Call of the Netherdeep: The Campaign So Far

Chapter 1: A Fateful Competition

The adventure began in Jigow, a coastal town in the wilds of Xhorhas, during the annual Festival of Merit. The characters—Varis, Babble, Corawin, and Adol—threw themselves into the celebrations, competing in everything from pie-eating contests to swimming races, riddles, and arm-wrestling matches. They earned medals, made allies, and caught the attention of a rival adventuring party led by the determined water genasi Ayo Jabe.

The festival culminated in a race through the submerged Emerald Grotto, where both groups competed to claim the legendary “Emerald Eye.” But what they found instead was something far more significant: the Jewel of Three Prayers, a Vestige of Divergence lost to history.

When one of the characters touched the jewel, they all experienced a vision. A desperate plea from a forgotten hero named Alyxian, trapped in darkness and begging for rescue. The vision showed glimpses of a sunken city and a realm of despair, setting the party on a path they couldn’t ignore.

The rivals, too, witnessed something. Though they heard only fragments of the plea. A rivalry quickly became a friendship.

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Chapter 2: The Leave-Taking

The next morning, Elder Ushru of Jigow approached the party. He had received a vision of his own, one that confirmed the jewel was no ordinary trinket. It was a Vestige of Divergence, a relic from the Calamity, and its awakening pointed toward one place: Bazzoxan, a grim military outpost guarding the ancient fortress known as the Betrayers’ Rise.

The journey across the Xhorhasian wastes was anything but peaceful. The party faced:

• A Gloomstalker attack on the road
• A crashed wagon haunted by will-o’-wisps
• A moorbounder chase involving a tiefling named Justice and his loyal steed Rice Pudding
• A roadside bandit attack led by the infamous Six-Knives
• A whispering entity at the bottom of a well, claiming to need “Little Chespa”

They arrived at the Emerald Loop Caravan Stop and discovered that Little Chespa was the daughter of the goblin family running the Loop! The party took it upon themselves and dispatched Chespa’s evil friend “Mr Froggy”…

Then finally they rested, traded stories, and shared meals around a bonfire with the Kruzkrenner goblin family and the Acorn Sisters, two dryads who tend the forest.

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Chapter 3: Bazzoxan

Arrival in Bazzoxan was immediate chaos. The town was under attack by gibbering mouthers that had slipped through the defences of the Betrayers’ Rise. The party fought alongside Taskhand Verin Thelyss, the drow commander of the Aurora Watch, earning his respect and trust.

In the days that followed, the party explored the grim, battle-scarred town:

The Red Rock Trail & Myriad Warehouse

Before entering the Betrayers’ Rise, the party was hired by Aloysia Telfan to retrieve a stolen shipment of strange red rocks from a Myriad warehouse on the edge of town. The rocks pulsed with an unsettling energy, and touching them left a faint red rash on the skin.

The warehouse raid went sideways in a way no one expected. Varis, usually calm and calculated, acted entirely out of character. He deliberately ignited coal dust and oil with a firebolt, causing a massive explosion that levelled the warehouse. The party barely escaped with their lives, and the blast drew the attention of the Aurora Watch.

When Varis returned to Aloysia to collect payment, he seemed… normal. He had no memory of the explosion. The party realised something was deeply wrong and that maybe someone had tampered with his memory.

The Ruins of Sorrow

Exploring the ruins beyond Bazzoxan, the party discovered the remnants of an ancient battlefield. Among the sorrowsworn and lingering spirits, they found fragments of the Calamity’s history. Echoes of the war that had scarred the land. The ruins held clues about Alyxian’s past and the nature of his imprisonment.

• They helped the Allerton brothers dispose of corpses at the crematorium, where they met the tiefling archaeologist Prolix Yusaf of the Allegiance of Allsight.
• They spoke with Question, a tiefling scholar of the Cobalt Soul, who shared her theories about “mythic resonance” and the cyclical nature of history.

They also encountered the firbolg Foghome, who tended a garden in a dilapidated temple. Through meditation, the party received another vision of Alyxian, this time in the temple garden, praying to Avandra the Change Bringer for strength.

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The Betrayers’ Rise

With the permission of Taskhand Verin, the party entered the Betrayers’ Rise, an ancient fortress-temple of the Betrayer Gods. Its halls shifted and warped, its chambers filled with demonic threats and lingering echoes of the Calamity.

They navigated:

• The Hall of Holes, where gibbering mouthers rose from the walls
• The Flagellant’s Path, a corridor of bladed traps that demanded blood to proceed
• The Basilica of Revelry, where they solved a puzzle of stained-glass symbols and danced with flames
• The Threshold of the Excoriated, where a wailing statue cursed them with the hunger of Torog
• The Blood Font of the Ruiner, where corrupted orcs guarded a pool of boiling blood
• The Misty Chasm, where a planar rift opened to the Abyss

Bodhi’s Ambush

Deep within the Rise, the party encountered Bodhi Irenicus—the vampire sister of Jon Irenicus, the archmage they had glimpsed in the Hythenos Estate. She was waiting for them.

Bodhi wasted no time. She toyed with them, her words cutting deeper than any blade. She targeted Corawin specifically, mocking her faith and her uncertain divine connection. Corawin, already frayed from everything she had endured, took the bait… And combat erupted.

Bodhi moved with terrifying speed. She grappled Corawin from behind, sinking her fangs into her neck and drinking deeply. Corawin yelled, blood pouring from the wound, and the party attempted to reason with Bodhi, she calmed and retreated out of there laughing, promising they would meet again.

But the encounter left its mark. Corawin now carries the memory of those fangs in her neck, and the party knows that Jon and Bodhi Irenicus are more than just mysterious mages.

The Prayer Site of Avandra

Pressing deeper, the party found the Prayer Site of Avandra a crater of glowing crystals where Alyxian had once begged the Change Bringer for aid. When the jewel was placed on the altar, the party received a third vision: Alyxian, trapped in a sunken city, pleading for them to find him.

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The next step: travel to the desert metropolis of Ank’Harel on the continent of Marquet, where secrets lie beneath the streets, and where the path to the Netherdeep may finally be revealed.

The story continues in Ank’Harel, the Jewel of Hope.

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If this sounds like the kind of table you’re looking for, I’ve got a couple of campaigns currently running or opening. Come pull up a chair. Or if you just want to talk shop, GM to GM, say hello.