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.

Started by killing the owlbear, and finished by killing the druid. Epic. Played with Bahama Mamas - group of 4 dragonborn missionaries for Bahamat. (Initially confused about levels. I DO gain a level after one adventure, per Season 10 rules, even at Tier 2.)

Learned about planetary invaders (Neogi), but didn't actually accomplish anything. Lt. Fruk (Grif/hippo) wants us to rescue his people, dozen of them. Gave us the pass phrase "The bigger the boom, the brighter the flash, the thicker the smoke, the better the weapon." The Neogi are currently hunting our Goliath friends, and have taken some of them. There are at least two groups of Neogi. We have a holographic recording of their plans, and some plastic crates (4'x4') with the contents of a desk.

Captured Goliaths story award.

Run by the author. Rescue mission from Easthaven to the Missing Mountain - a plateau that looks like the top half of a mountain is missing. We find an ancient temple to the forgotten god Jergal, Scribe of the Dead. I bought an axe beak so I could keep up with everyone else. Two people we came to rescue are already dead. Lots of undead here too. Sacred Moose helps us fight the undead.

Earned 90 gp because mission was only 3 hours.

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.

Story Award: Look for Jordan. Had to get rid of the goggles of night in order to take the boots of springing and striding.

Hung out with Goliath's. Story award: One Man's Junk.

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.

Wasn't supposed to be in this mission, but things got a little mixed up. Not my fault. Anyhow, I was going to run this eventually. Run into some dragonborn ghosts, then tiny little mindflayers. Nearly get killed by an animated statue. I guess we learn that some lost city of Dragonborn folks was trying to do something really dumb, and it ended badly.

As a trinket, I get the toe of a frost giant. Was that a necklace or something?

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

Old Goat sent us off to find hunters. Not clear where Kaspar is. We couldn't get our mounts down a cliff into the cave, which was annoying. Killed a nyogi, then its two pets ran off. We wander a nightmare city underground, things contantly playing tricks with our minds. We find a statue that seems to suck in magic, robbing one of our casters of a spell slot. So I smack it with a battleaxe, and a magic mace falls out. That was unexpected. Eventually we find evidence that all the goliaths and nyogi were slaughtered by some other enemy, which then comes for us. We run. Some random chance stuff, but we get lucky and make it out. The end.

We go back to the city of nightmares to plant a bomb. Nearly a team wipe with the first encounter, then some oddly easy stuff, then a big, fun fight at the end. Plant the bombs and run away. Some goliaths appear out of nowhere to join us. No idea how they survived. I think we got lucky with some wisdom saving throws. And I'm glad we got lucky, because I get the impression that with less luck we would have been pretty darn screwed, maybe fatally, or worse.

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).

Bit of a miserable slog, really. 100% non-stop combat. Not a single moment of rest. Absolutely no RP or exploration. No use of any skills except combat. The first wave nearly wiped us out, and without being allowed to rest, that was kind of it. The DM chose not to kill us all, but honestly, we never had a chance after the first bit went poorly. One wandering DM/Monster who nearly killed us all, and one player who got to visit us, which was nice although combat is slow enough that he didn't get to do much. I'm still not sure why Kaskar Spearsong transformed into something with radiant damage and tried to kill us, or why we weren't allowed to kill him in retaliation. Also, Old Goat died, sad and confused. And even more goliaths died. Technically we won (because of the other tables, nothing we did to help) and it was still kind of miserable. Especially since her death was so pointless. And then a weird final dramatic moment where some NPC got to kill the last bad guy, just so he could look cool. And no one even knew who he was. Apparently some goliath from the very beginning of the season. Whatever.

Sought assistance from chwingas.

Survived an avalanche and a snowy owl bear. Found pink hat and mittens, and letter, for Jordan. (Delivered them eventually. Not much happened.) Had to give up the Goggles of the Night later due to magic item limit.

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.

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.

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.

Started by killing the owlbear, and finished by killing the druid. Epic. Played with Bahama Mamas - group of 4 dragonborn missionaries for Bahamat. (Initially confused about levels. I DO gain a level after one adventure, per Season 10 rules, even at Tier 2.)

Learned about planetary invaders (Neogi), but didn't actually accomplish anything. Lt. Fruk (Grif/hippo) wants us to rescue his people, dozen of them. Gave us the pass phrase "The bigger the boom, the brighter the flash, the thicker the smoke, the better the weapon." The Neogi are currently hunting our Goliath friends, and have taken some of them. There are at least two groups of Neogi. We have a holographic recording of their plans, and some plastic crates (4'x4') with the contents of a desk.

Captured Goliaths story award.

Run by the author. Rescue mission from Easthaven to the Missing Mountain - a plateau that looks like the top half of a mountain is missing. We find an ancient temple to the forgotten god Jergal, Scribe of the Dead. I bought an axe beak so I could keep up with everyone else. Two people we came to rescue are already dead. Lots of undead here too. Sacred Moose helps us fight the undead.

Earned 90 gp because mission was only 3 hours.

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.

Story Award: Look for Jordan. Had to get rid of the goggles of night in order to take the boots of springing and striding.

Hung out with Goliath's. Story award: One Man's Junk.

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.

Wasn't supposed to be in this mission, but things got a little mixed up. Not my fault. Anyhow, I was going to run this eventually. Run into some dragonborn ghosts, then tiny little mindflayers. Nearly get killed by an animated statue. I guess we learn that some lost city of Dragonborn folks was trying to do something really dumb, and it ended badly.

As a trinket, I get the toe of a frost giant. Was that a necklace or something?

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

Old Goat sent us off to find hunters. Not clear where Kaspar is. We couldn't get our mounts down a cliff into the cave, which was annoying. Killed a nyogi, then its two pets ran off. We wander a nightmare city underground, things contantly playing tricks with our minds. We find a statue that seems to suck in magic, robbing one of our casters of a spell slot. So I smack it with a battleaxe, and a magic mace falls out. That was unexpected. Eventually we find evidence that all the goliaths and nyogi were slaughtered by some other enemy, which then comes for us. We run. Some random chance stuff, but we get lucky and make it out. The end.

We go back to the city of nightmares to plant a bomb. Nearly a team wipe with the first encounter, then some oddly easy stuff, then a big, fun fight at the end. Plant the bombs and run away. Some goliaths appear out of nowhere to join us. No idea how they survived. I think we got lucky with some wisdom saving throws. And I'm glad we got lucky, because I get the impression that with less luck we would have been pretty darn screwed, maybe fatally, or worse.

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).

Bit of a miserable slog, really. 100% non-stop combat. Not a single moment of rest. Absolutely no RP or exploration. No use of any skills except combat. The first wave nearly wiped us out, and without being allowed to rest, that was kind of it. The DM chose not to kill us all, but honestly, we never had a chance after the first bit went poorly. One wandering DM/Monster who nearly killed us all, and one player who got to visit us, which was nice although combat is slow enough that he didn't get to do much. I'm still not sure why Kaskar Spearsong transformed into something with radiant damage and tried to kill us, or why we weren't allowed to kill him in retaliation. Also, Old Goat died, sad and confused. And even more goliaths died. Technically we won (because of the other tables, nothing we did to help) and it was still kind of miserable. Especially since her death was so pointless. And then a weird final dramatic moment where some NPC got to kill the last bad guy, just so he could look cool. And no one even knew who he was. Apparently some goliath from the very beginning of the season. Whatever.

Sought assistance from chwingas.

Survived an avalanche and a snowy owl bear. Found pink hat and mittens, and letter, for Jordan. (Delivered them eventually. Not much happened.) Had to give up the Goggles of the Night later due to magic item limit.

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.

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.