Mawar Adventures Episode 03

The Tomb of Yerkir-khor: in which a missing treasure hunter leads to a hidden tomb

Featuring: Ryu, Trok, Kaleho, Nerissa
In Taelgar: Oct 23, 1747 DR to Oct 28, 1747 DR
On Earth: Saturday, November 27, 2021
Hamri and Yerkir-khor’s monument and tomb

Orden asks the party to find Hiyasa, whose treasure map leads them from Hamri into Yerkir-khor’s buried earth tomb, where they survive traps, stone guardians, and a near-fatal fight before returning with her and the tomb’s strange spoils.

Timeline

Cast of Characters

Places

  • Hamri (town in the Mawar Confederacy, the Mawakel Peninsula): coastal town on the Mawakel Peninsula where Orden asks for help, the party gathers rumors, and the recovered treasure is later divided. Session context includes: Trok’s beach shack, Ryu’s tower, the Leviathan Inn, and return inn scene with Wazir.
  • Yerkir-khor’s monument and tomb: partially buried stone flower monument in the inland forest, containing Yerkir-khor’s tomb, an ancient earth-themed tomb filled with crystal mosaics, traps, stone guardians, and treasure. Session context includes: open trap door, entrance shaft, crystal-mosaic hall, upper guardian chamber, lower corridors, lightning-crystal stair, and inner sanctum.

Narrative

Kaleho returns to Hamri and meets Trok at his beach shack, where they talk over stew about Trok’s uneasy isolation, Kaleho’s fixation on sea mysteries, and the aftermath of the events concerning Azar the Lost. Orden interrupts the meal and explains that his daughter Hiyasa came home recently after a decade away, carrying maps and filled with talk of ancient treasure in the forest. She left up the Mirmir eight days ago and has not returned: Orden is nervous. Trok and Kaleho agree to help, and decide to bring Ryu into the search at first light.

The next morning, Trok and Kaleho visit Ryu’s tower and recruit him for the search, then meet Nerissa, a scholar from a nearby tower who is immediately drawn to the possibility of ancient ruins. The group stops at the Leviathan Inn to gather local rumors before leaving town. Abelard, hung over but useful, recognizes the description of Hiyasa and says she headed up the Mirmir in pursuit of treasure in an old tomb.

After speaking to Abelard at the Leviathan Inn, the party leaves Hamri, climbs above the waterfall, and follows the Mirmir inland through cold autumn forest, Ryu reading the trail while Blu scouts through the trees. After a few days’ walk, the party finds a small abandoned campsite, suggesting Hiyasa passed that way alone. The trail cuts farther from the river and ends at a massive stone flower-like monument with ropes already fixed to it, an open trap door at the top, and a Terran inscription that reads, “Here lies Yerkir-khor the Undaunted, Prince of Earth, Lord of the Rock Below, and Guardian of the Crystal Skies.”

At the monument, Trok ascends and looks down the open shaft into a hall whose mosaic floor shows glittering caverns, stone cliffs, underground rivers, and twisting stalactites and stalagmites. Nerissa sends lights after him, but the descent goes wrong almost immediately: a hidden blade sweeps through the shaft, cuts Trok loose, and sends Kaleho crashing to the floor after him. The group regroups after descending by rope into the long-buried main hall. Enormous double doors stand sealed behind them. At the far end, locked dark-granite doors wait, guarded by four gargoyle statues. Between the doors, a serpent-headed statue with emerald eyes and gold-and-gem decoration rises above a smooth white stalagmite altar.

As Trok heads for the doors to study the altar and statue, the four intact gargoyles suddenly animate and attack. Two harry the party, while two fly toward the serpent-headed statue and try to pull a loose amethyst from its gold-banded arm. Trok grows and slams the gargoyles into the floor and altar, Nerissa’s shattering spell rips through their stone bodies, Kaleho drops targets with crossbow shots, and Ryu sends both spear and Blu after the ones trying to trigger something worse. The last gargoyle breaks before the serpent statue fully wakes, leaving the party with broken guardians, stone keys, and the loose amethyst to inspect.

After the fight, Ryu notices small stone keys on the shattered gargoyles and tracks leading to one of the locked doors behind the serpent statue. The party heals, leaves a warning by the dangerous statue, and opens the door with one of the stone keys. Following Hiyasa’s trail down into the tomb, they pass mirrored stair rooms, arriving in a narrow lower corridor. Kaleho spots a slick, liquid-looking patch before an open door, with muddy footprints beyond suggesting Hiyasa passed this way. Following the trail, Ryu jumps the hazard, while the rest of the group uses anchored spikes to cross.

The muddy footprints lead into a wider antechamber with closed side doors and stairs encircled by fist-sized crystals. Around a central labyrinth design, Terran words read, “Faithful of Yerkir-khor, be blessed with the wisdom of your lord! Unfaithful, flee now or be entombed forever in his majestic presence!” Kaleho is struck by lightning when he approaches the stair upright, but crawling beneath the crystals lets everyone descend safely. The stairs open into a blue-lit inner sanctum where Hiyasa is alive but encased in stone from the thighs down, with an empty waterskin nearby. Around her, gem mosaics show a stone-and-earth lord flattening mountains, shaping valleys and canals, receiving offerings, and being honored through farming, mining, and trade with dwarves. Six gem-stoppered jars stand behind the altar, and a great stone guardian steps forward in Terran to demand tribute from anyone claiming to honor Yerkir-khor.

The party tries to satisfy the guardian with the treasures they actually carry: Trok’s shells, Ryu’s pearl, and Kaleho’s treasured merfolk book. Each offering makes the guardian angrier, as it violently rejects the treasures of the ocean. Ryu opens the fight with a spear while Blu wheels through the blue-lit chamber. The party batters the guardian with crossbow fire, Eldritch Maul, thunder and psychic magic, thrown spears, and Blu’s dives, but the guardian reshapes the room, traps Kaleho with a stone hand, turns the floor to mud, and throws an unconscious Trok into it as it starts to harden. Ryu manages to land the killing blow on the guardian, and then revives Trok with his healing magic. The stone magic broken, Hiyasa frees herself. She tries to pocket one of the jars, but relaxes after Trok makes clear they came as a favor to Orden rather than as rival tomb robbers.

Freed, Hiyasa explains her story. She returned from Chardon with a treasure map, and she admits she came for treasure to help Orden. She thought an older, non-Mawar tomb would avoid angering the local ancestors. In thanks to the party, she sketches a copy of the map that marks three old tombs. Exploring the guardian room, the party opens the six jars and finds archaic coins, rough gemstones, a pearl, red liquid that Wazir later recognizes as spoiled wine, yellow dust protecting ancient papers, and an obsidian jar with a one-way void that shatters after removal from the tomb. They disguise the entrance before traveling back to Hamri over the next several days, where they part ways with Hiyasa.

Combat

  • Gargoyle Wardens: stone gargoyles, serpent statue construct. Four stone gargoyles defend the main hall and try to activate the serpent-headed statue; the party destroys them before the statue fully wakes.
  • Guardian of Yerkir-khor: stone guardian of Yerkir-khor. The guardian attacks after rejecting the party’s tribute and is destroyed by Ryu after nearly entombing Trok in hardening mud.

Settings