Campaign: Astrodia
DM: Tommy
Players: Jim, Kat, Emily, Kenyaita, Yemko, Roy (full table — Roy arrived partway through; Red hung around quietly until he did)
Date: September 9, 2026 (Session 11)
Where We Left Off
Session 10 ended with the entire party paralyzed in the courtyard of the WitchCrafters guild hall, turned bodily to face a little girl on a floating throne of glass — Madame Verre — after they discovered what the Golden Chalice does by drinking from it and detonated a conjured horse across her library.
She let them go almost immediately.
“I apologize. I never do anything like this, but I couldn’t let the first interesting thing that’s happened here in so long get out of here without me investigating a little bit.”
Madame Verre
The paralysis dropped and the conversation started over, civilly, in the guild’s foyer.
Introductions were brief and evasive on both sides. She has run the guild and the city since it was handed down to her from Madame Rellyona — “very efficiently, I’d say” — which is the first time anyone has said out loud that Madame Verre personally succeeded Rellyona, the Magistus who founded Pentamarone and who has been dead for years. She looks about eleven.
Genni was bewildered: she’d had no idea the chalice was this interesting, and Verre cut her off — “Genni did such a bad job of explaining how interesting this chalice was. I’d love to get a better look at it.”
Úlfr’s insight read her as genuinely curious and carrying no ill intent — hard to read, but not hostile. That was enough for the party.
Before they could move, a door on the floor above banged open and a woman in a wide hat came out — Haine — and scolded her boss in front of six armed strangers.
“Madame, what is the meaning of this? You’re supposed to be in a meeting right now.”
Verre told her to go gather all of the other master WitchCrafters instead.
Úlfr asked the only question that mattered: are we your prisoners?
“Oh, God, no, never. It was the only way to get your attention.”
“Efficient, I’d say.”
“It was very interesting, to say the least.”
The Deal
Up in her study, the team told Verra that the chalice came from someone who got it out of Caelwyrm, and that the Academy intends to repossess it.
Asked about the Seeker of the Sinful Spoils, she said she didn’t know much, and Úlfr’s second insight check backed her up — with a telling shade to it: it isn’t that she’s hiding it, it’s that the subject had never been interesting enough to her before now.
Then she made an offer.
“I’d like to propose a little bit of a trade. Given the recounting of what occurred in the library, it seems like y’all are relatively new to the powers of this chalice. What if I can help you with that — and in return, you let me use the chalice how I please.”
The terms, as negotiated:
- She does not claim ownership. “I have no intention to use something that does not belong to me.”
- She has one specific goal the chalice may help her achieve. She will not say what it is. Once it’s done, she returns the chalice.
- She and her guild will do their best to determine what the chalice actually is — origin, function, and why it matters. The party’s own participation is expected to be “imperative.”
- A week, by her calculations — “which are usually correct” — and less with help.
- No harm comes to any of them. Guaranteed.
Úlfr warned her, twice, that carrying this thing means the Academy will hunt whoever holds it.
“I am not worried about such people.”
Get It in Writing
Aren asked for the warning in writing — an acknowledgment that the party had disclosed the danger, and no liability for it. Verre liked that. “That’s fair, and it makes it quite interesting.” (Table verdict: “A cleric and a lawyer.”)
She whispered to Genni, who ran out and came back with Marka — the guild’s calligrapher and its expert in documentation of every kind — who set up at a table and began drafting the contract with a self-writing quill.
Then Úlfr, sensing an opening, asked whether the guild would put them up while they worked.
Verre laughed at him. “No.”
Marka, deadpan, asked whether she should add a clause requiring housing or the deal was off. Yes, said Úlfr. “Food and lodging.” Verre rolled her eyes. “Whatever, fine.”
The persuasion check that sealed it was a natural 20 from Leif — and it worked for a reason nobody expected. Mid-argument, Verre’s eye caught the glass orb mounted on Leif’s staff.
“Interesting. What is that?”
Leif explained it’s his spellcasting focus, that he’s “technically a warlock, although I’m coming to terms with it,” and that his owl Howl brought him the orb in the Purodetapo Forest.
Verre went very still.
“The Purodetapo Forest, you say.”
“Marka. Give them whatever they want.”
Housing and meals, at an inn of their choosing, added to the contract without further discussion. And to Leif: “We should have a chat later. I think there’s something very special about that.”
Leif looked at his owl. “You been holding back on us?”
Asha read the contract before anyone signed it — “we got burned with the fine print at the Academy” — and her investigation came back clean. Everyone signed.
A Rainbow of Women
Haine returned with the masters of the guild, and the party’s first impression was a rainbow — a room of witches, each with a different color of hair. Verre began assigning tasks from her throne without getting up.
| Team | Assignment |
|---|---|
| Edel & Schmietta | What the chalice is physically made of — the metal, the embedded jewels, and whether they date to a particular era or place in Astrodia |
| Haine & Pittore | The materials generated by the chalice — what conjured objects are constructed of, and whether they fully replicate the original |
| Seed & Ceramia | The living copies — what they’re made of, whether they’re truly alive, and what animates them if so |
| Genni & Marka | Records — any documentation, history, or account of the [[The Seeker of the Sinful Spoils |
Then she turned to the party: help any of them, propose your own line of inquiry, or go enjoy the city. “I think we could make this a very efficient process.”
Who went where:
- Úlfr asked whether any of it required brute force. Schmietta spoke up — “I could always use help in my forge.” Done.
- Leif joined Haine and Pittore, on the grounds that he’s the one who conjured the duplicate chalice.
- Drolta joined Seed and Ceramia on the living copies, after a spirited table argument that Deception was the right skill for the job (“aren’t undead things deceptive in nature?” — she settled for Investigation).
- Aren and Asha both took the books with Genni and Marka.
Before any of that, two housekeeping items got checked off. Leif, who drank from the chalice with everyone else, tried to introspect on the “you feel a little weird” the DM handed out last session. The read: she feels still.. And Ulfr cast Message at Leif just to confirm magic still works after drinking — it did.
The Cats Are Still Here
Yes. The cats are still there. They’re the test subjects.
Drinks with the WitchCrafters
Seed, Edel, Schmietta, and Marka took the party up on a celebratory drink. Ceramia declined — and this is where the party learned she is also, apparently, a small girl, but one who behaves like an actual child, unlike her boss. “I don’t think I can drink yet.”
Haine pulled Verre aside instead, in a whisper the party half-caught:
“Are you sure this is a good idea? You don’t really know these people, or this chalice.”
“I have a good feeling about this group. And this chalice. It’s the best lead we’ve got.”
The best lead she’s got — for what, still unstated.
They found a dive bar. Red offered the Alchemy Jug and was overruled: drinks were on the guild. Drolta ordered a bottle of red. Aren ordered a cheap beer. The waitress recognized the WitchCrafters immediately and asked whether this had to do with the fireworks festival at the end of the week. Marka said no — “but if it goes how we want it to go, it’ll be a beautiful unveiling.”
The Fireworks Festival
A newer tradition: every guild in Pentamarone competes to put on the most breathtaking show. The winning guild runs the city. No limits on materials, spells, or method.
The WitchCrafters have won every year since its inception. Asked whether that’s down to magic or effort: “Magic is effort, as I’m sure you know.” Asked whether they fear the competition: “No one’s ever really provided any.”
They cheerfully invited the party to enter.
Their Stories
- Marka — obsessed with penmanship as magic. Her thesis: it isn’t only what a spell says, it’s how it’s written; calligraphy itself imbues a specific kind of magic. She studied at the Grand Spellbook Tower in Marcell (name as heard — unconfirmed) and left because it didn’t suit her.
- Schmietta — from a small crafting village in the Endymion Empire, famous for its forges. Their army came. She got out, arrived here with nothing, worked up through apprenticeships, and now makes very good weapons.
- Edel — “I always just liked pretty things.” Gems, magic stones. Comfortable background, good teachers, studied what she wanted, got very good at it, and Verre found her.
- Seed — the only WitchCrafter who studies living things: botany, horticulture. She came from a line of druids, in a forest up north, and left after “some bad things happened in the forest” she would not describe. She didn’t think a guild of crafters would have a place for someone who works with living things. Verre carved one out for her. She keeps the garden.
Ulfr’s assessment of Seed, gesturing at Leif: “This big green guy here likes plants too.”
What They Said About Madame Verre
The party asked the obvious question, and got a shrug that was itself informative.
“We kind of just don’t question it at this point. She’s been a child for a very long time.”
“She doesn’t have the mind of a child. She has the smugness of one.”
“Wise beyond her years, let’s say.”
They confirmed she is easily bored — meetings, mostly, day after day — and intensely drawn to anything interesting. None of them had ever seen her paralyze anyone before; the party’s reception was, by guild standards, extraordinary. And on whether she’d abandon the party once bored: she might drift off and get distracted, but she keeps her word.
Asha tried, later and separately, to get the anti-aging secret out of her directly. The persuasion failed.
“You know, I like to be a girl’s girl. But it’s too good. I gotta keep it a secret.”
What They Said About Genni
Asha asked why the guild’s librarian carries the Endymion Empire’s symbol on her staff (and on the safe under her desk — Session 10).
They all looked at each other.
“Genni doesn’t really like to talk about her past. We think she came from somewhere pretty close to the Citadel. She has no family here, to our knowledge. She came here all on her own.”
Is she a spy? They were entirely comfortable: no. She’s been nothing but good to them. She’s just anxious and timid and slow to open up.
What They Said About the White Forest
They know the curse — it threatened Pentamarone before it receded — and they know a coven lived in the forest, but none of them ever spoke to it and none know what became of it. Then one of them offered a detail that reframes a Session 10 rumor:
“I think I’ve heard there was a witch in a town near the forest who sometimes worked with Rellyona, if I remember correctly.”
That witch is Morgana. Last session, a Freedale refugee remembered Morgana working with Madame Verre. Tonight the guild remembers her working with Rellyona, Verre’s predecessor. An insight check at the table said they’re telling the truth as they know it. Either the two accounts are of different collaborations — or the distinction between Verre and Rellyona is thinner than it looks.
What They Said About Empire Law
Practical and unwelcome, if the party leaves town in the wrong direction:
- Outside Pentamarone’s jurisdiction, Empire law applies. Any unregistered magic is illegal.
- Legal casting requires their power stones — the Keystones the party already knows about.
- Registration or approval is possible; you’re then issued a supply of stones.
- Whether a warlock can cast anything at all through a patron under that regime — “I don’t really know.” Even registered.
Otherwise: a lovely town, nice people, shops, restaurants, temples, and nature outside the walls. Nothing to worry about.
Aren asked whether there was a temple to Pluto in the city. There is not. Most of Pentamarone worships Venus, and there is a temple to her.
The Montage
The next stretch of the session ran as a montage: each day, every PC contributed a skill check to their team’s line of research, and successes shaved time off Verre’s seven-day estimate.
Day one was a rout in the party’s favor — Leif’s natural 20 Perception comparing the two chalices, Úlfr’s Athletics with advantage at the forge, Aren’s Insight sorting useful sources from noise in the archives, Drolta’s Investigation on the living copies, and Asha’s History, boosted by a Portent die. (Asha’s portent rolls: a 20 and a 5. The 20 replaced a natural 1; the 5 stayed in her pocket.)
Two and a half days of work in one day. Seven days became four and a half.
Day two knocked off another half-day on top of a normal day’s progress. Down to three days of work remaining.
Verre was delighted, and unusually forthcoming about why:
“Everyone thinks they rely too much on divination. As soon as your Identify spell doesn’t work, everyone just assumes it’s impossible. But this is grassroots magic. We’re really getting to the core, to the essence of things, without having to rely on a pre-existing spell.”
She is treating the chalice not as a puzzle to be solved by a spell, but as a thing to be taken apart and studied. Nobody at this table has seen anyone do that before.
(No findings were released. Tommy is holding the results for a single report at the end of the process.)
Word from the Satyrs
Day one: both Simone and Tobin failed. Nothing.
Day two: Tobin rolled a 99. His answer, at last, on the “repo man” the Academy is sending:
“Don’t know exactly what repo man is. Some kind of experiment academy is working on. Oracle may be involved.”
The Hall of Oracles. The Academy’s Oracle — supposedly the most powerful being at the school, sitting in the Biblioplex on a Snarl of raw magic that powers the university. The party’s read: the repo man may not be a man. The theory floated at the table was the Academy’s cogwork constructs.
“I think we need to put him on a different task, because if that’s what you get with a 99…”
New task to Tobin: send everything you can about the Oracle.
Simone remains on the star tablet — who donated it to the Biblioplex.
The party also discussed and deliberately declined to tell Myrna and Archibald where they are. If anyone comes hunting and the S.A.T.O. can’t hold out, the party’s location goes with them. “So I think we should wait.”
Loose Ends Tied Off
Úlfr collected the bear cloak from the tailor at last — the hide he’s been carrying since the library, with the bear’s head left intact to rest on his shoulder. It grants advantage on Intimidation checks.
The Private Conversation
Late on the second working day, Verre sent for Leif alone and had everyone else cleared out of her office.
What came back out was a confused orc.
“She just asked whether we had told her everything — and when I said ‘everything about what?’, she said ‘everything ever.’ Madame Verre is confusing.”
“She asked me a lot of questions and didn’t give me any answers.”
What Leif got out of it: Verre is going to look into The Whispering One, his patron. He asked; she agreed; she asked for nothing in return.
What Leif gave up for it: his staff, with the glass orb on it, left in her keeping for study.
Aren’s reaction was immediate and correct. “Be wary of what she might request of you.” And then: do you have your weapon right now?
He did not.
“In the future, young one, you should be clear when your weapon is no longer with you.”
Aren dragged Leif out and bought him a dagger. Leif — who has never had this many words directed at him by Aren in the entire campaign — went along in a state of shock, protesting that he still had his magic stones.
“You’re just holding some rocks.”
“It’s a Druidic cantrip!”
“The boy is delusional, that’s all I’ll say.”
Remember the dagger.
And Then Úlfr Told Verre About the Fourth Magic
Separately, Úlfr went to ask Verre about the basis of the magic the WitchCrafters use — arcane, divine, or something else — having spent time at the Academy with people researching exactly that question.
“You know, I just had this conversation with Leif.”
Leif had already told her about the green magic.
Verre’s own answer was smooth and empty: no higher-being magic, great honor paid to the Solemn Pantheon but not divine practice, “we just happen to use the natural magic that flows around us. Whether that be arcane, whatever it may be.” Úlfr’s insight: she knows he’s holding something back, and she is meeting him exactly where he stands and no further. Not lying. Not forthcoming.
The party’s reaction to Leif afterward ranged from concern to open accusations of being an imposter, up to and including Red holding out his staff to see whether Leif would react to it. Leif’s defense:
“I just felt this desire to be honest with her, since she’s been so accommodating.”
“Was that your desire — or was that a…?”
(Nobody has yet checked whether it was.)
The Fourth Magic is known to roughly a dozen people in the world. Madame Verre is now one of them.
Howl Runs
Morning of the third working day. The party is walking to the guild hall together when Howl, perched on Leif’s shoulder, snaps her head around, starts screaming, and takes off down a back alley.
The party split:
- Chasing the owl: Leif, Red, Úlfr, Drolta (and Bama, Red’s familar)
- Staying with the chalice: Aren and Asha — on the theory that a bird bolting is exactly what a diversion looks like
What they found in the alley was a man cornered by an adventuring party — a captain with a pistol, a mage, a swashbuckler, and a druid.
Howl flew straight to him. Leif’s animal handling read her reaction not as fear but as rage. She is furious at this man.
The confrontation already in progress:
“You think you can escape us after what you did?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I did what I came to do. I helped to the best of my abilities, and then left.”
“You left us to die. We only made it out of there because the thing that you summoned got bored of us — after it killed two of our friends.”
Their account: he agreed to help them explore a set of ruins. At the end of the dungeon he took the loot they were after, they were ambushed by whatever haunted the temple, he summoned something to fight it off, and then he left. The summon killed the haunts, then turned on them.
His apology was sincere and entirely useless. “I’m still getting used to working with magic in this way. I can’t control everything that I summon.”
Then the captain gave the party his name.
“This motherfucker is Aleister the Invoker.”
Aleister the Invoker
Úlfr rolled a natural 20 on History, and this is a name his people tell stories about.
Aleister the Invoker is known across the world — half legend, half folk tale — as a man who can summon beings from outside Astrodia: things that cannot be explained and are found nowhere in nature. His reputation is genuinely split. Some tell it as the story of a hero. Some don’t.
“His reputation precedes him. This is a well-known man. I’m not sure if he’s good or bad — I guess it depends on the circumstance.”
And then he looked at Howl properly, and Howl shrank — feathers hunched, glancing at the ground, making herself small.
“Oh. I do know what this is, then.”
“What is it?”
”…What’s your name?”
“Leif Kalanchoe. This is Howl. I found her back home in the Purodetapo Forest — she had an injured wing.”
“How interesting. The Purodetapo Forest, you say. I’ll have to make a visit there.”
That was the wrong thing to say to Leif. He demanded answers first; Aleister declined and started walking.
Leif threw his hand forward to cast Eldritch Blast —
— and nothing happened, because his arcane focus is sitting in Madame Verre’s study.
The Fight
Roll initiative.
Leif went last. “Tommy, did you plan this as soon as I gave up my spellcasting focus?”
“This was always going to happen at some point. But you giving up your focus — I was like, it’s gotta be now.”
Úlfr grappled Aleister on the opening turn. Aleister, unbothered, teleported out of the grapple onto a second-story rooftop.
“I’m not very good at making friends, it seems. But I guess there’s always more time for improvement.”
Then he summoned.
Cocytus
A vast thing of ice and running water, blue light moving through its body like blood. Nobody in the alley — including the adventurers hunting Aleister — had ever seen it before. “I’ve never seen this. What the fuck?”
The critical discovery came within the first round, and it came from the enemy: the bandit mage’s Ray of Frost landed, and part of Cocytus’s body froze solid. Cold damage halves its movement. For the rest of the fight, every frost effect on the board was a tempo win — and Leif’s Ice Knife became the party’s best weapon precisely because it wasn’t a warlock spell.
What the party did:
- Red cast Moonbeam on Aleister (8 radiant) and then wild shaped into a brown bear — large enough to ignore the beast’s prone rider.
- Drolta used her spider climb to scale the wall for line of sight and landed a Guiding Bolt on Aleister through three-quarters cover.
- Bama was dispatched to fetch Aren and Asha — and Leif’s staff.
- Úlfr raged, threw hand axes, and hit Cocytus with Dissonant Whispers — it failed the save, took 3d6 psychic, and was forced to flee across the alley.
- Leif fought the entire encounter on druid spells only (a ruling from Tommy: his druidic magic predates the pact and is untouched by the missing focus), plus thrown daggers, plus magic stones. Ice Knife did the heavy lifting. One of them also clipped Red for 5.
Aleister never engaged. He watched from the roof, cast Fly on himself, and left.
“I just seem to make a mess of everything I do. I guess I’m still not ready.”
He escaped clean. Nobody could reach him. The party’s only remaining problem was the thing he left behind.
Drolta Goes Down
Cocytus dropped down onto the lower roof and hit Drolta and Red with two slams. Drolta took 28 and went down — the first death save of the campaign.
She failed the first one.
Úlfr burned his last spell slot on Healing Word (8 hp) and brought her back up. She spent her next turn getting to her feet and going right back after it: “it fucked me up, boy.”
Cocytus then engulfed Red — 20+ damage, knocked out of bear form, restrained and suffocating inside the elemental’s body. He broke free on a Strength check, described as a brown bear reading a river the way it reads a salmon run, and immediately wild shaped into a lion.
The Kill
The party ground it down between them — axes, claws, rapiers, rocks, ice — and the finishing blow went to the swashbuckler, who ran up the back of Red’s lion form, launched off it, and buried her rapier in the beast’s eye.
Cocytus fell.
End of session.
Loot & Acquisitions
| Item | Notes |
|---|---|
| Bear-skin cloak | Úlfr — collected at last, 2 gp 5 sp paid in Session 10. Bear’s head intact on the shoulder. Advantage on Intimidation checks |
| A dagger | Bought for Leif by Aren, over his objections. The only weapon he had in the fight |
| Free food and lodging | Written into the guild contract at Úlfr’s insistence — an inn of the party’s choosing, at guild expense, for the duration |
| A signed contract with the WitchCrafters | Drafted by Marka, read by Asha, signed by everyone. Guild does its best to identify the Golden Chalice; Verre gets its use for one undisclosed goal; no harm to the party; party warned her of the risk in writing |
| Three days of research progress | Verre’s seven-day estimate is down to three days of work remaining |
| Leif’s staff and glass orb | Lost, temporarily. In Madame Verre’s study for study. Leif has no arcane focus until it comes back |
Open Threads
- What does Madame Verre want the chalice for? One goal. Undisclosed. “The best lead we’ve got” — she told Haine that in a whisper the party overheard, and nobody knows what it’s a lead toward.
- Leif’s glass orb. Verre took one look and instantly reversed her position on housing the party. She says there’s “something very special” about it. She is looking into The Whispering One for him, for free, having asked nothing in return — which everyone except Leif finds alarming.
- Aleister the Invoker knows what Howl is — recognized it on sight, would not say, and is now going to the Purodetapo Forest, which is Leif’s home and where his family lives. He escaped.
- Howl hates him. Not fear — rage. And then, when he looked at her, total submission. (Howl is also the vector The Whispering One used in Leif’s Session 8 dream.)
- Madame Verre knows about The Fourth Magic. Leif told her. Her answer about the guild’s own magic was deliberately, expertly noncommittal — and the green anomaly over Pentamarone is still uninvestigated.
- Verre succeeded Rellyona directly and has looked like a child the whole time anyone can remember. The party is openly speculating about the mechanism. Aren intended to use her undead-detection amulet on her and hasn’t yet.
- Morgana worked with Rellyona — per the WitchCrafters, truthfully as far as Aren’s insight can tell. The Freedale glassblower said Morgana worked with Verre. Both can’t be casually true unless the two are more connected than they appear.
- The repo man may be the Academy’s Oracle — “some kind of experiment… or code… Oracle?” on a 99. Tobin is now digging into the Hall of Oracles full-time. Simone is still failing the star-tablet question.
- The fireworks festival is at the end of the week. The winning guild runs the city; the WitchCrafters have never lost; Marka hinted the chalice work may produce “a beautiful unveiling.” The party has been invited to compete.
- Three days of chalice research remain, and Tommy is holding all findings for a single report at the end.
- “You feel a little weird.” Still unexplained, still being tracked. Drolta’s introspection returned one word: still.
- Genni came from near the Citadel, alone, and won’t discuss it. Her colleagues vouch for her without hesitation. The Empire-marked safe under her desk is still there.
- Empire law and warlocks. Outside Pentamarone, unregistered magic is illegal and requires Keystones. Nobody knows whether a warlock can use patron magic at all under that system. This is a hard problem for Leif and Drolta the moment the party leaves town.
- The adventurers Aleister burned are still standing in that alley, and the party fought alongside them. Names, grievance, and the ruins he looted are all unexplored.
- Aren and Asha were at the guild hall for the entire fight — Tommy has promised them their own scene to open next session.
- Asha has read the history of the Endymion Empire and, on the third night, the Biography of Rellyona. Both delivered privately. Neither has been shared with the table yet.
(Carrying forward: the repossession clock, the four Sinful Spoils and the one the Seeker may already hold, Asha’s mother in the White Forest, the Nephthys temple Drolta still hasn’t reached, Red’s ruined-city dream, The Orb and its prisoner, and the Endymion Empire army that split east and west north of town.)
Next Session
The alley is quiet. Cocytus is dead, Aleister is gone, and Howl is still shaking.
Next session opens at the guild hall with Aren and Asha, then resolves the aftermath in the alley — and, with three days of work left on the clock, is likely to end with the WitchCrafters’ report on the Golden Chalice.
Leif would also like his staff back.
Next session: Wednesday, September 23, 2026.