Caislen Campaign Notes

This covers the session notes dating up until mid March 2026 for the Caislen Campaign. For any sort of cohesive chronological order of events you should read this from the bottom of the page and work your way back up to the top.

• Crompse Causal Loop - Entire Party, along with Skip & Wyrd Uncle Lugo visit Ancient Crompse. Thousands of years of intertwined events conclude or begin.

• Eyrun, Urist and Alimir woke at the house to a brand new day, which quickly turned into a task of getting Sunny off the roof of The Card House and making him a chew toy.
• Caught gossip at the tavern that Skip is alive, and seemingly making stops around the area. Would later find out he's making rounds to apologize to people for his wrongdoings.
• Jules joined up and The Party met Zapata, the “Resident Doctor” of Goldvale. He's one odd dwarf dude.
  • He wishes to speak about healing with Eyrun in 2 days. But she misses this deadline due to adventuring.
  • He acquires a stool sample from Urist, who claims to be slightly rabid and diseased.
• Party met Brumette, a new member of The Order Of The Lost Socks and she tipped them off to vandalism on the wall of the temple saying “Ill Ram Wuz Here” with a crudely drawn penis.“ Said she saw “short people” running away last night.
  • Party had already beaten up a kobold near the Goldfish Pond and found a map on it leading to the kobold's lair. On the back of the map was another crudely drawn you know what.
• Party got side tracked trying to locate Skip down near the Shrine Of Heaglin where they met Sam Smith and quickly backtracked from the club scene there.
  • On the way back to town they were ambushed by kobolds and ”Ill Ram“¹⁾, an obnoxious Halfling bad guy who's like a walking biohazard. He gets away.
• A long delayed and denied desire to visit the Hermit House finally transpired.
  • The Hermit wasn't hard to convince to go take care of the Lizardfolk at Fort Scale and retrieve Dorthy Fuzzybutt²⁾. The Party brought him 30 goldfish as part of the deal.
  • The party learned that goldfish are not quite what they seem…
  • Running back and forth to the Hermit House with goldfish gave the nearby kobold lair and Ill Ram a chance to harass The Party from a short distance away, in special immature ways.
  • This ultimately led to the party entering a kobold lair and having a classic dungeon romp, complete with kobold traps. Ill Ram was not found inside, and is presumed to be on the loose.

• Party wrapped up their adventure in Mustardia.³⁾
  • Jim Bob The Bullfrog saved the day by using his sticky tongue to remove a slapple from the damn quickling's possession. This seemed to earn him favor with Eyrun who scooped him up and put him on her shoulder.
  • An ancient painting was discovered in the Crompse exhibit of some bandit looking people posing with a dead ringer for Jules if she was dressed in noble clothes and alive long before she ever could have been. She ends up taking the painting and leaving the frame.
  • Urist is chosen by / encounters The Moose for the first time.
  • A poker hand (straight) that beat three of a kind was played in the entry room revealing treasure the giants provided for the party in the form of very expensive slightly oversized cloud island themed furniture which was later delivered to their house.
  • Eyrun finally chatted with one of the cloud giants who seemed appreciative of her and gifted her with a ring made from cloud stone.
  • She was then tasked to lead Sir Fee down to the ground so he could search for the Dragon of Mustardia.⁴⁾
  • Mustardia itself, all excessive clouds, and even the beanstalk vanished after the visit.

• Goldvale Phase 2
  • Some locals and out of towners enter the game in a more serious manner, starting new plot lines.
  • Goldvale map updated to go with it.

• Cardhouse Encounters
  • Sir Fee takes a job as doorman/bouncer while he waits for The Dragon Of Mustardia to hopefully appear.⁵⁾
  • The Party meets Nystor a very charismatic local who turns out to be a bit of a gossipy bar fly.
    • Gossips that Skip & Zapata (local, dwarf) are doing something shady at the crematorium at night.
    • Gossips that a group of people removed a large bag with something squirming inside it from Ferrin's Ruin.
  • The Party meets Tod Fuzzybutt (noble from out of town⁶⁾, tabaxi male) who offers to pay them 100 gold in exchange for rescuing his wife Dorthy Fuzzybutt from Fort Scale as she was supposedly kidnapped as they were heading toward Goldvale.
    • He's staying at The Card House for now.
    • Swears he's seen Jules somewhere before.
    • He tells the party that he once saw Alden's warriors stop a troll from destroying a town somewhere north of here.
  • Fig-Daisy declares she's going to live “in the area” and tasks the party with escorting her to meet the really neat guy Phil at the Necro Cave since she is a botanist and he is now known for his potions and plant interactions.
    • Fig-Daisy tips off The Party that Ema has returned to town and that's part of how she's heard about what Phil has accomplished.
  • The Guy (existing local who hasn't had much attention, gnome handyman) requests that The Party go get his hammer which he loaned to Ginger quite awhile ago (before her death) and the party agrees to this seemingly basic task.

• Jules negotiates with Sunny the young owlbear to become more of an outside pet, which might lead to a nuisance situation later. Was Zingle right about how to deal with this all along? Probably.

• Necro Cave
  • As the party gets to the Necro Cave they must answer to Kim to enter.
  • Kim asks “What brings you here” and the party finds out that Fig-Daisy is convinced that Phil is her soulmate because they have ever so much in common.
  • Fig-Daisy ends up left alone with Phil as the party leaves and we can only wonder if a new love interest shall arise.
  • Kim asks “Will you bring me a live ferret?” to which everyone except Alimir says NO. Alimir finds himself with a pending task.
  • Phil warns the party about the Lizardfolk at Fort Scale as a possible invasion force against his Necro Cave as undead don't work with their worldview, also cautions they instead they might decide to try and take the Coal Goblin Keep. The Party agrees to go deal with the lizardfolk and Alimir “swears to clense” them. Strong words from an Oath of Vengeance Paladin!

• As The Party arrives outside Fort Scale they find it to be an impressive palisades style structure, 15 feet high, and they are not prepared for the complexity of organized lizardfolk who don't speak their language. Initial attempt at rescue for Dorthy Fuzzbutt and shutting down this operation for Phil's sake aborted.

• Party visits Ginger's House to find it being haunted by Ginger's Ghost who will not rest until Ema has been killed. But they do get the hammer for The Guy.
• Taking the hammer back to The Guy whom they find at his house results in him asking them to do a simple favor again and he gives them a small sealed package to take to Cole.
• Party takes the package to Cole who is acting a little like a depressed teen that isn't happy with life and quickly discovered (thanks to a medicine check) that Cole is on drugs and that they've all been duped into delivering more drugs between The Guy & Cole. They take back the package and leave after giving Cole a fairly decent lecture.

• Party goes to snoop around Skip's Crematorium only to find that he's left a note on the door about going to the Dense Forest and inside there are the very suspicious elements of a body on a slab with a note on it that just says ”Zapata“ and a crime seen diagram type wall that has sketches of Ema and Phil and all sorts of overtones of obsession about his love triangle and separation issues, ultimately leading to a reference to the smaller mausoleum near the Shrine of Hayte. Party sets off to go there since literally all signs indicate that's where Skip might be and he's clearly up to something.
  • They find the smaller mausoleum opened up and inside what should be the one casket is actually a secret entrance down a 50 foot narrow hole, with a rope down it.
  • A little dungeon lies below which obviously has ties to the Toc Clan Coal Mine Event's The Three.
  • Lira, ork, who has been in town for weeks frequenting the bar and snooping around, attempts to ambush the party by “sneaking up on them” with Lira's Invisibility Cloak on.
  • The Party finds Skip just as he uses one of those scroll's Alden gave the goblins in the past that supposedly summon demons.
  • They run, take up the rope to leave Skip below, Lira escapes into the forest, end session.

• The Dungeon Master, left unsupervised, begins laying waste to the remaining Donuts, Fried Chicken & Pepsi products left behind post game.

• The Party woke up to a foggy day with visibility limited to just 20 feet.
• They visited Zingle to learn about his inclusion of Socks the Unicorn as a form of “Lost Socks” into his religion's mythos.
• At The Card House the continually more intriguing tavern keeper Jack bemoaned the foggy, or low hanging cloudy day and gave the party 3 magic beans. Since players originally named Jack the DM can't be held responsible for playing off the name to imply he is also none other than the fairy tale legend from “Jack & The Giant Beanstalk” to a certain degree. He sent them off from the bar to grow a beanstalk. Honestly there are multiple fairy tales and song that feature guys named Jack, so players might want to be a little worried about that fact.
  • Party encountered a Shelves herd of 12 on their way to plant a bean. The herd's spokesperwon was “Harthi 3000” who tipped them off that one of their number had been abducted to Ethica probably. Urist shared about the fields and elves within the Dense Forest for them to possibly take refuge in.
• The Party climbed their giant beanstalk which was planted near the plateau to arrive at the front door of Mustardia, a magical cloud island with a manor and a few giants. The rest of the session was spent running around the manor with all of its assorted shenanigans that seemed to largely have a feywild twist. To be continued…
  • An exhibit in Mustardia Manor about Goldvale highlighted that the town was “founded by dragons.”
  • Jim Bob The Bullfrog when last seen was loose on the ground level of the manor.
  • The Dungeon Master shamelessly plugged that a ”Castle Caislen“ exists because this domain name must be justified.
  • An exhibit noted the “Micro Kingdom of Ethica” apparently once had a king turned to stone by a medusa.

• The Party started the game with the continuation of trying to take the Shovel Of Alden to the Toc Clan Coal Mine to drop it in the “really deep hole.”
  • New player character Alimir was quickly found stuffed in a large sack, having previously been kidnapped by quaggoths as food for their tribe on his way to Goldvale to seek out adventure. That was the starting generic railroaded entry point into the game world mid dungeon at least.
  • Now 4 members strong the party defeated a single quaggoth, probably making enemies out of the rest for life.
  • Determined with these guys living in the mine it wasn't a suitable location for the Shovel.
  • Fought the ancient construct Gargath and won.
  • Broke into the ancient treasure previously sealed up by the 3 Goblins during the Toc Clan Coal Mine Event. 500 gold and a few magic items were retrieved and then they got out of there leaving the rest of the mine un-tampered with, which was probably the best plan in retrospect.
• Newbie Alimir helped the party complete the quest to get Leithe's stuff from the Keep by paying the goblins 50 gold, instead of combat. A peaceful resolve & free hamburgers for life.
• Signs were seen in The Card House akin to “Have You Seen Me?” lost milk cartons, but these were posted by none other than Zingle of the Order Of The Lost Socks and about the Young Unicorn Socks. Socks…and socks? Hmmm…
• Eyrun found Sunny happily eating the corpse of a half-orc who'd been in town for awhile, inside of their house. Apparently the half-orc (Thorne) must have been looking for the Shovel Of Alden in the house, even got into the back room, and a combat ensued.
  • While blood, feathers and signs of combat were everywhere, Sunny was 100% okay. But the Kuo-Toa Idol was triggered to make this happen, going full statue mode and generating a new mini idol.
• Back at The Card House again, Jules entered alone to talk to Jack about disposing the Shovel Of Alden. While she got advise to bury it in the Goldfish Pond she was quickly distracted by a guy sitting at a table there who claimed to be her Uncle Lugo.
  • “Uncle Lugo” appeared to not quite fit the flesh he was wearing and was very, very off, but very friendly, quickly latching on to Jules as family and following her right out of the bar and back to the party.
  • The improvised plan to learn more about Uncle Lugo was to “visit Phil” but really see what happens in the presence of Kim asking questions of Lugo at the Necro Cave's bridge.
    • On the way there Uncle Lugo spotted a manhole cover like entry to something. Party ignored it but made note.
    • In the presence of Kim, Uncle Lugo appeared to be either very truthful, as if he's not really hiding anything, or incredibly able to fool everyone. Can we really be sure what happened? He said at one point that this would be his “3rd Bridge Litch” astounding everyone⁷⁾.
    • Party managed to annoy Phil just a little bit more under the guise of checking on Ema, who still needs more time with Phil as he works to solve her issue. Make note if you're reading this that Phil is working with what he has, which is the plant materials retrieved by the party as part of his solution.
    • Alimir as a Paladin notably did not go murder happy on all the undead by default. Maybe worth taking note of for the rest of the party if they expect stereotype actions from a Paladin.
    • Urist once again made comments in front of Kim here about the Shovel Of Alden and how it is what he covets.
    • Kim asked Eyrun a question about frogs and ultimately gifted her with a leftover frog without a name in a terrarium that another visitor left behind.
  • The party explored the “Manhole Cover” dungeon, with a lot of cheering on by Uncle Lugo who kept insisting they do fun things. It was really that or go find sheep which he seemed fascinated with. Long story short, the whole dungeon seemed to be some setup created likely by Lugo for entertainment. Humanoid sized hamster balls, magic levers, pineapples and more were found. Lugo vanished during this obnoxiously without explanation but left a note with a potion for Jules. The potion is purple and bubbles slightly inside of a small glass vial. Jules has not consumed it nor knows what it actually does.
  • Lastly for this game session the party buried the Shovel Of Alden in the Goldfish Pond.

• Eyrun & Urist finally got called out by Jules and Phil for not telling Ema that “Phil's Potion Of Fertility” required mixing with an equal volume of human blood. This was brought up after Ema started acting erratic.
  • Ema seduced/murdered Ginger for her blood.
  • Ema went to hunt down Cole but failed to get him as the Eyrun arrived first with the land pirate crew who babysat him for a bit during all the drama.
  • Ema was eventually captured by the party when she returned to her house, then taken to Phil's Necro Cave so he could try to figure out what to do with her.
  • Phil ended up quite annoyed by Urist & Eyrun, but some interesting backstory details were forced out by Kim with all the coming and going at the Necro Caves, which made it totally worth it at least to the DM.
• The land pirate crew appeared in their “ship” known as “The Wobbly Wench” and ran into the party at The Card House.
  • Urist met Pirate Captain Salty Merlot for the first time after hearing about him from the other player characters many times over only to discover that he already knew him from his own (slightly DM forced) backstory!
    • To the East in the town of Ethica someone named Conagreena who is somehow in charge of tourism set a bounty of 50 gold pieces for talking sheep. The pirates were in town trying to find a talking sheep to collect that bounty. That'd be the same person who got ahold of the baby displacer beast a little before this point. Maybe a strange zoo is happening over there?
  • To the West of Goldvale is another little town, which remains unnamed, but has a coliseum apparently. Cole got to visit it with the pirates to keep him busy during the Ema drama.
  • The pirates seem to be developing a thought process where the term “piracy” includes pillaging, but also legal trading practices. No one is really sure where that's headed.
• The party had the chance to be very straight forward with Jack, who they had encountered “recently” during the Toc Clan Coal Mine Event. They learned a few things, but only after kind of delaying and denying much relevant information to him.
  • Jack revealed to the party that he arrived 5 years ago out of a portal. That Alden supposedly arrived 20 years ago out of a portal.
  • Jack revealed that he bought The Card House when he arrived so he could take on the role of a watcher here in case Alden tried to return looking for The Shovel Of Alden. He says there are constantly agents of Alden coming through the area.
  • Jack revealed that there are basically two levels of local law enforcement in Goldvale. The “powers that be” and locals doing justice. This was rubbed in as the party was left hanging on how to deal with Ginger's corpse.
  • The party eventually revealed that they have the Shovel & Jack suggested rehiding it, perhaps within Goldvale town limits and particularly in the goldfish pond. As part of this he suggested that if the party really wants to learn why the local area is safer, they should investigate the lake or talk to the hermit.
• Hiding The Shovel Of Alden became a priority.
  • Players experimented with putting objects into the weird airlock space inside of the Mirror House. Opted against it for the shovel.
  • A plan arose to take the shovel back to the Toc Clan Mine under the Old Dwarven Keep in order to toss it down a really deep hole they remembered from when they were there during the Event. A couple of rooms into the mine is where the session ended…

• Toc Clan Coal Mine Event - Jules, Urist & Eyrun awake as goblins temporarily at a historical event wherein Alden's goblin forces have just finished slaughtering the Toc Clan Dwarves.

• Eyrun & Urist went on the quest to capture a live zombie for Phil.
  • Ran into elf territory in the Dense Forest, fought zombies, their boss plant, and a small earth elemental.
  • Got a tiny bit of lore about The Great Pumpkin.
  • Did in fact manage to capture the zombie and get it to Phil.
  • Delivered the fertility potion to Ema as part of that deal⁸⁾.
  • Got Eyrun de-plantified as the end result.
• Encountered Ginger who gave them gossip about:
  • Dwarven Bandits⁹⁾ intending to throw the Handy Haversack into the Warlock Well at midnight.
  • People by the plateau shelter capturing a baby displacer beast with intent to take it to another town called Ethica as an attraction.
  • Local sheep sightings which these particular characters might know a little about from their own past adventure.
  • Ginger herself on her way to the Hermit House with a live goldfish for 10gp, a quest the PCs were given, and apparently so was she.
• Had a first even run over to the Ferret Caves where they met a random NPC gnome who was unfortunately named by players as ”WillgBert“ & the “g” in his name is silent because apparently the goal is to raise the DM's blood pressure whenever possible with really stupid names.

• Quest to get Leithe's crate of stuff from the goblins at the keep so she can officially move into a new home in Goldvale.
• Encountered a very burned up halfling NPC & an ettin just outside town limits, past the final goldfish filled ditches. Party got a room key from the NPC's corpse, went to his room at the Card House, and found a map that shows how to get into the mines under the keep without having to deal with the goblins.
• Met Phil finally, getting into the Necro Cave area. Tasked with taking his fertility potion to Ema with instructions that she is to mix it with an equal amount of human blood.
• According to BreadBert the pirate crew has been joined by Mustard Mike.
• Eyrun “impregnated” in the right arm by a Assassin Vine during combat. Phil has tasked the party with capturing a certain kind of zombie from the Dense Forest and returning to him so he can study it. Results may be helpful in curing Eyrun.
• A new deity's altar discovered in the Dense Forest area.

• Bugbear Slavers eliminated, which should please Leithe.
• Socks the baby Unicorn released into the Grotto, now known as Unicorn Grotto.
• Shovel Of Alden captured.
• “Cole's Law” created.
• Most of the local chapter of The Cult Of Alden eliminated.
• Shelves discovered and likely ignored for now.

• Prior to this point session notes were not really being kept on here, but mostly Jules and Eyrun ran around the Goldvale area meeting everyone, learning of the love triangle between Skip, Phil & Ema and little dramas played out.