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 set 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 while the rifts only appear for a brief moment, they fundamentally change the landscape where they appear. He cited an example where rifts have been known to remove features (such as creatures and structures) and taking them to unknown planes or occasionally exchanging 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, thus rendering them unable to be used as portals. 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. The Rift Scholar surmises that as long as this rift stays open, it will create an imbalance to the Aether and could potentially cause a catastrophic collapse with unknown consequences. With the threat of the unknown dangers looming over him, 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 five groups to obtain the necessary crystals, the adventurers were off. The results were as follows:

• Earth Attuned - One group found this crystal in a mine filled with rampaging earth elementals.
• Fire Attuned - Second group found this crystal 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, the third group found this one.
• Air Attuned - Traversing to the eye of a sandstorm in the middle of the desert, the fourth group managed to attain this crystal.
• Two Unattuned - The last and largest group headed to the Aether strip mine to obtain two unattuned crystals, 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 crystals while 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 in hand, and under the supervision of the Rift Scholar, the adventurers set up the ritual site on a cliff overlooking the semi-stable rift. 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 Rift Scholar did not have time to celebrate... sure, his plan worked this time but was it a fluke? Could they repeat the ritual if need be? Most knew of Shakar as a crystal mining hotspot, but to find attuned crystals of that size again would be difficult as they 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?