We met each other in a small town called Phandalin, on the northern part of the Sword Coast. The village was haunted by a local gang of bandits called “Redbrands”, recognizable by their scarlet cloaks. We had a few run-ins with them and eventually freed the town of their presence, which led us to some clues for further adventures.
A note on Townmaster Harbin Wester’s bulletin board led us on a mission to eradicate a camp of Orcs at Wyvern Tor to the east of the town. Also, Sister Garaele gave us a comb to bring to a Banshee called Agatha that resided nearby in exchange for her to answer one question for us: The location of the Spellbook of Wizard “Bowgentle”. She told us, but this information was no use to us. After paying her a visit, we cleaned out the Orc Encampment and returned to Phandalin to collected our reward of 100 Gold. On each visit to Phandalin, Finn intimately and repeatedly bonded with the local Barmaid.
In Phandalin we also met Sildar Hallwinter, who told us about the dwarf Gundren Rockseeker who, with his two brothers Tharden and Nundro planned to re-open the legendary Wave Echo Cave and reestablish the area, and Phandalin with it, as a place of fortune. Sildar belongs to the Lord’s Alliance. His guild-brother Iarno Albrek, turned evil and was the one who founded the Redbrands, under the Mentorship of the Black Spider, a major evil presence in the area. The Black spider was also the one that captured Gundren Rockseeker since he was looking for the Forge of Spells inside the Wave Echo Cave, which is still active, as we learned from a diary we found raiding the Redbrands’ lair.
On the way to our next adventure, we stumbled over an old structure in which a Necromancer by the name of Hamun Kost (Human Crust) has taken camp and started raising an army of Undead. Our group could not come up with a compelling reason to either attack or ally with him which led to an in-depth discussion on the morals of bringing people back from the dead. Eventually though, we left him alone and freed a nearby castle, called Cragmar Castle of King Grohl and his army of Goblins.
From Reidoth, a local druid who knows the area well, we hear stories of dragon activiy increasing lately.
A little later, we arrived in Thundertree, the ruins of the village where Thoredim grew up, and that was one day destroyed by a green dragon. Here was the first time we heard of a cult of dragon worshipping, wanting to raise a legendary dragon called Tiamat, which is trapped in the nine hells and with it, an army of undead dragons. We encountered a group of low-ranking and frankly, inept dragon cultists.
The group also found Thoredim’s former home and with it, a diary from an unknown author writing about Thoredim Longaxe, Thoredim’s father. It retells the story of the author trying to help the villagers defend their village from the dragon’s attacks, supplying them with potions and salves against their burns. One day, a group of fighters ventures out to slain the dragon, only Thoredim’s father returns, badly wounded. The author goes looking for plants to heal him, but upon his return, he found the village completely devastated by the dragon. No information on the father’s survival. However, we gather the information that Thoredim’s mother is probably still alive, in a village many days of travel south called Greenest! Suddenly, the dragon returned and was defeated by us in a fierce battle. After the first time fighting a dragon, we took a bunch of dragon teeth as souvenir, which should turn out quite handy later on several occasions. Later we would learn that the dragon’s name was “Venomfang”
After all this adventuring, we decided it is finally time to pick a name for our group. “The Five,” “Five guys” was eventually dismissed in favor of “The F* Five”, a malleable name that can be adjusted to any occasion.
Finally, we make it to the fabled Wave Echo Cave. Close to the Entrance, we found the corpse of Tharden, one of the three Rockseeker brothers. Fighting our way through poisonous funghi, skeletons, Buckbears and Shapeshifters, we encountered the Black Spider, a dragonborn. We learned that he wanted to build a horde for the dragon queen, and that this horde is going to Greenest - where Thoredim’s mother presumably currently resides! Unfortunatley, he escaped the battle to live another day, an we should not catch up with him until a couple weeks later in the dragon cultist’s camp close to Longsaddle. Thoredim found a weapon made in the Forge of Spells, Lightbringer, which he will wield from now on. The Cave, and with it the forge, are now back in the hands of the remaining two Rockseeker brothers. Shall we ever return to the area, a sizeable cut of their profits will be waiting for us!