Campaign Diary: Session 5

Previously, on The Broken World Campaign...

When last we left our heroes, they had set sail for the island where the vault of a dwarf lord is said to be hidden. Halfway there, they discover a ship following them. Pops tells them that it is possibly the pirate Gates, who was responsible for the loss of the last crew of the Kern’s Folly. The heroes decide to take the ship into the dangerous phlogiston in hopes of either losing Gates or that he won’t follow. Their plan appears to pay off as the pursuing ship does not enter the phlogiston. The heroes continue on their journey and find their way to the area where the map provided to them by the priest Walken indicates the location of the island to be and there they find a small island with a massive, horned creature laying atop it. The creature nearly covers the mile-long island and is the largest beast they’ve seen yet. The creature appears to be sleeping or dead as it lay unmoving and giving no signs of life, but they do note that there is a stone cube that has been suspended by chains from the creature’s horns along its back. They fly the ship around the island, taking note of the nearby smaller living islands that have wildlife and one in particular that is home to a Roc. As they circle the main island, they note that one side is rocky and has caves leading into the island while the other side has an opening with water flowing out and a wooded area that has a hut within it. The heroes decide to pull their ship alongside the island to disembark and see who lives in the hut. As they travel through the woods, they see humanoid tracks on a path and follow them. They are soon attacked by a flock of blood-sucking stirges, but the creatures are quickly dispatched thanks to the magic of Brahm and Bantu. They continue onward, finding a small pool with a fishing pole set in place beside it. They continue following the tracks to the hut and find it occupied by a lone, aged dwarf, dressed in rags and bearing a Warhammer, seemingly a bit maniacal, demanding that they leave his island. Only Norro knows dwarvish, so he attempts to calm the dwarf down and succeeds in doing so. The dwarf offers to feed them fish and takes off down the trail to the fishing hole, where he pulls out a fish trap of his design. As the dwarf collects the fish, he becomes alarmed at rustling in the nearby trees and a large, tentacle monster erupts from the trees and attacks. The dwarf runs away as the heroes face the monster and after a fight that nearly took out Solomon, they manage to kill the monster, dragging it’s corpse back to the dwarf’s hut. The dwarf then takes the monster’s tentacles and traces a line around his hut with the monster’s blood which he claims will keep others out. He says the thing is a parasite that comes from the sleeping Gargantua from the cliff above and that they mostly stay up there but occasionally make their way down to cause him trouble. He cooks the fish and the heroes decide to spend the night at the camp, but send their ship away to keep it safe from the night-hunting Roc. They get the dwarf talking and he claims to be Torm Stonebreaker, the son of the mad dwarf king Omus Stonebreaker. Norro knows the legend of the Stonebreaker clan and recites it to the group.
Long ago, during the time of the Aether Wars, dwarven king Omus Stonebreaker became disgruntled with the taxation system of the dwarven clans due to the greed of the High King of the dwarves. Omus, himself a greedy dwarf, became obsessed with hiding his wealth – particularly an artifact that his clan had unearthed in an ancient ruin within one of their mines; an item called the Serpent Crown, which Torm claims drove the king mad when placed upon his brow. Omus ordered several vaults be created and hidden throughout the Archipelago. The king’s mania was tearing the clan apart and bringing down the wrath of the High King. Omus’ son, so Torm – one of the vault builders – took the Serpent Crown and placed it in the vault and then took his crew away and was never heard from again. The Stonebreaker clan was eradicated by the Aether Wars and the High King’s tax collectors and eventually died out, making Torm the last of the Stonebreaker clan. Torm assumed this had happened and took the news solemnly. That night, as the group slept, Torm passed away quietly and the following morning the group finds him dead and bury him. Among his few belongings, they find 500 pieces of gold, an antique set of stonemason tools and his rune-encrusted Warhammer.
The heroes begin contemplating how to get the vault with no door off of the back of the sleeping Gargantua.