Sunspark Festival - 640 ELS

This Sunspark Festival marked the beginning of the campaign. The player characters of the Cracked Facade campaign initially gathered and met here. Some came to attend the festival, some came to meet with family, and some arrived here by other means.

Here is a choice list of events that occurred at the festival:

  • Pilgrim Grum met Father Peter Freitag on their way to the festival.
  • Father Peter Freitag instructed Pilgrim Grum to find lodging at L'Arc Petite.
  • Pilgrim Grum visited L'Arc Petite and rented a room there from Ilske Dietingen.
  • Mehen Vrondiss and Mr. Sacks arrived at the Monastery of the Arches, visited the admin building there, and met with Mehen's uncle, Shamash Vrondiss, who was in the middle of a lecture. They planned to meet during the fireworks in the evening.
  • Io visited the festival stalls, and won a winner's coin at the dunking contest.
  • Pilgrim Grum arrived at the festival, and won first place in a singing competition. There, he met Robert Aust who came in second place, Wanda Paasche who hosted the competition, and Albin Weinbaum and Marcus Paasche who attempted to win by lip-syncing the performance and was disqualified after Pilgrim Grum reported the scam.
  • Mehen Vrondiss, Mr. Sacks, and Io participated in the ring toss game. Io was the only one who failed.
  • Mehen Vrondiss, Mr. Sacks, Io, and Pilgrim Grum all participated in the trivia contest. Each won a second winner's coin by reaching the semi-finals. Pilgrim Grum won first place against Mr. Sacks in the finals.
  • Everyone took a plate of the freely provided food served by Ilske Dietingen and Mother Wilhelmina Yrstrone.
  • Everyone met Huntmaster Stanislav Utěkal, who sat next to and chatted with the party while they ate together.
  • Huntmaster Stanislav Utěkal mentioned that he had met a family of pill bugs matching the description of Pilgrim Grum's family. They were last seen a few weeks ago heading for Wickerpool.
  • Mehen Vrondiss and Mr. Sacks met with Shamash Vrondiss, who informed Mehen Vrondiss that his father, Bharash Vrondiss, was last seen three days prior, heading toward Wickerpool.
  • Earl Nolthe Ybbrinth gave a brief speech celebrating another successful Sunspark Festival.
  • Fireworks!!!
  • Mehen dreamed of becoming an adventurer badass, but later dreamed of dying in disgrace as a failure of an adventurer.
  • Grum dreamed of being reunited with his family and passing on the pillgrim's talisman, but later dreamed of dying alone in the desert.
  • Io dreamed of...
  • Mr. Sacks dreamed of...
  • Mehen Vrondiss, Pilgrim Grum, Io, and Mr. Sacks met up once more for breakfast, where they ate eggs, sausage, and bread in many shapes and colours, having been served by Ilske Dietingen and Mother Wilhelmina Yrstrone.
  • Mehen Vrondiss overheard an argument between Earl Nolthe Torborgenfällt and Huntmaster Stanislav Utěkal as they went to the washroom.
  • Simultaneously, Pilgrim Grum, Io, and Mr. Sacks overheard two men eating breakfast nearby in aristocratic clothing talking about a ritual and learn that the ritual is about three quarters of the way to completion.
  • The party collectively went to the morning strongman competition, where Huntmaster Stanislav Utěkal participated.
  • One competitor tore his pectoral muscle.
  • Mother Wilhelmina Yrstrone caught one participant, Archibald Fritz, attempting to grease the equipment.
  • Huntmaster Stanislav Utěkal proceeded to win the competition.
  • The party then went to congratulate Huntmaster Stanislav Utěkal on his victory. When the argument between him and Earl Nolthe Torbogenfällt is brought up, Stanislav admits his embarrassment. He says that there have been rumours of suspicious individuals around town, suspected to be cultists, and he's been frustrated with the Earl's lack of action. The party report their earlier meeting with the aristocrats talking about a ritual.
  • Following up on the party's report, Stanislav Utěkal calls a hunting party together, and follows the trail of the two nobles. He finds that the two had managed to slip away without a trace after hiding in a corner of the festival grounds.
  • Stanislav suggested that the party sit with him, joining him in the third row of pews at the noon service of the summer solstice.
  • There, they watch the festival service leading up to noon, which consists of singing, theatre, and sermons.
  • As the time approaches, the party join the countdown to noon. When noon comes, the light coming through the ceiling spreads out across the massive cathedral, but it's a terrible sanguine red, portentous of terrible trouble.
  • Someone shouted out 'Fire!' and the party saw the church begin to burn, starting from the front door. From the fire, countless fire elementals brought even greater chaos.
  • The party played a major part in the evacuation, and at the same time, managed to collect a lot of information about the cause of the fire.
    • Only 3% of the people inside the church at the time of the fire died, some 1200 people or so out of the 40000 attendees.
    • The clues the party learned were:
        1. Hooded figures were seen gathering near the abandoned dorms, but disappeared before 11:00.
      • 2: Earl Nolthe Torbogenfällt went to investigate the sighting shortly before the figures disappeared, and didn't reappear until 11:55.
      • 3: There's evidence of a scroll of Gate having been used to call the elementals from the Plane of Fire. It was cast moments before the fire was first spotted.
      • 4: The caster who caused the fire doesn't breath or bleed and they don't experience pain. A DC 10 Int (Religion) check confirms that the caster must be undead.
      • 5: The caster appears to have been in a state of panic as they cast the spell.
      • 6: The caster appears to be a male human and someone of high social standing. The party have a rendering of their footprints to compare against if they gain access to a suspects' footwear.
    • The cathedral can be rebuilt, but so much repair work would be a project of untenable scale and cost more than the budget of an entire city state, meaning that it will likely never be repaired.
    • Pilgrim Grum was able to identify that inside the structural supports of L'Arc Chantante, one of the Five Errant Gates was hidden. From the arcane writing on its surface, Io was able to identify that this was the Gate of 8 Arches.