Our brave adventurers completed their apprenticeship and have early proficiencies in their trade, and now they are entering a second phase of training and work as a competent tradesman...regardless if the trade was a warrior, wizard, priest, or even thief. It is a time when individuals take their learned skills and apply them as independent professionals.
Each year, certain individuals who completed their apprenticeships with great skill are recognized by guild leaders from across the New Kingdoms. These individuals are recognized at ‘The Festival in the Forest’. Originally a harvest festival, The Festival in the Forest grew in fame nearly 250 years ago at the beginning of the Shadow Wars. Since the end of those wars, the Festival has also hosted what is now a commemorative event to honor the sacrifices of the great heroes of old who gave their lives to save the New Kingdoms from the terrors of the Shadow Lord and his minions. The Trial of Champions! The Festival in the Forest is held in the same location year after year, outside the small town of Hinckle, on the far western frontier of the Kingdom of Calledras at the Forest Inn and Tavern. Each year, the best and brightest graduates from their apprenticeships are recognized by the Guild Masters across each of the New Kingdoms to participate in this historic event. It is an event that all apprentices strive for as it gives them great recognition and stature in the community as being one of the chosen. Individuals who participate in the Festival are sought-after and can command a premium to their wages anywhere in the land! The prize money is also a very nice perk for a new graduate.
The Guild Masters choose the worthy graduates and the former apprentices choose their own comrades they will work with to accomplish the challenge put before them. Invited attendees journey very far to this remote location. Their arrivals coincide within hours of each other, as being late will be taken as an insult to their guilds and will leave a black mark on their name for many years to come. The Trial of Champions is different for each party. Each Guild Master has created their own challenge, testing the skills of each of the participants. The goal of the challenge is to recover an historical relic from the Shadow Wars that was hidden by the guild master. Participants are given only hours to accomplish the task ahead of them. This honorific challenge tests the limits of the new adventurers so that they can better reflect on the days of yore and the sacrifices that ancient heroes made to save the New Kingdoms from the Shadow Lord and his minions. It is a time of challenge, but a time of celebration as well!
The graduated apprentices were greatly celebrated upon their arrival at the Forest Inn and Tavern. Their excitement was obvious as the former apprentices divided up into individual parties to take on the challenges that the guild masters prepared for them. ‘Recover the artifact and return to the Forest Inn’. This challenging, but relatively safe ‘trial’, was to test the skills and wits of these inexperienced adventurers. However, things didn’t turn out as expected as strange and dangerous events took place during their trial. The adventurers learned that their party was not alone with these events after they returned to the Forest Inn that evening. During their trial, some parties were attacked by goblins, others by strange swamp creatures, and others by Dragonborn cultists. Still other parties found the guild master they were assigned to murdered in a sacrificial way. Other guild masters simply disappeared.
The adventures continued, and the parties learned that Dragonborn cultists were indeed behind the horrific acts of murder and possibly kidnapping of the guild masters. The participants of the Trial learned that the owners of the Forest Inn and Tavern, Piker and his wife Miranda, as well as other local helpers at the Festival were all members of a Druidic circle named the ‘Runda’. The Runda cast their sticks, performed their divinations, read water signals, smoke circles, and fallen leaves. The Runda also gleaned from their divinations that the Dragonborn were planning to resurrect some ancient powers to by allies in their religious crusade against the New Kingdoms. With the clues of the former apprentices and the divinations of the Runda, determined that the cultists were healing to The Great Swamp, and massive and very dangerous region many hundreds of miles to the south. With the distance so great, the Runda needed the player’s assistance to activate a magical Fairy Tree that will allow individuals to ‘pass through’ instantaneously from one fairy tree to another, no matter their distance from each other.
The adventurers teleported through the fairy tree to the Great Swamp, quickly picking up the trail of the Dragonborn cultists who seemed to be behind these travesties. The Dragonborn shamans translated writings off of large stone obelisks that were strangely placed in over a dozen areas in The Great Swamp. Some of the shamans held the guild masters or others as prisoners, as there was some unknown requirement or ingredient they needed for the success of the ritual. The heroes needed to disrupt the rituals conducted by the shamans and their various sects before the Dragonborn could awaken the dark energy that they intended to utilize for their vengeance against the New Kingdoms.
The heroes fought bravely and the ceremonies seemed to have been disrupted for no powerful entity appeared. The Dragonborn shamans also seemed confused, thinking that the ritual was completed. The adventurers returned to the Forest Inn through the fairy tree . The successful mission of the heroes, saved the New Kingdoms from what would have likely been a long and bloody war.
