Legends of Old Urthe (D&D v3.5)
Home | The Book of Ages | Our Heroes | Maps | Races | Pantheon | House Rules | RPoL

< Back

Fifth Age - Hell on Urthe: Garek Enkdal - The City of Ten Thousand Blades

A half-forgotten conversation with Venelia, one of the Walkers who perished in the Halls of the Master revealed the location of the city of Garek Enkdal, an entrance to which was found in a blasted and hollow tree in ruins near Kalibar, the city now long lost to Limbo and surrounded by fields of flame.

Returning to the nearby Halls of the Master in Osen'tauri ("Hamlet of the Woods") to enlist the help of Lord Diker (the new Master of the Halls, after the Walkers defeated his predecessor what seems a lifetime ago) to recover Calinor's blade, one of three weapons from the earlier age that had been infused with the power of Seeker with the thought that it might serve to free the Urthe Mother.

Diker used his Mirrors to open a gate to the stone bridge over the Yernaduin (The River Elder as was), on the south road to Kalinor, where the party joined a trail of burned, maimed and defeated Drow heading back to their homelands, unable to remain any longer in the world above now that the mists had been banished (by the destruction of the fourth portal and Lugh's release) and the sun above was returned to the skies.

Descending deep under the Urthe, the party learned of an underground temple where the portal was likely located, though it was guarded by hundreds of Drow behind impassable iron gates.  Yet even in Garek Enkdal, they found aid, first from a Grey Dwarf named Malgrom who spoke of using a secret way he knew to head deeper underground before Garek Enkdal became too desperate with too many mouths now and too little food to go around and second from a gang of Orcs lead by an Orog named Grutok, after he and Brugar bonded over insults

Malgrom's hidden way was located in a cavern haunted by Ghuuls (flesh-eaters as Grutok named them), but it had since been sealed off and now the Orcs prepared to finally clear it out ... so a plan was made whereby you would join that assault, Grutok particularly keen to win glory and so advance the prospects of himself and his gang.

Fighting clear of the carnage, and finding the hidden way, the party followed the passage proper to an underground temple while Malgrom headed deeper yet, seeking out his own people.  While scouting out a possible, though risky escape route, the party found a disused entrance atop the temple.

Prying open the door that lay at the foot of the hidden stairway which had been tiled over when an ancient Orc temple had been repurposed by the Drow, the party found themselves in the temple, two huge rooms, tiled in black marble, the walls lined with rusty weapons, predominantly swords.  The eastern chamber had only a descending stone stairway, but in the nearer, western half was a dark well where dark robed priestesses presided over the sacrifice of a dozen or so of their maimed kin.

Battle was joined, though the wounded Drow proved little threat and the priestesses while more dangerous, not much moreso ... but with their last breath one raised a horror from the dark well, bringing forth a roiling mass of corruption and darkness that tore into the party, slaying Ayas.

At great cost they drove it back to the well ... only to see it rise again grown to a staggering size. Realising that they could not defeat it, the party ne'ertheless still sought to accomplish their goal, though it cost them their lives, and with the dark cloud of corruption upon their heels, headed deeper, down the eastern steps where they broke open the last of the portals.

Entering the centuries old crypt and racing down, ever down, the party came at the last to the chamber where the Urthe Mother Herself was bound, but found their way blocked by the Morrigan.

Yet, the Goddess of War, the Feeder of Carrion banished the roiling mass and stood aside, for She chafed at the enforced peace that the Dark Gods' victory had brought and wished the wheel to turn once again towards the glory of conflict in which She delights.

And so, with Calanor's blade, soaked in Seker's blood an Age ago, Hamin smote the glass sphere wherein the Urthe Mother was bound, freeing Her at last.

Released, the essence of the Mother sought escape, and stone and earth liquified before Her as She sought the world above, unleashing a torrent of water as the sea above poured into the opening thus created.

Another race, this time to keep ahead of the waters, and a battle against the tide of refugees from the world above who sought sanctuary in the darkness below from the newly risen sun.

At last, battered and bloodied the party gained the surface and the new world they had achieved ...

< Back