Talsil 12th
Entering Tsojcanth City
Raven entered a swaying trance, guiding Anger further and further away from her, and closer and closer to the city. She was initially met with success, beginning to dance as her shadow slipped under the notice of the trolls, drow and other monsters. It entered through a vaguely-maw-like gate and out of sight. However it wasn't much further than the strain took it's toll, and she began to jaundice, developing a cold sweat, and then eventually collapsing onto the hard, wet stone.
The shadow hardly made it beyond the front door, but she had learned something of the demographics (trolls, drow, derro, and a smattering of other monsters), and a suggested path to take. Unfortunately, among her details was a report of the difficulty in sneaking around, no sewers to speak of and the tunnels shoulder-to-shoulder. Raven grew excited at the prospect this could be a satellite for the Hand of Doom, a drow-led organization bent on conquering and dividing the empire into new monster kingdoms. Perhaps Thamior's nephew or the purple wyrmlings were near...
It was ultimately settled they disguise themselves as drow, and stick to the same cover they were going to use in Saspien. Caprica would be a slave master, Raven the slave, and Leonardo the muscle. The three went about dawning the guises of dark elves, painting their faces, lightening their hair, dawning concealing cloaks and practicing their demeanor. All-in-all they managed a decent disguise, though would be hard pressed to pass as a drow if directly confronted.
Thanks to some sorcerous siroccos, they descending the challenging drops and entered the unguarded entrance to the city, one of dozens in this cavern. It seemed taking the Deep Way had its benefits after all. Inside, they were hit with a horrible stench and a hot wind, as monsters fought shoulder-to-shoulder through tunnels and troll warrens. It was a chaotic mess, except when the choice drow procession parted the sea of flesh and filth. Slaves were abundant, some human, most eyeless humanoids or hulking, bear-like albinos.
Narrowly avoiding a sudden fight, and wrestling through the rough, mashing traffic, the three decided to find a suitable side cave in which to cast a comprehension ritual. As it was, they couldn't understand anything, much less determine a proper route. All the while, Leonardo swallowed his disdain, finding all this base, vile rabble collected in one spot nauseating.
Their sanctuary ended up being a small scriptorium, largely deserted but for several drow adepts and a couple hobgoblin warchanters. Between bookcases, Caprica and Leonardo hid Raven performing of a comprehend languages ritual. Yet she lost sense of surroundings near the end and cried out too loudly. After gleaning very little from the tablets and tomes stacked around them, they quietly left.
Or would have, if not for the tall, curious drow waiting for them. Yurloc was his name, a mage of 'meager skill' who was able to identify Raven's ritual. He was quite curious to know more about them, but Caprica decided on a gruff and disrespectful approach with the stranger. For the most part, it worked, and she spun her lie about Raven's worth and a possible auction. She avoided answering the incriminating questions as best she could, and worried she'd revealed them mid-way through the conversation, but if she had, Yurloc didn't let on. Instead he offered seven-thousand widows for the girl, which Caprica refused, insulting him more than anything else she'd said prior. Yurloc named himself a prince of House Vlokshar and demanded she state her house and Raven's origins. Leonardo, though, recognized the bold lie, and let Caprica know in so many motions and whispers. She in turn denied him a second time, earning them an enemy, but preserving their cover.
Back in the crowded tunnels, they decided to follow the drow processions, a large one strolling down the slope, consisting of black leather bondage, many knives and hooks, and a train of human playthings missing limbs, sometimes faces, to grizzly dark elven surgery. The tunnel, lined in hovels and small caves connected by ropes and ladders, eventually emptied into a tremendous natural dome, the heart of Tsojcanth City, blessedly cooler and less foul-smelling. Uncounted shops, stands and forges ringed the place, or were built into the lower walls, overlooked by more warrens and caves. Higher still, larger and better-carved homes were embedded into the streaked rock. Drow architecture was clearly discernible from that of the trolls and monsters, and consisted of a massive arch with titanic caryatids of drow breaking through the earth's surface to snatch men. Their work was also plainly seen dangling from a gigantic stalactite carved into a looming palace.
A little eavesdropping and simple observations discerned the troll king dwelled in the hanging palace, known as Jagged Keep. There he watched his subjects like ants, fascinated and bemused by their scurrying beneath him. Of those who displeased him, it was a long fall from one of the balconies to the cave floor.
And no sooner did the Dark Three steal themselves for quite a bit of stair climbing to reach the guarded gates, a small and growing scream eventually saw a tossed orc liquefy when he hit the ground, having fallen over a hundred feet to his doom. The trollish crowd howled with laughter, but none was louder than the booming guffaws of Rend himself, somewhere up there.
Experience: 933 xp each (36, 043 total)
Infiltrating Tsojcanth City, 2800
Magic: n/a
Coin: - 10gp (Raven, Comprehend Languages)
Loot: n/a
New NPCs
Yurloc Vlokshar: A tall, drow mage of 'meager skill' who identified Raven's comprehension ritual between the bookcases. He inquired about Raven's price, and was met with a mixed performance by her 'owner' Caprica. In the end he was snubbed, and claimed himself a prince that demanded answers, but Leonardo saw through the bluff and the three left the library with another enemy at their backs.
New Locales
Tsojcanth City
Tsojcanth City is predominately a troll city situated between the Shallows of the Underdark and the deepest depths of the Lost Caverns. Hundreds of years ago, trolls found their way into the Deep Caverns (via a cave entrance on the slopes called the Trollgate) and settled, eventually expanding.
Upward led them into the dangerous and varied caverns of the Archmage Iggwilv, already vanished, her many summons run amuck. The trolls claimed what they could, fortified those holdings, aligned with the indigenous hill giants and choice other monsters before concentrating on the other direction.
Their exploits downward found them confronted with Kauthe drow and the derro of Delzoun. So began a struggle for dominance that lasted centuries, until even deeper horrors worming their way up from the Stygian Chasm demanded their full attention. A necessary alliance was formed, solidified when the trolls adopted a succession of kings, making for a more stable affiliation.
Together Kauth, Delzoun and the trolls of Tsojcanth threw back the incursions of mangled torturer angels, ancient undead and tentacled terrors. Their combined might surprised them, and together they carved Tsojcanth City, the third in a triangle of powerful Underdark cities, which controls a vast swath beneath Othyr despite Kauth's current occupation. Tsojcanth City thrives as a center of trade and troop movement, and promises untold magical riches and an impregnable surface base once the dhampir Drelzna and her demons are ousted. Their war with her has lasted seven years.
Niliak (remembered): A dark elven city under the volcanic Devukrad, where House Gloma and the worshipers of Hate vie with House Vi'eshan and their dragon masters for dominance over the city.
New Races/Factions
Tsojcanthi Trolls
The sons and daughters of Pigritia the Devourer were always an ambitious and hungry lot, driven solely by their appetites. None could muster the discipline needed for civilization proper, and the whole of the race still wallows in base tribes or solidarity. It takes a steely will and a fearsome power to bend trolls to a cause, a feat usually reserved for dark lords, devils and demons, but, in this one instance, the Tsojcanthi trolls have learned the value of unity, patience, and strategy on their own. Perhaps it was the residual magic lingering in Iggwilv's caves that caused this strange evolution, or some eldritch radiation seeped out of the Underdark, but the Tsojcanthi trolls united, chose a king, built, and prospered.
Under the tyranny of King Rend, largest and most battle-worn of all his people, trolls occupy half the Lost Caverns, maintain alliances with Kauthe drow and the derro of Delzoun, fight an ongoing war with Drelzna and her summons, and expand their influence well beneath the surface through the subjugation of grimlocks and quaggoth tribes. As men squabble over imaginary borders, they spread through the Shallows beneath their feet, claiming that which has never been claimed, daring the darkness. Aligned with the remnants of the Hand of Doom, numbering stray ogres, orcs and goblinoids, they claw closer toward establishing a trollish nation with influence above and below. Their sights are fixed on the Lost Caverns and mountains above as the means to that end, the launching point for a surface campaign and the site of powerful magic with which to fortify their holdings.
Delzounian Derro
Derro were originally dwarven deserters of the Night War who fled Citadel convinced it would fall to Rathven and his vampires. They ended up cowering in the well-fortified hall of Delzoun, far beneath the conflict. But fate returned their cowardice when Rathven was defeated and fell crashing through the earth, tearing half their city down in the formation of the Stygian Chasm. Those who survived, shunned by the Citadeleans, were cursed to rot in their Chasm-side ruins. Nightmares plagued them incessantly, terrible things crept up from the blackness only to steal away again with their livestock and children. Voices whispered prophecy and promised oblivion. And in the mounting horror they lost their minds.
Thousands of years later, that cursed lot are known as derro, pallid, rummy-eyed dwarves with shocked-white hair and over-sized heads. They constantly tremble and whisper to themselves, unpleasant things, words nearly unpronounceable. Few know of their strange religion, entirely departed from any recognizable pantheon. They worship a local deity Umrat-Tawil, god of space and time, and are utterly terrified of an entity at the Chasm's bottom known only as The Lurker at the Threshold. When the alliance with Kauth and Tsojcanth first formed, it was because new and unimaginable evil was crawling back out of the Chasm, ravaging Delzoun but also escaping into the greater Shallows. Their alliance is one of fear, fear they might be wiped out or worse dragged into the Void.
Kauthe Drow
Kauth was once a powerful drow city-state among several in the Shallows, but with The Hand of Doom's destruction in Provia (an organization which Kauth founded and was totally invested in), they've not only fallen into obscurity, but lost their ancient city to a splinter sect of cultists worshiping a being known as Tenebrous. The Kauthe houses might have united and ousted such zealotry, but they were further weakened by the betrayal of their greatest house, Dredilith, whose Prince Ispar killed his matron mother, looted the ancestral vaults and fled with all his troops and resources. The last, true Kauthe were forced into the unthinkable, settling Tsojcanth City in a foreign quarter, refugees in a crude and despicable state of affairs. Their appetite for expansion, which initially inspired them to form the Hand, has become their driving obsession, as they seek to gather resources from the Lost Caverns enough to reclaim Kauth and enact their terrible revenge.
New Religions/Outsiders
Umrat-Tawil, God of Space and Time, a mysterious deity worshiped by the derro of Delzoun.
Tenebrous, God of Darkness and Knowledge, worshiped by a Kauthe splinter cult who now controls the ancient drow city.
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