Southaven

Balandel Arc Overview

7 min read

Premise

Queen Aelra Sylanthiel is using a magical ring, the Ring of Verdant Stillness, to preserve Vel Enweir in a state of unnatural beauty and peace. The ring draws its power from ancient druid groves devoted to Faeren, god of nature. Forged just after the first war against the Black Architect, the ring was only meant to be a temporary measure. Its prolonged use has halted natural cycles of decay and renewal for centuries.

The Problem

The Black Star Cult is corrupting one or more of the groves that sustain the ring. As the enchantment fails, centuries of suppressed decay are surfacing all at once. The forest is rotting rapidly. Fey creatures are twisting or vanishing, and unrest is spreading through the region.

Queen Sylanthiel

  • Elven queen who has ruled Balandel for over 700 years.
  • Sustained by the ring. Her life and power are bound to it.
  • Knows the ring is failing, but fears the consequences of releasing its hold.
  • Keeps the ring’s true origin and nature secret from all but a few.

The Ring of Verdant Stillness

  • Forged by druids as a temporary magical focus during a prior war with the Black Architect.
  • Bound to several leyline-connected groves dedicated to Faeren.
  • Its prolonged use violates the life-death-rebirth cycle that Faeren’s faith upholds.
  • Druids have long believed the forest was simply blessed by Faeren—none know of the ring.

The Druids (Circle of Verdant Flame)

  • Reclusive but influential protectors of the wild.
  • Revere Faeren and maintain the sacred groves.
  • Will be outraged when they learn the forest’s unnatural longevity comes from arcane manipulation.
  • Some may demand the Queen’s abdication or destruction of the ring.

The Black Star Cult

  • Corrupting minor groves to sever the ring’s connection to the forest and destabilize Balandel.
  • Goal is to provoke conflict between the druids and Queen Sylanthiel, disrupting the region.
  • Uses soul-anchored blight and corrupted nature spirits to dam ley flows and poison rivers.
  • The Circle’s ambassadors in Balandel have been killed and replaced by cultists

Party Hooks & Plotlines

Investigate the Rot

  • Party is sent to The Corruption at Vael’Telor, a glade where rot has surfaced.
  • On their way, they run into Granny Louise at Granny’s Pie Shack.
  • They discover:
    • Dryads and treants killed to block a river.
    • Corpses used to poison water flowing from a nearby grove.
    • Trail leads upstream to a pristine grove hiding a cavern under a waterfall: The Druid Grove.
      • Inside: cultists, corrupted vines, a blight crystal device. Destroying it partially restores balance. They also encounter Talan Windfern, the sole survivor hiding in the hidden room.
  • Returning to Balandel: Queen Slyanthiel is clearly disturbed. A high Insight check reveals her fiddling with her ring. She grants them freedom to explore the city and leaves abruptly.
  • Finn and Tilly present them with the first of their research back at the tavern.

Bixby’s Message

In Session 15 - Pies and Pestilence, Lirielle sent her owl familiar to carry a message to Bixby Wizzlethorpe in Southaven asking about Granny Louise and why he would give their information to him.

After ~5 days (perhaps on their way back to Balandel), her familiar will return with Bobby’s reply:

A Note, Rolled and Tied with Licorice String
(Delivered via mildly disgruntled owl)

Dearest Lirielle (or whichever of you is reading this—Momeline, Ferinthria, or… what was the paladin’s name again? Leonard?),

Right! First of all—I did NOT send your descriptions out to the Guild of the Wandering Flame. Which, yes, is real! We are mostly harmless.

That said, there is an elven pastry wizard in Balandel who does incredible things with powdered moon-thistle and dreams. If you’re still in one piece and not cursed with goose feet or suspiciously shiny teeth, I highly recommend paying her a visit. Tell her Bixby sent you. She’ll pretend not to know me, but that’s just part of the charm.

Important! Don’t give her any of the special ingredients from my wish list. I need those for my cocktail research. And we don’t want to give her a leg up before the next convention, do we?

Oh! And as it happens, I’m on my way to Balandel myself. Southaven’s goblin problem has gone from worse to worser, and I’ve been asked—formally!—to request aid from Queen Sylanthiel. I’m listed as an “elf-friend” in the official paperwork, which is delightful. I may embroider it on a vest.

I’ll be staying at the Scarlet Shield Tavern. Do drop by if you’d like to share notes, swap stories, or try an herbal liqueur that tastes faintly like nostalgia and mild regret.

Warm regards (and mildly smoldering eyebrows),
Dr. Bixby Wizzlethorpe
Amateur Diplomat, Professional Fizzyologist
Purveyor of Sparkle, Spirit, and Situational Wisdom

Learn the Ring’s Nature

  • A waiter, Garrin Dace, at the Scarlet Shield Tavern asked the party to investigate his missing friend, leading them to the Crypt of House Vaelrin.
    • Inside: cultists and documents confirming three groves have already been corrupted.
    • The party will find a letter mentioning the ring and how the cultist plan appears to be working (corrupting the groves to weaken the ring).
    • The party may also awaken a revenant, who is Melissa Vaelrin, Alith’s sister who is the only one knows that Garrin was responsible for the accident that killed the entire Vaelrin family. She will appear later one night for The Scarlet Shield Haunting.
  • The players will return to the Scarlet Tavern, and Tilly and Finn will tell them about the second fact from their research.

Follow the Queen

  • Tilly and Finn relate some info on the Queen’s odd behavior: She spends days in a locked library section and slips into the woods at night.
  • Velara suggests spying. Tilly proposes confronting her directly.
  • Following her leads to The Verdant Reliquary under the library.
    • A living network of flowers (red, purple, green) tied to the three major groves.
    • Central rooms: a life tree, and a glowing pool that feeds the grove-flowers via narrow underground waterways.
    • While talking to the Queen, one flower withers to black. She collapses—one major grove has fallen.

Optional Failure Branch:

  • If the party angers Aelra, she has them imprisoned.
  • Tilly and Finn get them out, and take them to the Verdant Reliquary, where Aelra has collapsed from magical strain.

Cleanse the Grove

  • The nearest major grove is three days away.
  • At the grove:
    • Players fight through corrupted fae and rescue surviving druids.
    • Druids, now aware of the truth, demand a meeting with the Queen.

Final Confrontation

  • Conflict between the druids and the Queen.
  • The party must choose whom to support:
    • Aelra: keep the ring intact a little longer to buy time.
    • Druids: destroy the ring and return balance, no matter the cost.
  • A third path may involve creating a new stabilizing ritual, or temporarily relocating the ring’s magic.

Side Notes

  • The Thistle’s Research

    • Vel Seryn: Located somewhere in the Dragonspire Mountains (3 possible sites).
    • First shrine: Hidden beneath the palace in Solara.
    • Crown: Forged in Khasim’s Crown, a ruined desert city near the Witchwood.
    • These facts are revealed gradually across multiple sessions.
    • Eventually, they uncover the prophecy tying the relics and the Starborn together.

  • Dessie Pindlehop

    • The halfling rescued from the cult is unknowingly cursed.
    • The cult animates corpses to appear lifelike.
    • Her trigger phrase is “the architect is calling you to serve”.
    • She can be detected by any spells that detect life or undead

  • Meanwhile in Lusteris,

  • Meanwhile in Southaven,

  • The man the party saved from Granny Louise in Session 14 - Oaths in the Wild is Calenhir Sylvenblade, owner of The Silver Bark Armory in Balandel’s Shopping District. He and his wife, who died at Granny Louise’s Shack, went to visit her upon recommendation from a hooded false druid of Circle of Verdant Flame who claimed to believe the daughter might be a dreamer, what the elves call rare gifted people who have cryptic visions of the future. The girl will tell the party the Prophecy of the Wild Spark.

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