The Broken Tower

Introduction

You’ve been on the road for a couple of days, riding in pursuit of the thieves that stole a large portion of your tribe’s cattle—one of its greatest sources of wealth. In the course of this heinous crime, they slew two of your kin and wounded another: simple herders, not even tribal warriors. Zarah, your clan-chieftain’s wife set you—her boldest and most able-bodied allies—to follow, recover the cattle, and exact retribution for the insult.

One of your injured kinsfolk recognized members of the Greydog clan among the raiders, particularly a
man named Danakos, an ambitious and bitter Greydog. The raiders’ path led in the direction of Lismelder tribal land, specifically to the Greydog’s home village.

Disclaimer: The names are probably not spelled correctly :smile:

The adventure starts near the Clearwine Fort in the Stream Vale. These are the lands of the Ernaldori Clan of the Colymar Tribe. Last night a herd of cattle was stolen close to the nearby river and the herders violently ambushed. Two farmers (Ark and Datha) were found dead, and one (Berah) was left for dead by the attackers but survived. The ruler, Barenthos Estafanos, is out of town on a celebration at the Sundawn temple. Meanwhile his wife, Zarah, is presented as leader. She commands her son Harmast, the noble farmer, to assemble a team of adventurers for investigating what happened and to return the cattle.

As the best warriors have joined Barenthos for the celebration, Harmast manages to gather some old brothers- and sisters-in-arms as well as their friends. The full team consists of:

Harmast, Baranthos’ son (Maciej) - Mount: Two Zebras
Sorala, daughter of Toria (Konstantinos)
Yanioth, Vareena’s daughter (PA)
Vasana, daughter of Farnan (Katta) - Mount: Bison
Vishi Dun, shaman (Carolina) - Mount: Llama, Companion: Cousin Monkey

After questioning Zarah the adventurers find out that the attacker was Danakos, son of Egrost, from the Greydog clan. The traces lead back to the Lismelder tribe whose territories lie to the west of the town. Without further hesitation the adventurers head out towards the Bad lands following the traces of the cattle. Sorala shortly regrets not asking Zarah for more details, and almost returns to the town. However, they all continue walking and riding towards the Greydog territories. After a few hours they spot a camping area, and at the edge of it what seems like a human body. Vasanas sharp eyes spot that crows are picking the flesh off the corpse. The group approaches it to investigate further.

The body belongs to a dead woman with dark hair. She is wearing a blue tunic. Someone has cut her throat and the coin purse has been taken. Yanioth salvages a knife from the corpse ignoring the customs of respecting the dead. The team starts discussing whether to bury the body or not, seeing that the ground in this area is too rocky to dig a grave. Meanwhile Vishi spots a movement from the nearby grove of trees and discreetly informs the others. Sorala tries to spot the aura of enemy spirits from that spot, but finds no enemies. They decide to recover the corpse for a proper burial while Vishi and Vasana investigate the movement. Yanioth and Sorala start lifting the corpse on one of Harmasts two zebras as Vishi and Vasana ride off.

Vishi and Vasana reach an old, half-blind man that tries to flee, but they manage to convince him that they mean no harm. The man presents himself as Carthalo. He had observed the corpse and the adventurers are interested in learning whether he can help them retrieve the cattle or not. The old man seems unwilling to speak and his answers are somewhat confusing. Apparently the cattle thieves had made the camp, but fought among themselves. One woman, whose corpse was left in the camp, had been killed by her companions. Harmast, Sorala, and Yanioth catch up. Sorala and Yanioth recognise the man as a shaman that was driven mad in combat with a spirit and began living as an outcast scavenging whatever he could from deceased townfolks. He has not been seen in a while near the town.

Carthalo now spots the corpse on the zebra, and inists she needs a proper burial. Harmast convinces him that this is exactly what the adventurers were going to do and together they start preparing a burial ceremony. The adventurers sing to support Carthalos’ ceremony (except Vishi who fails). As the ceremony comes to an end the spirit of the woman arises. She is Lannika, daughter of Laika of Snorristead. Vishi uses his shaman power to speak to the spirit and translates her messages to the other adventurers. They find out that she indeed was one of the cattle thieves. Danakos, the leader, had attacked and stolen the cattle and killed the farmers in order to gain fame and glory, while Lannika and the others had simply followed him. In total the thieves had been five: Danakos, Lannika, Mitrillar, Pesenir and Verenika (the names may be misspelled :smile:) .

Lannika had been killed by Danakos as he was contemplating where to move the herd. He had been wandering around near the camp and returned wanting to take the herd north. As Lannika had tried to prevent him from taking the herd, she was killed. She asks the adventurers to take revenge on Danakos, save the rest of the Greydog cattle-thieves, and return the cattle. They promise to do so. Lannika points to a small blood-covered rock close to the place where she was killed and says the adventurers can summon her if they take the stone and throw it on the ground. Vihsi picks up the stone and explains its power to the others. He carries it in one of his pockets. Lannika disappears. It seems like the oncoming storm soon will start.

Carthalo starts wandering off but the adventurers ask if he would know a good place as shelter for the night. They are invited to his shack and can spend the night there. He offers them a soup of roots and leaves for dinner, and falls asleep. The next day Sorala offers him a ring as a token of gratitude and the team wanders off. While Sorala and Harmast are debating who should try to track the cattle Vishi asks his monkey who has a surprisingly high tracking skill. However the monkey fails twice, and they spend most of the day getting more and more lost among the rocks in the arid wilderness. Yanioth asks for help from her god, who tells the adventurers to retrace their steps and listen for the cows.

Back to where they started Vishi manages to hear a panicking “Moooo” from the nearby trees and they spot one wounded cow chased by seven rock lizards. Vishi and Vasana ride towards the cow while Yanioth decides to summon a large Earth elemental. The elemental creates a large hole beneath the lizards that sucks them in and swallows them one by one. Vishi reaches the cow and herds it to a halt, preparing to question her about the fate of her fellows.

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