Hello, Everyone!
Welcome to Mary Windfiddle’s super-scary adventures.
I’m kidding, I’m kidding, they can be a lot of fun, too!
But, in all seriousness…
Mary is a human from the mostly-gnomish city of Frinkeltong. Her best friends were her (gnome) parents and the local (gnome) librarian. She was lonely but didn’t mind it. She had her books and her passion for writing, and she wanted to write The Best Story Ever. For that purpose, she decided to leave the safety of her home and dedicate her life to experiencing as many adventures as she could, so she could, then, write about them from a first-hand experience.
How else would she become a great writer?
So, she headed out to Adventure. She got hired as an escort for a lord named Dwendel and his family, and that’s how she met her new friends Aurum and Bruno, as well as a sleazeball of a person named Jared. They got the lord all the way to the elven city of Myth Adofhaer and promised to find his daughter Dorina who’d been missing for the past six years.
Before they could do that, however, they were summoned to Bruno’s home, the dwarven city of Belfast. A ‘rock giant’ named Agrax, allied with the forces of the Underdark, was demanding access to the dwarven mines in order to find a powerful Arcane Artefact. Mary, Bruno and Aurum, accompanied by Bruno’s sister, the pink-haired rebellious Paulina (whom Mary really, really liked) went down to the tunnels under the city to try and help.
They had many dangerous encounters – some Dark dwarves, a hill giant, a Roper, a weird blob of a creature which almost made Aurum jump into an abyss… With each next bloody fight, Mary became more and more distraught. She hadn’t expected that adventuring would be so… scary! And when her Patron (oh, yeah, did I mention that she made a pact to get herself some sweet Warlock magic?) told her she had to go to a dragon’s lair, she was almost at the end of her ropes.
But she did it anyway. She wouldn’t dare oppose the person giving her her powers.
The dragon was known as the Dark Lady Nurvureem, she was cruel and proud, and she liked torturing her victims. She managed to catch Mary sniffing around her treasures but the girl was saved by Aurum’s quick thinking. Then, the group devised a plan--and succeeded!--to free Nurvureem’s current victim.
Suffice to say, Nurvureem wasn’t very happy about that!
But, anyway, Mary and her friends managed to help find the Artefact, but weren’t able to keep it. Agrax took it, and later gave it to a mysterious man with one dried-out hand.
After that adventure, the group had some down-time and Mary returned home, only to be flung into perplexity when it turned out that, somehow, she’d written and published a book. Aurum came back from a vacation in the wizard city of Zerakas tol (where he’d met the teenage-Emperor and a woman named Reina whom he wouldn’t stop talking about) and the three headed to Pamagos to discover the truth about the mysterious tome.
It turned out that Jared, their previous companion, had somehow copied Mary’s journal after their Underdark adventures, and had published it for his own gains. The group found his sister, Nymphadora, and managed to bully/convince her to transfer the ownership of the bank vault where the money from the books were going, to Mary. Mary felt really guilty that she kinda ruined Nymphadora’s life but couldn’t do anything about it.
And then, it was time for another adventure. Following the tracks of some Undead creatures, as well as the long-disappeared Dorina Dwendel, the trio went to Myth Adofhaer. They met the elven Elders, didn’t get along with 2/3 of them (Balaine Endoras being the only exception), were joined by a cool Paladin named Tesaya, and conducted a complicated investigation, finally managing to both stop the man who was responsible for the Undead attacks on the continent, and save lord Dwendel’s daughter.
Also, Mary found out that she was originally from Myth Adofhaer. She was born Meridia an Halas, her mother and father were dead, and her grandmother Falka was Kinda A Big Deal in the elven city (she had a statue and a whole secret organization named after her). However, Mary didn’t reveal her true identity to the elves. Except for Tesaya, of course, because she was the only nice elf in the city. And Balaine Endoras who kinda guessed but kept it to himself.
After Myth Adofhaer, the trio decided to head towards the infamously grim country of Ekoba in search for a couple of magical bells that Aurum was interested in. Before getting there, they met a weird man named Rabajorhax who owned an orphanage, and had a dinner with Pamagos’ ruler Dynatos Perres in a restaurant, where they eavesdropped on a conversation between the Dry Hand and a man named Kalien who served Nurvureem. They talked about the Artefact and someone named Diohastos who’d been killed by the Dark Lady, as well as something about a White Queen who could be useful for their plans.
Then, it was off to Ekoba. This adventure turned out to be about so much more than just acquiring two bells! The trio found themselves in the middle of the hunting grounds of a False Hydra, a monster which modified the memories of everyone who knew its victims. Mary, Bruno and Aurum realized that they used to have a fourth member of the party--Lanurey Trost--whom they’d forgotten, and then faced the Hydra head-on. In this fight Mary lost her leg but it was regenerated shortly after by Granny Gretel, the mysterious hag that the group had been dealing with. It cost the girl a suspiciously low amount of money and she wondered whether there was something else that the hag wasn’t telling her.
But then, the trio had to get away from Ekoba, really fast. By contacting Tesaya, Bruno had found out that Balaine Endoras had been killed and the elves had started military actions against the other nations. Ekoba, being allied with them, was soon to become very dangerous for three agents of Pamagos such as themselves. Mary, Bruno and Aurum rode back towards safety, and on the way picked up a group of Ekobian boys who didn’t want to be drafted into the army, as well as a mysterious tabaxi named Agatha who asked to join them on their journey.
And that’s where our story finds us. Just having entered Pamagos and finding out that Mr. Perres’ working place had been swarmed by an angry crowd.
So, that was our recap. Hope you got up to date with everything so far. If you want to learn some 'behind the scenes' stuff, here's links to a few Q&As we made for you: after Arc 1, after Arc 3 and after Arc 4.
See you next time when we begin our ARC 5!
Take care and be well!
(Also, here's a link to the Chapter Guide, the Glossary and the Map for the series. You're welcome!)
An important disclaimer: These are my notes from a D&D game turned into a narrative. All the worldbuilding and NPC encounters belong to our DM, and all the actions of the other main characters (Aurum and Bruno) belong to my co-players. My contribution to the story is only everything Mary-related (actions, reactions, inner thoughts), as well as the writing itself.