Dissolution Recap

Since this campaign starts and stops with long intervals between sessions, this page will hold a quick recap of the various chapters. This isn't meant to be fully detailed, just a quick refresher of memory.

The Unopenable Chest

Through some shenanigans involving two merchants and some ogres, the group wound up in possession of a semi-legendary "unopenable" iron chest. Seeking to open the chest, the group hears about an item that can open any lock, and some digging leads them to an abandoned house in Oldtown.

Pythoness House

The house has a sordid history, most recently as a brothel and haven for a cult called the Crimson Coil, until raided by the Knights of the Pale. After decimating the cult, the Knights cast a spell that prevents them from entering the the house again, unaware that a cache of chaositech weapons remains hidden in caverns under the house. Unable to retrieve them, surviving cultists leave the house abandoned, but ratmen, undead and various other creatures take up residence.

The group clears the house thoroughly, killing most of the inhabitants, including a demon, and helping a ghost find final rest. They discover many signs of the chaos cult in the house, including a book that details a number of the cults, as well as their obsession with bringing about the Night of Dissolution, when chaos will overwhelm the world. They also find the cache of weapons, one of which is the key they have been seeking.

Wuntad

Unknown to the group, when they entered the subterranean levels of the house, they set off an alarm set years before, prior to the Knight's raiding the place. This alerted one of the cult members who survived the raid, a half-demon named Wuntad. He and several other cultists reach the house before the group leaves. Though the spell still prevents them from entering, they manage to spot the group and offer to let them leave freely if they surrender the weapons. The group refuses and a battle breaks out. Though some of the cultists are killed, the group is badly hurt and forced to retreat back into the house.

Still refusing to give Wuntad the weapons, the group decides to try to wait out the cultists, hoping that once daylight comes, the cultists will be more conspicuous, possibly alerting outside forces to help the group. In response, the cultists bring in reinforcements, including teams that begin to assemble catapults. The group, hiding down in the subterranean levels, hears stones starting to smash into the building; however, before daybreak, a large bronze dragon lands on top of the house and electrocutes most of the cultists and drives the rest away. Not actually witnessing this, the group's only hint of it (beyond the obvious carnage) is a bronze dragoneye token on the roof, and reports of it in the following day's newspaper.

The same newspaper also reports that a large barbarian army threatens Tarsis, a historical capital of the empire.

The Knights

Returning with the key to the Path of Iron monastery, the box was opened to reveal a number of fire-based magic items, experiments of a well-known wizard. The group was allowed to keep these, as the monastery was interested only in the box itself.

Not keen on using the chaositech weapons themselves, the group took them to the headquarters of the Knights of the Pale, suggesting that they be destroyed. This the Knights did, appreciating the effort and the news of the chaos cults from the previous night.

Iltumar

After days spent more fully healing, spending their spoils and training, the co-owner of the Bull and Bear Armory, Hirus Feek, tells the group that his employee, Iltumar Shon has been missing for several days. They hired one Lavis Fallomire to track him down, but she disappeared as well. They ask the group to take a look at the last place Lavis mentioned to Hirus, loaning a few suits of armor for the duration.

The group finds a small house being used to perform bizarre surgical procedures that meld chaositech onto human bodies. The party realizes that this may be the work of the Surgeon of the Shadows, almost an urban legend within Ptolus for performing this kind of work on kidnapped victims. After finding both Iltumar and Lavis, and killing most of the strange inhabitants of the house (as well as some on the roof), the group sees the Surgeon of the Shadows. He sees them as well, and teleports away.

No longer looking to join the chaos cult, Iltumar reveals numerous things he overheard various cultists:

• The cultists are up to something big and believe they can bring about the Night of Dissolution.
• The cultists speak frequently of something that is going to happen in the sky soon.
• The cultists are about to destroy a powerful anti-chaos device in a place called the "Kaleidoscope Temple".
• The Cult of the Ebon Hand is actually a chaos cult involved with all these others. They have a temple in the Temple District.
• The Cult of the Ebon Hand and the Brothers of Venom have some joint project, centered on a certain location in Oldtown.

This last bit makes sense of some papers found on one the cultists killed by the group, the address of an apartment in Oldtown.

The Approaching Horde

While gearing up to raid the apartment, the newspapers are full with stories about the barbarian horde, which bypassed Tarsis entirely, and now seems to be headed right for Ptolus.

The Apartment

The group raids the apartment in Oldtown, finding it filled with mutated thralls in cocoons, violet slime, nests of chaos-spawned insects and some spellcasting cultists. Two different cults appear to be at work in the apartment, but those from the Brothers of Venom appear to have killed one from the Ebon Hand just before the group arrived. This cultist, evidently named Reggaloch was warned of such treachery, as the group finds this note on him:

Reggaloch,
I agree. The Brothers of Venom likely do plan violent treachery so they can be in sole control of the venom-shaped thralls. You should leave and find Malleck in the Ebon Hand Temple, to tell him what’s going on.
—Rhinnis

The group also finds an opening into a pit that seems to lead to a sewer system. A bit spent, they leave and return the following day to investigate it.

Temple of Deep Chaos

The sewers lead to a door that opens into a series of underground rooms. The group gets ambushed by a swarm of ratmen, with spellcasters of some kind attacking them through a peep hole. With the help of a huge fire elemental (original from the iron box), the group took down their attackers, eventually finding stairs that led into an even deeper level, this one more luck an old part of the city that had been buried.

After fighting yet another concealed opponent (this one summoning monsters on them from a hiding place in the ceiling), the group also killed a spider-like, spellcasting creature of some kind, on whom they found a note addressed to the "Brothers of the Quaan":

The chaos cultists prepare something big. They talk of a huge machine in the caves beyond, and of something called the Final Ritual, which will be performed beneath a temple.

The group also gets into another fight, with more thralls and ratbrutes. Further down the corridor, they find a room contain both traps and a medusa. While they avoided the trap fairly well, half of the party gets turned to stone before they bring down the medusa. Rifling through the medusa's belongings uncovers a map to part of the temple they are in, with a note about "the machine" being down the "long passage".

Using a bed as a sort of stretcher, they retreat out of the temple, use some scrolls to depetrify and return after a rest. Waiting for them in the rooms they previously cleared is an infernal centaur with demon backup.

After dispatching these and some other creatures, they come to a crossroads. In one direction is pretty clearly the "long passage" from the map. In the other is an intriguing iron door. They check the door first, revealing a small room following by another door. After three manage to survive setting off a trap that locks them in the small room with poison gas, they decide to go the other direction and go down the long passage.

On the way, they run into more evidence of different chaos cults attempting to work together, but failing. Three Brothers of Venom (one dead) are fighting a minotaur that, based on his tattoos, probably belongs to the Ebon Hand. What starts as a non-lethal attempt to figure out what's happening devolves into webs and fire, leaving all the cultists dead but one of the Brothers, who now sleeps.