Started in Waterdeep, but I'll gloss over that. We went to Icewind Dale pretty quickly. Found the Red Wizards of Thay excavating Xorvintroth. We went around back and found one of those Nyogi tunnels, collapsed from the explosion. Used Wind Walk to breeze past the stone, up to the green glass walls of Xorvintroth. Then we smashed our way through over the course of a couple of days, with some magic and some hammering. The Red Wizards were alread in there, wandering around. We snuck around, explored a couple of buildings, and found a good place for a Harper safehouse. We had to do some work to set things up first. No combat. We did encounter some aberrations, but we talked to them and they gave us a belt of stone giant strength in return for allowing them to steal some anti-magic statues. Weird. We chose not to get rid of the poison gas egg things, because I thought that could be a useful resource, and it was easy to avoid. We did seal up the crevasse behind that room, so it should be ok.

Story Award: Bond of Fellowship. Made friends with three harper agents: Amri Thistlebrick, Salros Eventide, and Tua.
Story Award: Xorvintroth Base Security. You secured the hidden base against discovery by the Red Wizards and against being breached by wandering dangers. In addition to the minimum preparations, you also removed the magic-draining statues by letting the star spawn take them.

During DRW-14, DM encouraged us to buy scrolls and potions from a list, so I did.

Traded with my own character, Anders Shadowstorm, for the rare horseshoes of speed that he found playing Waterdeep Dragon Heist, in the coachhouse of that villa they broke into. I'm hoping I can put them on Death, my moose mount.

Take the portal into the Harper safehouse in Xorvinthal only to find it very unsafe. They were gathering relics, and they got something nasty that broke their brains. We need to gather shards of some object. Some guy named Ren had a shard to start with, and Dorian handed us one. I don't know Ren or Dorian from earlier adventures. Each shard is intelligent, and offers some power in exchange for... carrying it? Module forces at least one person to make the bargain with at least one shard, just so we can find the others. Because every ability a ranger has to find someone otherwise is blocked by plot. So Kartak makes the deal. Which was actually cool - bonuses for fighting in general, but especially aberrations. We killed some of the corrupted Harpers. Kartak knows what happens once that evil gets inside you. There's no coming back from that... but it turns out there was this time, as they all got better after we won in the end, so we revived the guys we had killed. Whatever.

Random fight with a swarm that came out of the poison room in the safe house. Apparently those poison container things were eggs, and these are what hatched. Oops.

We found another sliver (after working through a big sudoku, with ability checks to find clues around the room to help), but then we ran out of time to get any more pieces. It wasn't even close. No way this is a four hour module. So we marched to the final battle with only two shards... even though we knew the shards would combine themselves into a key that opens a bad door. Why not send one shade through the portal back to Harper HQ? Well, I guess it might have melted their brains. Anyhow, off we went. The shards combined (from a longer range than expected) and some aberrations opened a very bad door. We were overmatched and disorganized. Luckily we survived long enough to take out the big nasty that came through the door, and then everything else went away. So we won. Then some portal tore open in the sky and a pulsating elder brain dragon came through? Then it closed again. Foreshadowing, I guess.

Story Awards
Bond of Fellowship: You encountered three Harper agents during your time in Xorvintroth: Amri, Salros, Tua.
Wren's Fate: Wren was captured by star spawn. At the end of the adventure, Wren was alive.
The Stars Are Right: You helped the Painter find the information hidden in the pattern, and they've disappeared into Xorvintroth to use it.

Back in the Harper safehouse in Xorvintroth. Things seem fine now. They've been scrying or something. Time for us to go look at stuff in person for them. With invisibility and pass without trace, we're pretty darned sneaky. We poke around a bit. Seems like they are manufacturing Far Realm batteries and shipping them somewhere for some reason. Factory is a big central dome building, extremely well guarded. Apparently there's no expectation that we'll go in there at this time. Ok. We find out that if an undead picks up a far realm battery, they turn into something nasty. So nasty that the Red Wizards have patrols standing by to destroy them when it happens.

We also find the slaves. A slave we had rescued in a previous adventure came back to help plan an escape. They also somehow have a very old Gith with them named Jaan'vald. Also a young dwarf who is developing his psychic abilities. They are planning a revolt in three days, so they send us forward in time three days, so we don't have to sit around waiting for it to happen. Um, ok. That seems like a pretty minor use of a pretty major power. Anyhow, they are going to do their thing. They just needed a way out, and the Harper safehouse is it. We'll help sow confusion to aid their escape. We raid a supply depot, steal some cool stuff, then blow up 150 of those batteries. Some entertaining wild magic surge stuff happens as a result. Then we go and find an ancient, well-preserved relic of an Abyrrian sky ship which all of us want to steal, and we blow it up. Because plot. I get to have fun with the mace of smiting and guardian of nature/primal beast at least.

Harpers are very pleased with us. They have some theories about what those batteries will be used for. That's probably a future mission. Something about a Supreme Forge.

Story Awards
Bond of fellowship again. Amri, Salros, Tua.

Bought 300 gp worth of diamonds, in case I need to cast revivify (or have it cast on me).

Traded +2 splint to my character Rufus for a bag of devouring.

Back into Xorvintroth. Spent a long time figuring out a clever way to avoid what was probably, in retrospect, a pretty serious death trap. Not a lot of time left to actually explore what I guess was the supreme forge. It got confusing. Apparently the Thayans can no longer make new evil batteries.

Story Award: Bond of Fellowship. All 3 survived.

Traded +3 wand of the war mage to the Trading Post at the Daddy Warbux Daddycon for a Ghost Step Tattoo.

Went to the Supreme Forge in Xorvintroth where the Red Wizards are using Far Realm portals to create these batteries. I used a potion of invisibility to get me closer to one of the portals. We shut down the portals with a special device the Harpers gave us. We also rescued the slaves and stole a lens that the Harpers wanted. We kept their safe house from being destroyed, but not in a subtle way.

Story Award: They Suspects
Story Award: Bonds of Fellowship

Bought heavy crossbow for 50 gp, two bolt cases for 2 gp, and 100 bolts for 5 gp.

Traded portable hole to my own character Gus in exchange for the cloak of the winter wolf.

Still in Xorvintroth. Thayans are here, and apparently also the Tenebrous Creed, trying to free Father Lymic? Our job is to go around killing portals. We use some sneaking and some deception. Seems like the Thayans are being devastated by aberrations. Having a large winter wolf beast companion is not helpful. Think I'll rebuild again. There is a ridiculously optimized paladin/hexblae on the team who just destroys everything. Thank goodness, or we'd be in trouble. Goodness knows I don't contribute much. We face some really big bads, and we prevail. I use that Oil of Sharpness (to little effect).

Gave Staff of Striking to my character Bramble in exchange for a Cauldron of Rebirth.

Traded my Cauldron of Rebirth via Discord to a character named Merric Surefoot, played by KmartGuy Kyle M, in exchange for Skeggox, which he got from DDAL-05-09 (Durlag's Tomb).

Note: under current AL rules, can add a free feat from a limited list. I got magic initiate, for find familiar, so I can get that owl familiar I always wanted.

Szass Tam heads to Xorvintroth. Darlon Ma seizes the opportunity to betray him. The first step is to sever Tam's connection to his phylactery. While he's off doing that, we head his way to lend our support. Along the way we encounter Szass Tam pretending to be Darlon Ma. We're totally fooled. I guess they actually swapped bodies, which is why my Locate Creature spell was fooled too? It's very confusing. Anyhow, we catch up to Darlon Ma, but he looks like Szass Tam, so we attack him, and he thinks we're helping Szass Tam, so he attacks us. At some point he tells us the truth, and then we switch targets, although we're pretty much all fine with just killing both of them. After a couple of rounds, some kind of magical contingency spells go off, and Szass Tam disappears. Not much we can do about it. So... that's it. No death of Szass Tam. I guess he is cut off from his phylactery for now, but that doesn't seem like much of a win. He certainly isn't dead. Was it even possible to kill him? I can't really tell. Depends on how the adventure was written, I guess. Certainly our team wasn't up to the task. Most of the adventure was exploration, which seemed to have no real purpose except to drain our resources. And I did indeed use a couple of potions (greater healing, and invulnerability).

The final DRW epic takes place in Wildspace and seems irrelevant to Kartak, so I'm just going to use some DTD to hit 20 and call it a day with him.

Started in Waterdeep, but I'll gloss over that. We went to Icewind Dale pretty quickly. Found the Red Wizards of Thay excavating Xorvintroth. We went around back and found one of those Nyogi tunnels, collapsed from the explosion. Used Wind Walk to breeze past the stone, up to the green glass walls of Xorvintroth. Then we smashed our way through over the course of a couple of days, with some magic and some hammering. The Red Wizards were alread in there, wandering around. We snuck around, explored a couple of buildings, and found a good place for a Harper safehouse. We had to do some work to set things up first. No combat. We did encounter some aberrations, but we talked to them and they gave us a belt of stone giant strength in return for allowing them to steal some anti-magic statues. Weird. We chose not to get rid of the poison gas egg things, because I thought that could be a useful resource, and it was easy to avoid. We did seal up the crevasse behind that room, so it should be ok.

Story Award: Bond of Fellowship. Made friends with three harper agents: Amri Thistlebrick, Salros Eventide, and Tua.
Story Award: Xorvintroth Base Security. You secured the hidden base against discovery by the Red Wizards and against being breached by wandering dangers. In addition to the minimum preparations, you also removed the magic-draining statues by letting the star spawn take them.

During DRW-14, DM encouraged us to buy scrolls and potions from a list, so I did.

Traded with my own character, Anders Shadowstorm, for the rare horseshoes of speed that he found playing Waterdeep Dragon Heist, in the coachhouse of that villa they broke into. I'm hoping I can put them on Death, my moose mount.

Take the portal into the Harper safehouse in Xorvinthal only to find it very unsafe. They were gathering relics, and they got something nasty that broke their brains. We need to gather shards of some object. Some guy named Ren had a shard to start with, and Dorian handed us one. I don't know Ren or Dorian from earlier adventures. Each shard is intelligent, and offers some power in exchange for... carrying it? Module forces at least one person to make the bargain with at least one shard, just so we can find the others. Because every ability a ranger has to find someone otherwise is blocked by plot. So Kartak makes the deal. Which was actually cool - bonuses for fighting in general, but especially aberrations. We killed some of the corrupted Harpers. Kartak knows what happens once that evil gets inside you. There's no coming back from that... but it turns out there was this time, as they all got better after we won in the end, so we revived the guys we had killed. Whatever.

Random fight with a swarm that came out of the poison room in the safe house. Apparently those poison container things were eggs, and these are what hatched. Oops.

We found another sliver (after working through a big sudoku, with ability checks to find clues around the room to help), but then we ran out of time to get any more pieces. It wasn't even close. No way this is a four hour module. So we marched to the final battle with only two shards... even though we knew the shards would combine themselves into a key that opens a bad door. Why not send one shade through the portal back to Harper HQ? Well, I guess it might have melted their brains. Anyhow, off we went. The shards combined (from a longer range than expected) and some aberrations opened a very bad door. We were overmatched and disorganized. Luckily we survived long enough to take out the big nasty that came through the door, and then everything else went away. So we won. Then some portal tore open in the sky and a pulsating elder brain dragon came through? Then it closed again. Foreshadowing, I guess.

Story Awards
Bond of Fellowship: You encountered three Harper agents during your time in Xorvintroth: Amri, Salros, Tua.
Wren's Fate: Wren was captured by star spawn. At the end of the adventure, Wren was alive.
The Stars Are Right: You helped the Painter find the information hidden in the pattern, and they've disappeared into Xorvintroth to use it.

Back in the Harper safehouse in Xorvintroth. Things seem fine now. They've been scrying or something. Time for us to go look at stuff in person for them. With invisibility and pass without trace, we're pretty darned sneaky. We poke around a bit. Seems like they are manufacturing Far Realm batteries and shipping them somewhere for some reason. Factory is a big central dome building, extremely well guarded. Apparently there's no expectation that we'll go in there at this time. Ok. We find out that if an undead picks up a far realm battery, they turn into something nasty. So nasty that the Red Wizards have patrols standing by to destroy them when it happens.

We also find the slaves. A slave we had rescued in a previous adventure came back to help plan an escape. They also somehow have a very old Gith with them named Jaan'vald. Also a young dwarf who is developing his psychic abilities. They are planning a revolt in three days, so they send us forward in time three days, so we don't have to sit around waiting for it to happen. Um, ok. That seems like a pretty minor use of a pretty major power. Anyhow, they are going to do their thing. They just needed a way out, and the Harper safehouse is it. We'll help sow confusion to aid their escape. We raid a supply depot, steal some cool stuff, then blow up 150 of those batteries. Some entertaining wild magic surge stuff happens as a result. Then we go and find an ancient, well-preserved relic of an Abyrrian sky ship which all of us want to steal, and we blow it up. Because plot. I get to have fun with the mace of smiting and guardian of nature/primal beast at least.

Harpers are very pleased with us. They have some theories about what those batteries will be used for. That's probably a future mission. Something about a Supreme Forge.

Story Awards
Bond of fellowship again. Amri, Salros, Tua.

Bought 300 gp worth of diamonds, in case I need to cast revivify (or have it cast on me).

Traded +2 splint to my character Rufus for a bag of devouring.

Back into Xorvintroth. Spent a long time figuring out a clever way to avoid what was probably, in retrospect, a pretty serious death trap. Not a lot of time left to actually explore what I guess was the supreme forge. It got confusing. Apparently the Thayans can no longer make new evil batteries.

Story Award: Bond of Fellowship. All 3 survived.

Traded +3 wand of the war mage to the Trading Post at the Daddy Warbux Daddycon for a Ghost Step Tattoo.

Went to the Supreme Forge in Xorvintroth where the Red Wizards are using Far Realm portals to create these batteries. I used a potion of invisibility to get me closer to one of the portals. We shut down the portals with a special device the Harpers gave us. We also rescued the slaves and stole a lens that the Harpers wanted. We kept their safe house from being destroyed, but not in a subtle way.

Story Award: They Suspects
Story Award: Bonds of Fellowship

Bought heavy crossbow for 50 gp, two bolt cases for 2 gp, and 100 bolts for 5 gp.

Traded portable hole to my own character Gus in exchange for the cloak of the winter wolf.

Still in Xorvintroth. Thayans are here, and apparently also the Tenebrous Creed, trying to free Father Lymic? Our job is to go around killing portals. We use some sneaking and some deception. Seems like the Thayans are being devastated by aberrations. Having a large winter wolf beast companion is not helpful. Think I'll rebuild again. There is a ridiculously optimized paladin/hexblae on the team who just destroys everything. Thank goodness, or we'd be in trouble. Goodness knows I don't contribute much. We face some really big bads, and we prevail. I use that Oil of Sharpness (to little effect).

Gave Staff of Striking to my character Bramble in exchange for a Cauldron of Rebirth.

Traded my Cauldron of Rebirth via Discord to a character named Merric Surefoot, played by KmartGuy Kyle M, in exchange for Skeggox, which he got from DDAL-05-09 (Durlag's Tomb).

Note: under current AL rules, can add a free feat from a limited list. I got magic initiate, for find familiar, so I can get that owl familiar I always wanted.

Szass Tam heads to Xorvintroth. Darlon Ma seizes the opportunity to betray him. The first step is to sever Tam's connection to his phylactery. While he's off doing that, we head his way to lend our support. Along the way we encounter Szass Tam pretending to be Darlon Ma. We're totally fooled. I guess they actually swapped bodies, which is why my Locate Creature spell was fooled too? It's very confusing. Anyhow, we catch up to Darlon Ma, but he looks like Szass Tam, so we attack him, and he thinks we're helping Szass Tam, so he attacks us. At some point he tells us the truth, and then we switch targets, although we're pretty much all fine with just killing both of them. After a couple of rounds, some kind of magical contingency spells go off, and Szass Tam disappears. Not much we can do about it. So... that's it. No death of Szass Tam. I guess he is cut off from his phylactery for now, but that doesn't seem like much of a win. He certainly isn't dead. Was it even possible to kill him? I can't really tell. Depends on how the adventure was written, I guess. Certainly our team wasn't up to the task. Most of the adventure was exploration, which seemed to have no real purpose except to drain our resources. And I did indeed use a couple of potions (greater healing, and invulnerability).

The final DRW epic takes place in Wildspace and seems irrelevant to Kartak, so I'm just going to use some DTD to hit 20 and call it a day with him.