Sandbox Campaign Part 12: "We're Getting the Band Back Together!"

It's been a while since we last saw The Graverobbers, the famous adventuring party in my sandbox campaign.  You may want to refresh your memory.  As it has been over a year since the last session of this campaign, I thought it fitting to rejoin the party members a little over a year after Sigrid and Hardrig's wedding.  

Kat awoke, as she so often did, to the noonday sun right in her face.  She grumbled death threats to whatever hotel architect put a skylight right above the penthouse bed.  She looked over and saw a man sleeping in the bed next to her.  She didn't remember his name.  All in all, a normal start to the day for one of the most popular bards in Karcerinburg, capital city of the Kaldish Empire.  As she rubbed the sleep from her eyes, she spotted a note that had been slipped under her door.  She ran over to read it.

It said, in a practiced, lunate hand:

The note:

Kat - 

You are in grave danger! Gather the others, meet me tonight at the center of the hedge maze, before the Moon Maiden reaches her height.

-C

Kat was elated.  The note must be from Chernyx, the undead rogue/cleric of the Moon Maiden who had befriended the party, and whom Kat had killed and raised from the dead.  She ran to the bed to kick the mystery man out of her room, but as she did so she saw a shadow fall across the bed.  Seconds later, the leaded glass panes shatterd and a black-garbed figure leapt nimbly down onto the bed, brandishing two shortswords menacingly.

Sandbox Campaign Part 8: "This One Time at Bandit Camp..."

This is part 8 of my ongoing account of the sandbox campaign I am currently running.  Updates are frequent, if irregular, and at the end of each post I talk about one or more subjects pertaining to the adventure but more broadly applicable to all campaigns.  You can find the previous parts here.

Leaving Zel and Rikkit to rest in the bloodstained ogre cave, the rest of the party headed back to explore the underground dwarven trade road.  After following it for two days, they reached its end: a door disguised as the face of a cliff.  It opened into a trackless forest north of the Frostspines, a favourite haunt of bandits and savage tribesmen.  Chernyx returned to report their findings to Zel and Rikkit while Monty, Sigrid, Daphne, and Kat sought out Castle Drenn, Castle Morbis' sister castle, now long occupied by the barbarians.  They were soon ambushed by a sizable group of bandits and, after struggling against the bandits' nets for a few rounds, agreed to throw down their weapons and come with them.