-shaped growth of lipless mouths spewing arcane formula whenever the horror casts a spell, despite its lack of language. The consort sports a mantle made of lacey sinew from its bony shoulders to tiny waist. The spongy growth is riddled with holes and provides little protection for the putrid organs within. Its bony arms start off small, human, but end in wide plates not unlike kite shields worn 90 degrees askew. Just like its 'face', these plates are scrawled with unfathomable runes. Tiny, skeletal hands lurk beneath them. The consort tetters atop normal sized legs, though its feet have grown three extra sets of phalanges, each pointing

Session Twenty Three: Chaos Reigns and Manacles Break An untamed frontier. Dark cults. Fickle fey gods. Ravenous fiends. Nothing black powder and sorcery won't fix... . Timberlands Campaign Diary As the second battle for Inniscrone’s town square started between the party of heroes and a motley of flying weapons, strained shrieks split the gathering clouds of evening. Aelric, the satyr blood hunter cursed. He knew the origins of the sounds. Aelric had come to Inniscrone to hunt arcanaphages. , also known as magebanes No doubt the monstrosities sensed all the magic arcing about Inniscrone that day and came expecting a feast. Alas, Aelric had no time to warn his new companions, the battle was already joined. Sykes the eladrin rogue and Riley the changeling dervish slammed into a line of flying swords. Aelric called down a column of moonfire to cover their flank and funnel more Animated Weapons their way. Peregrine the half-orc archer snipped from atop a nearby house while Wil

This ruddy-furred terror erupts without warning from churning earth bearing a fang-filled grin. Its claws tear through skin and bone as well as it rips through the the ground. The gnarlshrew's worst weapon sits between beady, yellow eyes; a conical horn the beast punches through its prey. Once it has a meal skewered, the vole violently shakes it until it expires. Untamed. Those who survive the gnarlshrew's attack attribute its viciousness to a sadistic, possibly demonic soul. In truth, the horned burrower is little more than an apex predator in mind though its origins lay in infernal rites. Stories hold that the first such creature was produced when a foul wizard attempted to bind the power of a demon to his mortal shell, but didn't realize some of the shrews he'd kept for sacrifices had chewed through their cage. The mammals entered the ritual circle early and were imbued with unearthly size and power. The wizard didn't survive this mishap.

Session Twenty Two: Hobnobbing An untamed frontier. Dark cults. Fickle fey gods. Ravenous fiends. Nothing black powder and sorcery won't fix... . Timberlands Campaign Diary The heroes gathered in the fortified Broken Bough inn after confronting an army’s worth of animated weapons outside. The owner, Edvan Reeve, was once an adventurer himself and was wearing his ill-fitting armor just in case trouble came knocking. Edvan was glad to meet a clearly experienced crew as they seemed even more skilled than the companions he once had. Edvan explained that they had several townsfolks hold up within the inn and were living off of the tavern’s stores for now. He’d hoped that some relief would come, or if not that they’d be able to make a run to the lord mayor’s abode which was better outfitted for a prolonged siege. He poured out ale on the house for the heroes and bade an older serving woman, Maddie, to fetch food for them too. After brief introductions, during which time it becam