The Divine Delta

This will be a story set in a world named Edel. The land was ravaged by a disease/curse called the Demonplague years ago. Across the land this sickness raged turning humans into fiendish monstrosities, corrupting body and soul. The lands fell into chaos until the source of the Demonplague was sealed away the at the Northern node of power. A prophecy told of the return of the Demonplague, however, and a group of adventurers who would stand against a greater evil.

The game will be in 5e format using either standard array or a 27 point buy. Roleplay and combat oriented. We are looking for a couple more members so sessions have more players. We have a pretty laid back group and like to joke around a bit, looking to have fun. Looking forward to filling the party and starting fresh.

Here is an excerpt of the story thus far...

Caught in a blizzard, members of the party took rest at the local tavern. After hearing about bands of orcs around in the tundra and odd animals showing up nearby three orcs brazenly walk into the bar and intimidating the patrons. Faith, in the good name of Bahumet, was the first to stand up to the savages as a battle ensued within the tavern which left two of the three orcs slain. The bar crowd, having mostly cowered under the tables they were sitting at were alarmed and thankful to the heroic group that stopped the orcs from continuing to pester the bar. The orc left alive was captured and questioned until the group found out the orc was but a mindless mouthpiece of Gruumsh. What they gathered was there was some sort of plot between Gruumsh and the Tiamet, but exactly what is unclear. During questioning, Baron Nikolai Klaus executed the last intruder after all information was gatherered. Baron Klaus then explained that the orcs must be trying to locate the Northern Node of Power that he was in charge of protecting.
The group was instructed to head north towards the Baron's residence after a night of rest... what lies in store, is unknown.

Leaving the bar, the party gathers some supplies and some crude maps to begin their way to Baron Nikolai Klaus' cabin to the north. The powers of Rudolph's antler led the way to the northeast through the blizzard. Fresh out on their journey, Rainass spots a few deer through the flurries and nocks her bow and lets an arrow fly. Upon inspection, the party finds a collar with a Jingle Bell on it with a name tag; the deer was named Blitzen. Figuring the only owner of the deer could be the Baron, they decide to be noble and drag the deer back. Will takes the jingle bell, finding it makes no noise. After a couple of struggles with a huskey, a polar bear, an exploding bridge, and meeting a snowy fox, the party finally reaches the cabin and knocks on the door.

The party encounters the wife of the Baron, who is a sweet, portly lady, who offers to make tea after theif struggle through the blizzard outside, Shortly after the majority of the party becomes drowsy and passes out. Those who remain awake fail to capture their elderly would-be poisoner before she slinks out back to "check on the reindeer" and disappears into the blizzard.
After recovering from sleep a swift check reveals a dead Baron at his desk, a coup de grace to the back of the neck. The group turns the cabin over searching for clues and find an empty stable aside from bodies of some of the quarterling workers under Baron Nikolai Klaus.They hear the cry of a dog outside and see the polar bear and the husky again, encircled by a pack of wolves led by a winter wolf alpha. With a bite the husky is revealed to be a red dragonborn who went by the name of Nova Kaine and the group jumps into the fray to protect the dragonborn. After quick introductions and a small briefing the party decides to give the cabin one more once-over before making a pyre out of the Baron's cabin and lay the old man to rest, but not before Rainass takes the a sprig of mistletoe and Baron's robes and Faith takes his Sack and some magical Reindeer antlers while Will just takes a Jingle bell that makes no sound from Dasher, a felled reindeer. (Nice shot Rainass)
Onward north-northwest they travel and make it to the mouth of a cavern in the side of a mountain by following the glowing snout of Faith, holding the magical antlers. The cavern reveals a small dungeon built in a short way inside. Some traps were laid and an ooze monster with animated armor in the room gave the group some trouble before making it deeper into the mountain to another cavern with a staircase. The illusion of a the figure of Mrs. Klaus stood before them, who was revealed to be a half orc named Grikk, a high ranking member of the tribe being chased. Grikk dashes away and the party rush down to try and inturupt the ritual and slay the Eye of Gruumsh, a cleric to the God of Destruction of the monsterous races. The party witnesses the end of a ritual activating the power of the node as a shadow- like creature and a yellow skinned creature come out of a portal. The shade-like creature grabs a sword embedded into the node, ending the ritual and is transformed into a more solid, armored monsterous form as it started drawing the sword.
Will takes the monstrosity one on one and takes the sword himself at the cost of his father's blade. The gem in the dark sword was broken in half, one half in the sword Will stole, the other in the hand of the monstorsity, who then fuses it with the blade of Will's father. The ritual complete, the Eye of Gruumish walks out into the portal with the tall, yellow skinned humanoid followed by the dark, bladed monstrous humanoid.
The remaining orc warriors are left to fight the party and Nova is felled in battle, dead, as was Rainass' snow-leopard Rasnra. Will jumps into the fray and quickly finds out the the sword in his hands has a dark influence over him and his actions, as it hungers for souls. He is brought down by Faith's quick action in casting a sacred flame. A tough choice is hastily made to revive Will from death rather than Nova, already taking the risk of trying to revive Will with different materials than the miracle usually calls for. mourning the loss of Nova, they as a group decide to take in Coke, his polar bear friend and attempt to keep him in their travels. A small chest is found in the cavern with some magical items, loot, and a mysterious codex written in various languages. From what could be read in the codex, the pages described many artifacts spread across the planes that had the powers to mold the multiverse itself.
The group encounters trouble yet again in the now clear-weathered tundra as a young roc swooped in to get a meal. With some luck, the fowl beast was slain. Rainass, the thick scaled, stubborn personality she is decide to try and get some of the feathers of the roc and get them into town to sell. Will and Faith decide to go on ahead and make it to the village to regroup and rest, leaving Coke.
Hours later, a elemental being attacks Rainass and the animals and she is lucky saved by some travelers who go by the names of Jay and Valley who come in just the knick of time to save her. Will and Faith make it back to the village to find the residents all slaughtered by what seemed to be a large blade. The evil presence of the other half of the magical gem can be felt by Will, left behind by the terror that wields his father's blade. Faith then tells Will he will be leaving the group, Bahamut has other things in store for him. He leaves the Baron's sack with Will and makes his way off into the tundra.

Will investigated the village a little bit, just to be sure there are no survivors, only to greeted by corrupted souls of the demonplague. For what reason are these souls spared being feasted on by this ever-hungry object he now is the owner of, and what prevents him from falling to the same fate? He does not know.

Will finding rest in the now empty tavern in which just a few nights ago was bustling with conversation, went through the items left to him by Faith in the Barons sack. He adorns a heavily patina'd ring with an ancient text engraved in the brass and tests out the hookah within the bag, setting it up on a table and lights the coals sending smoke billowing forth as a figure is conjured from within. A tall, broad man stands before him barechested under a vest with a turban adorned on his head who greets himself as Al'ladin, a Janni. Al'ladin explains he runs a service to those who are lucky enough to find some of his magical paraphernalia and his services include fast travel to anywhere in the material plan (at a cost) and also that he is a wealth of useful information as his travels have taught him a great many things and an open ear catches many secrets when in the right place at the right time. Al'ladin offers a one-time offer to free travel to new customers before saying his farewell to Will.

Rainass and the two new faces eventually make it to the village with a makeshift sled filled with all the roc feathers she could muster to drag behind her, in hopes of selling them to make some coin off the gigantic fowl's plumage. Unsure of their plans in the near future, they lay their heads in the vacant village for the night to recooperate and travel on in the morning.

The tavern rumbles in the early morning as there is a HEAVY booming eminating from outside. Upon investigation, three frost giants seem to have tracked the trail made by Rainass' sled to the village in search of whatever creature slayed their roc. Unexpectedly two large centipede-like creatures burst forth from the other side of the village, drawn by the presence of the frost giants, it seems, as the two remorhaz attack the frost giants-- ready to feast upon their prey. Caught in the middle of the fray and the unavoidable destruction of the rest of the village, Will deems it time to smoke some hookah and get the heck out of dodge with their one freebie from Al'ladin, asking the Janni to take to group to the east near a point marked on a map that was found in a chest near where the Orcs made camp in the node's shrine.

To the southeast they went, away from the arctic tundra; traveling all the way to the coast, landing atop a cliff overlooking the port town of Fort Jamal. Travelling down to the town they learn from the wife of a farmer who was standing in the embers of her farm a band of orcs had recently made their way into the town, stealing away two ships from the port after setting some fields ablaze outside the Fort's walls, including her own as a distraction to the Fort's guards and making their escape to the east by sea toward the Twin peak Island , which was the direction of the third node of power to be activated in their quest.

They went further into town and took the time to seek out shelter, information, and check out what the Fort had to offer them. Will made his way (under the watchful eye of Valley) to the local blacksmith where he met Beau Greenbottle, the halfling apprentice to the Fort's dwarven smith. Will, in exchange for free use of the forge, helped Beau in hammering out some daggers he had been struggling with; it seemed the little guy was a little out of his league when it came to smithing and needed help to make his given quota. As it turned out, Beau was actually an aspiring mage, but was not allowed into the Fort's mage guild, run by some snot nosed rich boy from Justicefast. Valley then took it upon himself to challenge the strongest mage the guild had to offer after seeing the sorry excuse for a leader in exchange for Beau's acceptance into the guild to study his craft for real. The two would battle at dawn the next day.

As the two men did their business in town, Rainass was in search of someone who could help her get Rasnra back to her. Having no luck she went to drink at a local tavern and drown her sorrows. A silver-tongued, black scaled dragonborn introduced himself as Drax Illian and the two made a quick connection after a few rounds and some flirting. Having told Drax of the party's plans to follow the orcs to Twinpeak Island, he agreed to seek audience with a notorious pirate who was laying low within the town, The Dread Queen, Scotia.

That night, as the tavern got packed for the nights festivities, the part, apart from Will, got a round and watched the nightly performance of bards, who played their hearts out in an open-stage nightshow where Drax challenged another bard onstage. He sung his heart out to Rainass in a great performance, only to be overshadowed by a cross-dressing triton. All was fine however, for Drax came back smiling and told the group he had secured a seat at the table of the Dread Queen herself.

Making their way out of the crowd and toward the back of the bar they were seated around Drax's nemesis onstage as the drag-queen presented herself as The Dread Queen. Scotia and her fabulous crew of flamboyantly dressed miscreants all drank merrily and listened to the tale of the party. Scotia agreed to captain their ship across the sea in return for a favor. She told them her ship, The Red Tide, had been acquiesced and seized by the army of Justicefast recently, so the Dread Queen was without a ship at the moment. She had sent her first-mate and lover to Justicefast to get The Red Tide back, but it seemed they were late, and this fact had her fearing the worst. In exchange for taking them on their voyage, the party had to agree to go to Justicefast for her, find out what happened to her firstmate and get her The Red Tide; they would also need a ship in the meantime to make their first voyage to Twinpeak Island.

Will walked the streets of Fort Jamal and inquired with the city guard, who all were frazzled and busy preparing for their upcoming trek to track down the orc who had attacked their town and disrespected their namesake as protectors of the fort and its people. He found that the guardsmen were all thick skulled and pigheaded in their pride, as they would not let outsiders aboard their vessels and help in hunting down the orcs. Enraged at this fact, he went to seek the captain of the guard, a man who went by the name of Grotter Ümlott who was to be found at the southernmost garrison in town. Upon meeting Ümlott, a broad-shouldered, powerful looking Dwarf adorned in gorgeous plate armor of his kin, Will found out where the guardsmen got their arrogant prideful spirit from, as the captain also denied Will and the party passage to Twinpeak. In a moment of rage, Will challenged the dwarf to a fight in hopes of appealing to the Captain in combat. The captain laughed at his challenger and accepted telling Will to meet him at The Battlegrounds, the local fighting circle the next morning two hours before the sun was at its highest and went his own way. The fuming Will then made his way back across town to reconvene with his group and to hopefully drink off this fiery anger.

When Will found the party they were still parlaying with The Dread Queen, trying to figure out a way to procure a ship for the Dread Queen and her crew to take them across the sea on. The only ships left at the docks after the two were stolen by the band of orcs were the warship currently being prepared by the guard for their hunt and a simple merchant's ship. They needed a plan to commandeer one of these vessels. Rainass paid some Scotia's crew to buy a cask of ale and poison it with something strong enough to knock out the entire crew of the guard and deliver it to the ship in the morning. They obliged, going out and getting the ale and plenty of Nymph's Kiss to do the deed. Will told the rest of his fight at The Battlegrounds to take out Captain Ümlott. Having little faith in his endeavor, Scotia laughed at the proposal, but did point out that the fight would draw guardsmen by the masses and it would be the opportune moment to Storm the ship from under the guard's noses. Now it was Will was prideful and refused to go against his word and bail on a fight he had challenged someone to. Scotia shrugged and stood adamant, they would storm the ship at the time of the fight for the best chances of getting away and on with their journey.

Rainass had her own plans, however, not wanting to leave a party member behind and persuaded a couple of Scotia's crew to sneak into Will's room that night and drug him with some of the Nymph's kiss to assure that they would have him on board the ship the next morning. In the night, they successfully drug Will and manacle him and tying him to his gigantic blade, stowing him in a cart alongside the tavern until it was time to storm the ship,

As the sun rose, Valley and Rainass made their way to the mage's guild to face his battle in Beau's name. There he was faced with Lucien of the house of Kendrith, an off putting half-drow who seemed to be a willing slave to a blade and a follower of Lolth. Lucien was the illegitimate son of a Councilman of Justicefast the and half-brother to the snot-nosed Marquart, who Valley had met the day prior. Valley had quite a bit of trouble as Lucien was a formidable foe, but with Helm of his side he decided to end the battle with a Command.

"Yield!" he shouted as his will was forced upon his opponent before he was felled by Lucien. Lucien knelt before him and placed the blade at his feet in anger, defeated. Valley, then turned to Marquart Kendrith and finalized their deal, allowing Beau access to the guild however he may want so he could study and perfect his arcane craft. Marquart told Valley that the guild was just an old summer home of his family, and he had been put in charge of keeping Lucien from doing anything crazy, as he had always been troubled and dabbling with rituals to The Spider Queen, something that could never be known to the public in Justicefast for the sake of his noble name. Valley stated so long as he kept his side of the bargain and let Beau study, he would protect this secret as Helm protected him. Their business done, Rainass and Valley headed toward the tavern, met outside the mages guild by Beau, who thanked them for their effort.

Stirring groggily awake to the passionate moans of two men, shaking the leftover drugs out of his system, Will realized he was bound, helpless and listening to the carnal passion of two of The Dread Queen's crew. However, the crewmen did not know the secret about his blade. He closed his eyes and concentrated hard over the next while, reshaping the blade with his will into a dagger, loosening his bindings. Still manacled, he rose out of the cart and caught the two mid-coitus, much to their surprise. Will then attempted to persuade the two lovers to unshackle him and go about their business. The two conceded, for it was of no object to them if Will was on the ship or not and this relieved them of their duty so they could find a proper place to do some Nymph and continue.

Will had escaped. He made his way to The Battlegrounds where the crowd was already thick, people of all sorts had come to see Ümlott crush the foolish challenger. Making his way through the crowd, mentally preparing for the fight that would soon take place, Will did not even notice until a hand laid on his shoulder and a familiar voice said "Board".

Will turned around to see the quiet member of the group, Jay, standing there clutching his holy symbol to his chest and felt compelled to make his way towards some sort of sea-bound vessel. Will walked away from The Battlegrounds toward the docks, fuming over the fact that his escape from his captors had been thwarted and he was being forced away from his fight. Thinking quick he started dashing toward the water, rummaging through his pouch on his belt for the silent bell he had taken from the Baron.

"On Dasher, on Dancer, on Prancer and Vixen
On Comet, on Cupid, on Donner and Blitzen!
To the top of the porch, to the top of the wall
Now, dash away, dash away, dash away all!"

The bell jingled and jangled to life and Will began to feel fleet of foot as he made an Expeditious Retreat from The Battlegrounds. Having had such a busy time since he donned the brass ring on his finger, he had failed to notice the change that had happened to it over this time. The once brass ring had transformed upon his finger to look like a brand new ring, it had even changed material having transmuted into a elegant mythril ring with the same engravings engraved into the metal, now looking polished and new. Reacting to the stress and his anger, the ring began glowing green as his heart began to race faster than he believed possible and his feet moved with Haste. Moving faster than ever before he found himself at the docks in a matter of seconds! His mind moves as quick as his feet as he ran past the warship toward a small fishing boat with an old man in it; he jumped on and was released from Jays spell and was free to zoom back to the Battlegrounds just as fast as he had left them. Sliding to a stop, feet hot from the friction, he turned toward his rival sporting a new beard that had not been there before clutching his blade, prepared to battle. He would see this fight through, even if it was the last thing he would do.