Drake's Company

Drake's Company was a group of adventurers who were active in Orodeth. Their leader and namesake was the paladin Drake Roxley.

Membership

• Bran - Male aarakocra ranger. Tortured and killed by the Cult of the Howling Hatred.
• Drake Roxley - Male human paladin of Nalindra. Lost in the lair of an aboleth.
• Gnarls Blackwood - Male half-elven bard. Slain by an extremely powerful elemental in the Plane of Water.
• Láfièlthién - Female elven cleric of Del'Braeth. Torn apart by a hydra.
• Qwynn Cupsigh - Female halfling bard. Retired to Brightstone.
• Ru Bae Ya - Female human wizard. Lost in the lair of an aboleth.
• Sumac Briarden - Male half-orc druid. Lost in the lair of an aboleth.
• Waedin - Male aarakocra monk. Slain by undead while battling a necromancer.

History

The Hunt Begins

Drake's Company originally came together in 2964 when bounty hunters Drake Roxley and Bran sought allies in Drakkengarde to hunt down a dangerous tiefling wizard named Bastian Thermandar, who was wanted for murdering high-ranking members of the Mercantile Alliance. Bran recruited his old friend Waedin before they set about recruiting for additional help, ultimately hiring Qwynn Cupsigh, Láfièlthién (Lafiel for short), and Ru Bae Ya to join their hunt. Following what scant information they had of his whereabouts, they sailed up the Belsimar Strait to Yalnos and from there traveled to Red Oak Village.

Though they found no direct evidence of Thermandar's presence, the villagers spoke of strange happenings and odd weather of late. The party began searching the nearby hills, eventually finding a small tunnel into a hillside that ended at an iron door. A ghost appeared and warned them to depart its master's tomb, and so they returned to Red Oak. However, that night Lafiel and Waedin snuck back in, defeated the ghost, and opened the door. Beyond was simply a small room with a stone coffin, and the remains of an ancient diary identifying the occupant as Lord Aldus Byron. When they opened the coffin, the sword that had been interred with Byron animated and flew at them, but Waedin simply caught it out of the air; he then shoved it back into the coffin while Lafiel hurriedly pushed the lid closed once more.

The next day a villager told them of a growing evil at nearby Lance Rock. Rather than finding Bastian Thermandar there, however, they encountered a mad necromancer calling himself the Lord of Lance Rock and babbling about "The Eye" that watched everything. Though they dispatched him and his zombies, Waedin was killed in the battle. Bran, mourning the passing of his friend, flew off to the distant Tornoth Peaks to bury him close to the sky. While the others waited in Red Oak they became acquainted with a traveling bard named Gnarls Blackwood. By the time Bran returned, they had recruited him to join them in their hunt.

Having heard rumors of strange masked figures sneaking about at night, they investigated and found a hidden tunnel that led to an old dwarven complex beneath the village. After narrowly avoiding a trap and being attacked by a half-orc, they found a young boy with several heavy stones carefully piled on top of him to hold him in place without breaking any bones. He explained that he was being punished by his father, a member of a group known as "the Believers," for failing to deliver a message. He further explained that the Believers were a secret group of the most important people in town. Incensed at the boy's treatment, Drake led them deeper into the complex where they found a chamber filled with old bones and even a few fresh corpses with a triangular symbol carved into their foreheads. Proceeding deeper in they found a petrified dwarf around whom a number of offerings had been left. Among them was a magic dagger decorated in star motifs; Lafiel took it for herself, leaving behind what she judged suitable recompense in its place.

Eventually they arrived at a door with an old man seated in front. When confronted he begged for mercy, explaining that he the "great stones" behind the door would move from time to time and that for generations the Believers had divined portents from their movements and used them to guide the village. The group's interest was piqued when he mentioned the recent arrival of an "earth priest" who helped them understand more about the stones. Within the chamber they found several large stone monoliths throughout the room, guarded by a man wearing stone armor and robes made from fired clay tiles. The man attacked them along with several guards whose armor was imprinted with the same symbol as the corpses' foreheads. During their fight, they discovered that the floor was enchanted to cause the monoliths to levitate slightly. After killing them, they found some metal bars stamped with the symbol of Korthaz that could only have been stolen. When they returned to the village, they revealed the existence of the Believers and the names that the boy and the old man had given them. Several prominent villagers were arrested for the murders the Believers had committed over the years.

The next day, they showed the bars to the smith and he mentioned that a caravan that

• Follow strange masked figures, find hidden underground earth cultist and followers
• Hear about missing caravan, nearby graves
• Exhume graves, find bodies of caravan guards, earth cultist, feathered guy
• Track feathered guy to Feathergale Spire
• Feathergale Knights turn out to be air cultists, try to kill party, saved by aarakocra
• Chase air cultists into temple, meet bard
• Bran shoots bard, flee from cultists, Lafiel hides and works recon
• Back to town, Lafiel is not dead!
• Bran leaves to find allies to fight air cult
• Party prepares to head to Sacred Stone Monastery, but gets lead on Thermander
• Head to Scarlet Moon Hall; druids performing rite of the wicker giant to fix nature
• Druids turn out to be fire cultists
• Fight cultists alongside real druids, ornery werewolves
• Cultists chase heroes away
• Off to monastery
• Kill earth cultists, blame fire cultists
• Meet friendly lich Rennard Carras
• Kill earth abbess, blame fire cultists
• Hell hounds show up and help sell the deception
• Minotaur smashes through the wall
• Floor collapsed onto orcs
• Rescue prisoners, find minotaur on its way out of the kitchen
• Lead prisoners to Westford
• En route, orcs
• Spend a week in Drakkengarde, hire samurai, Ru Bae Ya throws a party
• Rivergarde Keep, Drake fails to fake killing someone
• Lafiel rejoins the group, Drake gets grumpy
• Drop off prisoner in Drakkengarde, hear about fire sorcerer terrorizing Nettlebee Ranch
• Wake up ancient barbarian revenant, turns out Nettlebees faked the fire sorcerer and defiled his tomb to lure heroes in and kill them under orders form earth cult
• Guilty parties are questioned, Ya tells the barbarian to kill them
• Red Oak Village attacked by fire cult; druid dies, party almost dies, Ya refuses to let them sacrifice Drake
• Fire tower burned down, descend into caves for days
• Find fire temple
• Drake turns into Boar Drake (Lafiel says he's always been a bore...)
• Stupid ogres
• Viva la Salamander revolución!
• Bastian captured and brought to Drakkengarde
• Bastian give life imprisonment in exchange for information; Drake gets mad
• Drake drops Bahamut for Nalindra
• Spending the new year celebration in a dwarven shrine to Berronarr Truesilver
• Shrine occupied by treasure hunters led by an ogre mage, Lafiel channels Truesilver's power to divinely smite them to death
• Loose the ghouls, kill the wyvern, dispatch Aerisi Kalinoth and set the djinn free
• Windharrow tells his story, Lafiel wanders
• Fight through water area, find water weirds, bypass troll, kill a terrifying hag
• Lafiel returns, troll in tow
• Dragon turtle; weird backpacks die
• Rest in a hut, lizardfolk show up, Lafiel gets a fat lip
• Qwynn turns a demon into a newt. A lizardfolk eats it. It gets better.
• Weirds drag Lafiel into a river, Drake goes after her, both go over the waterfall
• Finish clearing the temple; fireball a bedroom, claim to be a cultist, kill some ghouls
• The fountain
• Meet lizardfolk, admit to slaying the dragon turtle
• Fire cultists prisoners of the water cult; convinced they're fire cultists
• Return to lizardfolk with turtle proof; cultists realize the truth and die
• The whirlwind orb
• Balloon Packs, backtrack down below to finish the water cultists
• Explore a bit on a boat, find some cultists who say where the prophet is
• Everyone takes the bubbles; Drake winds up far behind
• Ya throws a fireball, Qwynn casts d-door, the rest almost all die
• Fly back up, taunt cultists with Drown. Sending to Qwynn (you're all dead, I'm just hearing things), celebratory drinking
• Terrible visions, back down to investigate, boat is destroyed
• Water portal. Lafiel sees a wave, ducks back out. Gnarls gets hit, pulled back out. Gnarls goes in again, does not come back.
• Lafiel goes in, nearly dies but comes back out. Drake and Qwynn go in, Ya somehow pulls them out. No hope of rescuing his body.
• Something terrible - an aboleth!
• Sorrowful return to Drakkengarde, meet a new (old) druid.
• Drake demands Thermandar's head; guard says the cults have devastated Red Oak and Westford. Kill all the prophets, and we'll see.
• Terrible dreams!
• Rush to stop the water cult from destroying Drakkengarde
• Box destroyed, boat on fire, banish Lafiel with the orb
• Head to Yalnos for an auction on another orb
• Auction
• Off to Silverstone
• Meeting with Dark Lady dragon
• Air cult still active with new leader
• Qwynn claims leadership, slays old leader, finds air portal
• Explore caves
• Harpies and mushrooms and giants, oh my!
• Oops, there's the fire cult leader.
• She's dead, Qwynn runs off and tries to summon the Howling Hatred.
• Need to destroy the weapons, but we sold Drown.
• Get rewards, get legend lore, return and check out the water caverns.
• Everything's slimy. The water's fouled.
• Diseased, enslaved lizardfolk attack!
• Further down, horrible visions of madness.
• Everyone almost dies to an aboleth.
• Everyone does die to the aboleth.
• Saved from the aboleth.
• Years pass.
• Joining Drake in going to Varen to find his family's killer.
• Attacked by a Scyllan, Ya and Sumac hop through the Nine Hells.
• Dinner with Stormlord Lanak Iskarr.