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Shelby, Shump, and Dormin have arrived at Biel, the capital city of Iounin, without two of their fellow Doubley-Doos. Examining documents taken from the quarters of Kelkian Densebirch, the firbolg representative of the Hearing House from Erydark, the trio decided to pay a visit to another representative, Theodelinda Gardner, to discuss their fears that there may be further spies in the government. 

Though their meeting with her did not go well, they did make an ally in Davin, one of the city guards, who agreed to help them gain an audience with the Grand Chancellor of the Hearing House due to the severity of their claims. 

They also met with Drettle Maloo the elderly tortle mage and proprietor of Maloo’s Magnetic Marvels, the magic shop Shelby and Shump attempted to visit so many months ago, to finally have her Identify Shump’s goblin figure. To everyone’s horror, she revealed that his figure actually draws its powers directly from Khurgorbaeyag, the evil goblin deity. While a powerful artifact that bestows Shump with several magical benefits, the item has also cursed him. Shelby, in an act of desperation, attempted to destroy it, but only succeeded in destroying her own magic weapon in the process while the figure remained undamaged.

When Davin escorted them to the Hearing House, they couldn’t help but notice the unrest throughout the admittedly small goblin population in the city. Goblins were gathering on street corners protesting the Hearing House’s recent sanctioning of military action against goblin tribes in the country. Guards were being called to police the protests, causing tempers to flare further. Once, Shelby even caught a snatch of a conversation mentioning Opal Town, the town Shelby and Shump first began their adventures in.

Inside Marianne Ravenswood’s chamber, they met the Grand Chancellor herself, a lean, no-nonsense human woman with raven black hair and a perpetual scowl. She was initially irritated at their disruption and mistrustful of their story, calling their claims outlandish; however, the more details that the three provided, the more credence was lent to their story.

They turned over the documentation they recovered from Erydark, including the decryption key and the list of representatives (since they’d already made copies for themselves), and proceeded to tell her as much as they could about their travels, starting with meeting Kelkian and discovering the slaad imposter. They also mentioned both of their run-ins with Klaas, the hobgoblin leader of the recent goblin rebellion. The Grand Chancellor wanted to verify their claims with her people in Erydark, requesting a summons be delivered to Kelkian as soon as possible and granted them rooms in the Hearing House so they could speak further once he arrived.

In their rooms, Dormin and Shelby searched for signs that the government might be spying on them. They found arcane runes scrawled on the wall under their beds, but they couldn’t recognize what specifically the runes did. Dormin suggested Shump use his figure to scry on the owner of the Sending Stone they found in Erydark, hoping they might figure out who was behind the slaad’s infiltration of the government. 

Shump agreed, and as he focused on the sneering onyx visage, his mind briefly transported to the shadowy land with the bleeding black spire. A rumbling voice asked him what he sought. Shump explained his intent, and found himself rocketing to a location somewhere in the woods. He saw Klaas brooding over a camp fire while goblins hustled to and fro just outside of Shump’s scrying sight. To his surprise, after a moment, Klaas perked up, his eyes scanning the camp like he’d heard something, almost landing on where Shump’s spectral form stood. The last thing Shump heard before the spell ended was Klaas call to his troops that it was time pay a visit to Biel.

When the scry ended, the trio hurried to the Grand Chancellor’s office to alert her of the threat. She immediately put out a message to her spies to be on alert and report back with any movement from the goblin tribes. With that, she informed the trio that she believed she’d found the perfect opportunity to use the Doubley-Doos against Klaas. While they await their assignment, the trio plans to follow Maloo’s advice and pay a visit to the Temple of Pelor.

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One of the things that I’m very keen to focus on is goblins and their roles in fantasy RPG settings as a disposable villain. They’re basically the D&D version of the Putty soldiers that the Power Rangers used to fight — a low level threat that the party can practice against before they level up and are able to face real threats. That would be fine…if goblins weren’t treated as an actual, semi-intelligent race with a culture (of sorts). They’re not monsters, they’re…native tribes, essentially. And that makes the “genetically evil” thing really weird and kinda gross.

I didn’t expect that my players would immediately travel to the head of the government and lay most of their cards on the table. This is the same government that has issued military action against goblin tribes throughout the country. That said, it definitely earned them a seat of influence and power, especially if they complete the jobs that the Hearing House lays out for them. I’ll be interested to see how they proceed from here.

I don’t have much more as far as notes or thoughts on the sessions for now — I don’t want to spoil things, especially for my players if they read this. Also, we’re reaching a sort of transition phase where the players could move the plot a few different directions.

In the meantime, I’m actually preparing to start running another campaign on the off weeks with my Strahd game group — our DM was getting burned out, and I’ve wanted to DM something properly for them for a while, so this seemed like a good opportunity. I will, of course, share campaign diaries for that as well, ha ha.

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