Campaign Arc (FULL Spoilers) (new CSS)
The Price of Prophecy
Blood, gold, and ancient magic in the Palakar Forest.
The town of Macridi stands as a monument to the power of long-term investment. Local Kalistocrats, driven by the Prophecies of Kalistrade, view the surrounding Palakar Forest as a portfolio to be managed. They wear austere white robes and practice the Blood Price, ensuring that every act of transgression is paid for in coin. This philosophy forged a fragile peace with the local fey—until now.
Two major story arcs intertwine in this campaign. Arc 1: The Rot in the Ledger focuses on a creeping toxic blight originating from an abandoned logging camp, which shatters the human-fey treaty and tanks the local economy. Arc 2: Blood and Brimstone reveals the true cause: wealthy Kalistocrat elites have opened a portal to Hell beneath their estate to bypass natural laws, inadvertently awakening the ancient, hateful blood magic of the Kellid First Kings in the nearby mountains.
Act 1: The Broken Ledger
Levels 1-3 | Macridi & Reiver's Right
The streets of Macridi are paved with tightly fitted timber, echoing with the boots of the Blackjackets—mercenary enforcers hired to keep the peace. The air smells of sawdust, desperation, and the faint, coppery tang of impending violence. The Logging Guild’s shipments of highly prized darkwood have stopped, and the town's Kalistocrat overseers are looking for scapegoats.
The Guild's Commission
The party is summoned by Guildmaster Vorn, a minor Kalistocrat desperate to save his margins. He tasks the party with traveling down the Confluence of the Great Goldpan to audit the Reiver's Right logging camp, which has gone completely dark.
- Objective: Discover why the loggers stopped sending timber.
- Reward: 500 gp, plus a writ of immunity from the next three minor Blood Price infractions.
Encounter: The Morass of Reiver's Right
Upon arriving at the camp, the party finds no living humans. The trees are weeping a foul, black sap, and the soil has turned into a toxic, acidic morass.
The logging camp is swallowed by a creeping, oily rot. Tents are dissolved, and the great logging saws are rusted through. From the mud rise twisted, groaning figures—the loggers, their flesh fused with blighted, thorny wood.
Hazard: Blighted Soil
Any creature stepping on the blackened mud must succeed on a DC 13 Constitution saving throw or take 1d4 acid damage and have their movement speed halved until the end of their next turn.
Combat Tactics: The Blighted Loggers (use Zombie stats with an added Thorn Burst death burst) attack mindlessly. The camp boss, Foreman Thask, is a tougher variant (use Ghast stats) who tries to grapple and drag PCs into the worst of the toxic morass.
Handout: The Foreman's Ledger
Act 2: The Silenced Song
Levels 4-5 | Court of Endless Revelry
With the treaty clearly broken by the humans, fey attacks on Macridi increase. The party must venture deep into the Palakar Forest to find the Court of Endless Revelry and explain that the logging was a rogue operation.
The Dead Court
The glade that houses the Court of Endless Revelry is normally a cacophony of panpipes and laughter. Today, it is chillingly silent. Satyrs huddle in the hollows of ancient oaks, eyes wide with terror. The naiads have retreated deep into the ponds, which are tainted with a faint, sulfuric film.
The party must convince the surviving fey that they are not here to harvest wood. If successful, the fey lower their weapons and reveal the source of their fear: the "Dark Currents" (corrupted nature spirits) have taken over the southern glade.
Encounter: The Corrupted Wood Wraith
To prove their goodwill and earn an audience with the higher fey authorities, the party must cleanse the southern glade of a massive Wood Wraith possessed by the toxic blight and a strange, infernal heat.
- Clue 1: When struck, the Wraith bleeds a mixture of black sap and hellish, smoking ash.
- Clue 2: The satyrs reveal the poison flows from two places: the Pulgari Estate upriver, and the Desolation Blade Mounts in the hills.
Reward
The grateful fey grant the party a Charm of the Sylvan Path (grants advantage on all survival checks in the Palakar Forest) and open a hidden, magical path to the elder Court of Seasons.
Act 3: Iron Laws and Ancient Kings
Levels 6-8 | Court of Seasons & Desolation Blade Mounts
The Court of Seasons
The elder queens have enacted the Iron Law of Trespass. They will not allow the party into their inner sanctum. Instead, they project their voices through the twisting vines.
"You humans dig where you should not. You broke the treaty for gold, and now you have roused the First Kings. The clay mounds whisper. Go to the Desolation Blade Mounts. Silence the ancient dead, and we shall grant you audience."
The Maze of Whispers
The Desolation Blade Mounts are ancient, hardened clay barrows built by the Macridi Blade culture (ancient Kellids) long before the dwarves conquered Druma. The Cult of the Pale Hand is here, attempting to harness the waking undead.
Trap: The Whispering Clay
Trigger: Moving through the barrow without paying homage (a blood offering).
Effect: The walls close in, casting Phantasmal Killer (DC 15) on anyone trapped inside the shifting corridors, as ancient Kellid war-chants echo in their minds.
Encounter: The First King Awakens
In the heart of the central mound, the party interrupts a Pale Hand ritual. The ritual has failed; the ancient Kellid magic is too wild and hateful to be controlled.
The Boss: The First King (Wight/Death Knight hybrid). He is not inherently evil, but is acting as an aggressive immune system for the land, trying to purge all foreign influence—human, fey, and devil alike.
The Artifact: The Blackened Blade
Upon defeating the King, the party claims the Blackened Blade, an ancient Kellid artifact capable of severing extraplanar tethers. In the tomb, murals reveal that this ancient magic was only triggered because a massive portal to the Lower Planes was opened nearby—at the Pulgari Estate.
Act 4: The Gilded Hells
Levels 9-10 | The Pulgari Estate
Armed with the truth, the party returns to a Macridi on the brink of collapse. The Blackjackets have declared martial law. The party must infiltrate the opulent Pulgari Estate to shut down the Society of the Golden Hand.
The Heist
The Pulgari Estate is a fortress of marble and gold, surrounded by manicured topiary. But the guards here don't look like standard Blackjackets. Their eyes burn with a faint, amber light, and the shadows they cast have horns.
The party must bypass mundane Kalistocrat security (arcane locks, alarm spells, and clockwork guards) to access the catacombs beneath the manor. Ledgers in the master study prove that Lord Pulgari sold the logging rights—and the souls of the loggers—to a barbed devil in exchange for infinite wealth.
Encounter: The Catastrophic Ritual
In the caverns beneath the estate, the portal to Hell is fully open. Rivers of gold and molten brimstone mix in a horrifying display of infernal capitalism.
Hazard: Molten Brimstone
The chamber is flooded with toxic brimstone. Characters must hold their breath or take 2d6 poison damage at the start of each of their turns.
The Gate Archon: The party must face Ambithas, a powerful Devil (use Horned Devil stats) acting as the Gate Archon. The portal cannot be closed with dispel magic. A character must strike the physical portal frame with the Blackened Blade (from Act 3) three times while surviving Ambithas' attacks.
Act 5: The Final Audit
Levels 11-12 | Macridi (The Confluence)
Closing the portal causes a massive magical shockwave. The trapped infernal energy violently fuses with the ancient Kellid magic and the remaining blight, creating a massive anomaly that marches directly toward the town of Macridi.
The Siege of Macridi
The rivers of the Great Goldpan and Profit's Flow are boiling. The sky above the Palakar Forest turns the color of a bruised plum. Bursting from the treeline is a gargantuan horror—a fusion of hellfire, ancient bone, and blighted, thorny wood. It is coming to collect the final debt.
- The Fey Queens: Can summon grasping vines to slow the boss if the party secured their aid.
- The Blackjackets: Provide ballista fire (deal flat piercing damage each round).
- The Blackened Blade: Can be used to sever the monster's regeneration.
Encounter: The Amalgamation
This is a multi-stage boss fight taking place on the bridges and docks of Macridi.
Boss Mechanics:
Stage 1 (Wood & Blight): High AC, vulnerable to fire. Emits toxic spores.
Stage 2 (Bone & Hellfire): Once reduced to 0 HP, the wood burns away revealing a burning skeletal core. It gains a fly speed, fire immunity, and casts Fireball as a legendary action.
Conclusion: The New Contract
With the Amalgamation destroyed and the corrupt Kalistocrats of the Golden Hand exposed and executed via the Blood Price, a power vacuum exists in Macridi. The party must write the "New Contract." Will they enforce a harsher, more regulated Kalistocrat rule? Will they return vast tracts of the forest back to the Fey and the Kellid spirits? Or will they forge a new, equitable treaty that honors the blood and sweat of all involved?
Campaign Rewards
Control of the Logging Guild or the Pulgari Estate. The title of "Prophets of the Palakar", and 25,000 gp in Kalistocrat bearer bonds.