September 2023 event

Official Recap

We previously found our adventurers in the desert city of Shakar, a hot spot of trade and technological advances thanks to its proximity to an abundance of rare elementally charged Aether Crystals. The adventurers found themselves setting up close to the walls of Sharkar in a “tent city” filled with like-minded travelers, merchants, and mercenaries. Here they were approached by a local rift scholar who explained that typically the rifts only appear for a brief moment and while they fundamentally change the landscape where they appear such as removing features, typically creatures and structures, and taking them to unknown planes or by placing said features from an unknown plane onto our world. The scholar goes on to explain that rifts don’t stay long enough to create a continuous impact to the area and typically only work in one direction.

However, a few miles outside of the walls of Shakar, a rift had opened and continues to stay open, releasing a plague of warped goblinoids to roam the desert. As long as this rift stays open it is creating an imbalance to the Aether in the area and could potentially cause a catastrophic collapse with unknown consequences. With the threat of the unknown dangers the rift scholar theorized that by collecting enough Aetheric energy from a collection of large crystals, including elementally attuned crystals, the adventurers could force the rift closed. With a plan to split into 5 groups to obtain the necessary crystals the adventurers were off.

• Earth Attuned - found in a mine filled with rampaging earth elementals
• Fire Attuned - found in a temple dedicated to fire (one of the few sites where fire attuned crystals appear)
• Water Attuned - Under the oasis, only accessible via a maintenance tunnel that is slowly flooding
• Air Attuned - In the eye of a sandstorm in the middle of the desert
• Two Unattuned - The last and largest group headed to the Aether Strip mine to obtain however the group was split into two when the Aetheric imbalance brought the dead to life from the catacombs below.

The first group was able to go to the mine to obtain a large sample of unattuned Crystal and the second group fought their way out of the catacombs and similarly obtained an unattuned crystal that was empowering a giant skeleton.

With the crystals recovered, the adventurers set up the ritual site on a cliff overlooking the semi-stable rift with the scholar’s aid. Almost as if to defend itself, waves of the twisted goblins sprung forth from the rift to battle our adventures. After a valiant battle to defend the cliff, the adventurers were able to succeed in completing the ritual and with an overwhelmingly strong wave of aetheric energy forced the rift shut. Cheers of jubilation echoed in the desert valley at the hard fought victory, however the Scholar did not have time to celebrate…sure his plan worked this time but was it a fluke? Most knew that Shakar is primarily a crystal mining hotspot, but to find Attuned crystals of that size again would be difficult, they can take years to naturally grow. All the crystals used were destroyed in the ritual, so if another rift were to open and stabilize where would they find suitable crystals in such short notice again?