TEXT: EN5ider Presents:
  Cauldron-Born
  Part Two
  A 5E-Compatible Adventure for 7th- to 8th-Level Characters
  
  2 | EN5ider Presents: Cauldron-Born, Part Two
  Act One, Thread One: 
  The Downfall of Kell
  From the Pen of
  Thurston Hillman
  With Additional Material by
  Ryan Nock
  Evocative Cover Illustration by
  ShenFei
  Stunning Cartographic Displays by
  James Hazelett, Brian Patterson, Jonathan Roberts
  Masterful Interior Illustrations by
  Claudio Pozas, ShenFei, Eleni Tsami
  Includes art in the public domain
  with Unparalleled Layout and Graphic Design by
  Eric Life-Putnam
  Playtested for Maximum Enjoyment by
  Michael Border, Walter Byers, Justin Engelking, 
  Benjamin Riggs, Dennis Chiado
  Seamlessly Updated to Fifth Edition by
  Mike Myler
  Ably Produced and Facilitated by
  Russ Morrissey
  Special Thanks to
  Jamie, because if I’m going to dedicate a book to you, it’s going 
  to be the one with a giant robot on the cover; and Dan Houston 
  and Falkus, Kickstarter backers who introduced Dester Rathnine 
  and Rosalyn Taylor; and to the hundreds of gamers who backed 
  the original release of Zeitgeist on Kickstarter; and to the over 
  one thousand generous patrons of EN World EN5ider whose 
  support has made this Fifth Edition update possible.
  Open Game Content
  The game rule information in this article is designated 
  Open Game Content. All other material in this article, including 
  maps, graphic elements, and illustrations (including graphic 
  elements and illustrations in the public domain), narrative 
  and descriptive text, character and place names, trade dress, 
  “EN Publishing,” “EN World,” “EN5ider,” “Zeitgeist,” all EN 
  Publishing product and article titles, and Zeitgeist, EN World, 
  and EN Publishing logos, are designated Product Identity.
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  I
  n this thread, the party moves against Lor-
  can Kell’s crime gang.
  The Kell Guild
  The party has several options on how to proceed with finding Lor-
  can Kell. First, for the GM’s sake, what is the party up against?
  Kell’s operations are based out of the Theater of Scoundrels, a 
  debauched hang-out for thieves and thugs. Here Kell holds court 
  and watches his minions practice their skills. The ‘theater’ aspect is 
  a big draw to new members, because Kell throws a good party, and 
  the stage often has raunchy, violent, and sometimes bloody shows. 
  Guild members are encouraged to practice their lying by joining 
  in plays.
  Hierarchy.
  Kell doesn’t manage the daily affairs of his guild. He’s just the 
  figurehead who’ll hunt you down and chop you up if you cause 
  trouble. His lieutenants actually run the guild, foremost among 
  them Quentin Augst, a lawyer based in Central district. Augst 
  prefers opera to Kell’s brand of low theater, so meetings of the 
  guild leadership usually happen in one of their business fronts, 
  the Sunset Bench.
  The party likely took down Rufus Hammerton at the start of the 
  adventure. Otherwise he’s holed up in the Machete Hill stronghold 
  (see below).
  Fronts.
  The guild operates the usual array of clubs, brothels, restaurants, 
  and shops, but also have an atypical holding interest in a variety of 
  factories — when the Ob needed certain goods, some factory owners 
  capitulated to let the guild skim, others had their places burn down, 
  but a few were killed outright, and their wills — forged and rewrit-
  ten by Augst — put their whole businesses into guild hands.
  Safe Houses.
  Kell splits his time between several homes in Parity Lake and The 
  Nettles, most of them gated villas. He also keeps numerous safe 
  houses, usually multi-story buildings that are the tallest in the 
  neighborhood. Conscious of how many times he’s killed men who 
  had no way out, Kell always plans his escape routes, and he’s more 
  than willing to leap between rooftops to avoid a trap.
  Resources and Training
  Out of a city of eight hundred thousand, Kell’s guild has three hun-
  dred official members and a couple thousand citizens who directly 
  do business with them, most of them in Parity Lake or The Nettles. 
  
  EN5ider Presents: Cauldron-Born, Part Two | 3
  Act One, Thread One: The Downfall of Kell
  The official guildsmen are trained in the theater in the best way 
  to knife someone, or to use a hostage as a human shield. Almost 
  all carry pistols, and some of Kell’s favorites have access to choicer 
  weapons smuggled in from Drakr.
  By contrast, the entire Flint police force numbers just seventeen 
  hundred, and they tend to carry maybe swords, night clubs, and 
  crossbows. The guns they do get are cast-off muskets from the mili-
  tary. The authorities aren’t looking to start a war in the streets.
  Kell usually travels with two personal bodyguards — Kate Glenn, 
  a corrupt priestess who protects Kell from hostile magic, and Nick 
  Reder, a meaty bruiser who can hold back the largest foes.
  The Ob have recently equipped the guild with high-quality fire-
  arms and alchemical weapons. A few prominent members of the 
  guild have gotten magic or arcanoscientific gear, and Kell himself 
  now enjoys riding around in a figurine of wondrous power that 
  transforms into an armored carriage, drawn by tramping mechani-
  cal legs instead of actual horses.
  In Hiding.
  When he gets wind that the RHC are after him in force, Kell re-
  locates to the Theater of Scoundrels, his seat of power. From there 
  he prepares to fight the RHC, but tries to get in touch with his 
  contacts in the Obscurati in case he has to run. Once things get too 
  hot, Kell moves to a safe house and hides inside a rope trick to evade 
  divination (see Kell Spooked, page 4).
  Even if they can find him, catching him isn’t easy. The Obscu-
  rati gave him a one-use item — a gatecrasher charm — which tears a 
  whole in reality so he can slip into the Bleak Gate for a few minutes. 
  It has nasty side effects though, and the trip isn’t permanent unless 
  there’s someone from the Ob on the other side waiting to pull him 
  all the way through. He can use the charm in a pinch to get a few 
  minutes’ head start on running.
  What You Gonna Do When 
  They Come for You?
  Exploration. Montage. Level 7.
  The party kicks in doors and runs down criminals to find Kell.
  To capture Kell, first they must find him.
  If your group has an idea of their own, run with it, but as a 
  base suggestion we assume they’ll try to drive Kell into the open 
  by dismantling his guild. The party has several avenues, and each 
  successful operation contributes to the overall challenge of finding 
  Kell. It’s up to the party to lead the task force, and men’s lives are 
  on the line if they screw up.
  Task Force Makeup.
  Most of the city’s police keep to their regular duties or prepare se-
  curity for the peace summit. But thanks to the wonders of overtime 
  pay, the party has 50 officers at their disposal. Delft tried to get 
  men from districts where Kell was unlikely to have moles, but unbe-
  knownst to the party, three officers in the task force are actually on 
  the take, and will rat out the party’s plans to Kell’s guild, making 
  things more difficult if the party doesn’t clean house.
  Running the Task Force.
  The party can deploy their 50 officers as they see fit, but each of-
  ficer can only undertake one mission per day. Some missions gather 
  intelligence. Others, called strikes, damage the guild, and the task 
  force needs 6 strikes for a partial victory, or 8 for a complete one.
  Targets.
  The task force has a variety of targets, most of which require some 
  investigation to find.
  * Front. A business the guild uses to launder money, have meet-
  ings, and keep an eye on an area. In Parity Lake, this might 
  be a shoe store, bookseller, seafood restaurant, bath house, 
  bar, brothel, etc. These are usually warehouses in Bosum 
  Strand, money-lenders in Central, and high-end boutiques in 
  North Shore. The Nettles doesn’t have enough commercial 
  activity to host any fronts.
  * Den of Thieves. Hang-out spot for members of the guild. 
  These will usually be bars or clubs, but sometimes they’re just 
  swanky homes with a good view.
  * Illicit Transaction. Meet-up where guild members commit 
  some major crime. Examples include smuggling magical 
  poisons in the linings of hats, selling stolen military muskets, 
  kidnapped women being charmed and magically altered 
  to look like elves, planning to assassinate an ombudsman, 
  wizard brought in to torture a captured cop for info, etc.
  Dirty Rats.
  The moles send word to Kell’s guild as soon as the task force is con-
  vened. Thereafter, each day choose one of the following effects for 
  each mole:
  •	 Misinformation 1. If the party has officers case an area, the 
  mole reports a juicy but false lead. If the party follows up on 
  that lead, their effort is wasted.
  •	 Misinformation 2. If the party sends out a scouting mission, 
  the mole either under- or over-reports the danger by half, to 
  lead the task force into a trap or waste its resources.
  •	 Tip Off 1. When the party sends out a Bust Up a Joint 
  mission or Sting mission, the mole warns those involved, and 
  when the task force shows up, no one is there.
  •	 Tip Off 2. When the party sends out an Assault mission, 
  the mole warns the guild so they can prepare their defenses. 
  Increase the number of defenders by half.
  •	 Cold-Blooded Murder. If none of the other options present 
  themselves, at night the mole kills a fellow cop and passes the 
  murder off as a Kell-guild assassination.
  When a mole sabotages the party, each PC who went on the mis-
  sion can make a DC 17 Wisdom (Insight) check to detect the mole. 
  Also, if the party gets suspicious, once per day each PC can make 
  a DC 18 Intelligence check with a +1 bonus for each previous sabo-
  taged mission, and on a success they figure out who one of the moles 
  is. The party might also use its own methods to catch moles, and 
  perhaps use the moles to feed false information to the guild.
  
  4 | EN5ider Presents: Cauldron-Born, Part Two
  Act One, Thread One: The Downfall of Kell
  * Stronghold. One of three well-defended compounds that 
  could easily repulse most police assaults. A fancy tower called 
  Grand Suites and a mansion dubbed Casa de Kell are both 
  in Parity Lake. The Nettles hosts a gated compound called 
  Machete Hill.
  * Theater of Scoundrels. The guild’s seat of power in eastern 
  Parity Lake.
  Missions.
  Each officer can be assigned one mission per day. Each mission has 
  a Minimum Officers and Optimal Officers entry, though sometimes 
  the party will need to scout to know these figures.
  * Case a District. Look for Kell-guild activity.
  * Scout. Watch a Front, Den of Thieves, Stronghold, or the 
  Theater to see how many hostiles are present.
  * Bust Up a Joint. Go into a Front or a Den of Thieves to look 
  for information. Success earns one Task Force Token at a 
  front, or two tokens at a den of thieves.
  * Sting. Swoop in during an Illicit Transaction. Success earns 
  1 Strike and a Task Force Token.
  * Assault. Attack a stronghold to earn 1 Strike. Attack the 
  Theater of Scoundrels to earn 3 Strikes.
  Going after the Theater of Scoundrels right away is foolhardy, since 
  the task force is outnumbered and moles in the task force would 
  spoil the attack. Waiting gives the party time to find the moles and 
  spoil the guild’s morale so people desert.
  A smarter course is to chip away at the organization around the 
  edges, frightening the guild members and driving some into hiding, 
  making for an easier takedown. Still, the timeline is tight. With 
  average skill rolls, it’s actually likely that the task force won’t man-
  age to reach 8 strikes.
  Party Involvement.
  The party might undertake a mission themselves, or lead a group of 
  officers. Each mission takes roughly 4 hours, once you factor in co-
  ordinating all the officers, getting into position, the mission itself, 
  then clean-up and interpretation of any info found. This will cut 
  into their time for the other threats facing the city. Each 7th level 
  PC counts as 8 extra officers when determining whether you have 
  the minimal or optimal amount.
  You can briefly narrate their involvement and have one PC roll 
  the appropriate check to determine the outcome, or you can play 
  through the scene normally, assembling a group of foes from 
  Appendix D: Kell-Guild Stats. The enemy forces are pretty weak 
  compared to the party, so feel free to go back to the brief version if 
  the players are bored with taking out pushovers.
  Skill Checks.
  Each mission calls for a skill check. If no PCs accompany the of-
  ficers on a mission, roll 1d20+5 for their skill check. If a PC does 
  come along, they can roll a check with their modifier instead.
  The check is made with disadvantage if the number of officers is 
  below Optimal but at least Minimum. If it’s below Minimum, there 
  is a –2 penalty as well. Using more officers than Optimal doesn’t 
  make things any easier. Particularly clever plans or usage of magic 
  might add +2 or grant advantage. The results of a successful mis-
  sion are detailed with each entry.
  Each mission calls for a second skill check to avoid a mishap. 
  Mishaps (as well as failures on some missions) lead to officers being 
  incapacitated. They might die, or just be injured enough that they 
  can’t help on further missions. A PC present on a mission can choose 
  to take 3d6 damage instead of having an officer be incapacitated.
  Task Force Tokens.
  Certain missions can earn Task Force Tokens. A token can be spent 
  to gain a +2 bonus on a skill check for a mission. This represents 
  things like getting insider information, letting criminals off if 
  they’ll rat on their colleagues, or persuading their friends to leave 
  town instead of fighting. Tokens must be spent before making the 
  roll, and they are each single-use.
  The Zeitgeist Player’s Guide suggests that each PC should have 
  contacts throughout the city. For each contact located in a given 
  district, the party starts with one token that can be spent in that 
  district.
  Favors.
  The party might use their Risur Prestige to call in favors and get 
  some military additions, or to get some officers to work even longer.
  For example, it’s a Level 2 favor to get 1 extra officer for a few 
  hours (long enough to send them on another mission), Level 3 for 
  4 officers, Level 4 for 12 officers, and Level 5 for 50 officers. For 
  military, it’s a Level 3 favor to get 1 soldier for a mission, Level 4 
  for 4 soldiers, and Level 5 for 12 soldiers.
  For the purpose of this mission, soldiers just count as normal 
  officers for the missions Case a District and Scout, but count as 4 
  officers each in other missions.
  See the Zeitgeist Player’s Guide for more information on 
  Prestige.
  Progress.
  The party realistically just has four days — from the 9th to the 
  12th — to locate Kell since the peace talks formally begin on the 
  13th. They want to rack up 8 strikes against Kell’s guild by then, 
  which will give them an opening to take him down (see Duke of 
  Slaughter, page 12).
  On their way to 8, these events occur:
  Kell Spooked. Kell starts in his Theater of Scoundrels, which 
  he thinks is unassailable. Realistically the party would be chewed 
  up by dozens of Kell’s thugs if they picked a fight here, and even 
  the whole task force would probably be driven back, at least at first.
  If the party manages to get three strikes against the guild, Kell 
  gets nervous. He leaves orders and pretends that he’s going hunting, 
  but in truth he and his two bodyguards make for a safe house in 
  northwestern Parity Lake. They travel while protected by invisibil-
  ity and nondetection, and are only on the road for fifteen minutes.
  They settle into the top floor of a four-story tenement, which has 
  a narrow but deep canal running past it (the better to leap into 
  as part of a getaway plan). Kate Glenn uses a wand of rope trick 
  so they can hide and fool divination. Three low-level toughs watch 
  
  EN5ider Presents: Cauldron-Born, Part Two | 5
  Act One, Thread One: The Downfall of Kell
  the entrance to the building and to the rope trick, and can quickly 
  signal if anything suspicious happens.
  Two other men act as messengers, going out at morning and 
  night to pick up or leave messages at a dead drop a few blocks away. 
  One of these men is Dester Rathnine, who’s actually on the Fam-
  ily’s payroll, and who can potentially help the party track Kell down 
  (page 7).
  The Family Interested. Additionally, when the party gets 
  to three strikes, the Family sees a chance to actually take out Kell. 
  This triggers the Enemy of My Enemy is My Family encounter 
  (page 7).
  Betrayal in the Ranks. Once the task force has racked up 
  6 strikes, Kell’s guild starts to get shaky. Enough people try to cut 
  deals with the party that they can easily figure out what safe house 
  Kell is hiding in, though actually getting him is a challenge.
  Break and Run. When the task force gets 8 strikes, Kell 
  becomes certain that the noose is closing around him. He sends out 
  the carriage created by his figurine of wondrous power as a decoy, 
  then slips away and runs to a spot the Ob told him to go in case of 
  an emergency. If he can evade the task force he gets a free trip to the 
  Bleak Gate, but first he sends a message to the RHC by targeting 
  the B-Team.
  Other Options.
  If the task force fails, the party might still be able to make a move 
  on Kell with the Family’s help (page 7).
  Mission Details.
  A player-appropriate version of the Task Force mini-game rules ap-
  pears in Appendix E.
  Case a District.
  The officers hit up contacts and try to figure out where Kell’s guild 
  has operations in a district. Each attempt targets one city district, 
  but the districts where Kell’s guild has a larger presence — Parity 
  Lake and The Nettles — are more dangerous. After this mission, it 
  is useful to Scout before sending in officers.
  * Minimum Officers: 2.
  * Optimal Officers: 6.
  * Check: DC 15 Charisma (Persuasion) or DC 13 Intelligence.
  * Success: The task force uncovers some operations in that 
  district, as detailed in the sidebar this page.
  * Failure: The task force learns nothing of value.
  * Mishap: Make a Charisma (Deception) check to avoid 
  drawing unwanted attention (DC 15 in Parity Lake or The 
  Nettles; DC 12 in Bosum Strand, Central District, or North 
  Shore). On a failure, ambush! One officer is incapacitated.
  Scout.
  Choose one location and send officers to figure out how dangerous 
  it is. Scouting itself can be dangerous, especially for a stronghold. 
  You cannot scout an illicit transaction.
  * Minimum Officers: 1.
  * Optimal Officers: 3.
  * Check: DC 20 Wisdom (Perception).
  * Success: The task force learns how many enemies are at a 
  location, and thus how many officers are required.
  * Failure: The task force learns nothing of value.
  * Mishap: Make a Dexterity (Stealth) check (DC 13 normally, 
  DC 15 at a Stronghold, DC 18 at the Theater). On a failure, 
  ambush! One officer is incapacitated.
  Mini-Game Training.
  To ease the party into the rules for the Task Force, you might have 
  a group briefing on the morning of the 9th, where Sergeant Macon 
  introduces the party to the task force. Macon explains that she has 
  taken the liberty of sending out two groups of 6 officers on Case a 
  District missions, one to Bosum Strand, the other to North Shore, to 
  see if they can start nibbling at the guild around its edges.
  Mark that 12 officers have been deployed today. Then roll the 
  Charisma (Persuasion) checks for those two missions (d20+5 vs. DC 
  15), and the Charisma (Deception) check to avoid trouble (d20+5 vs. 
  DC 12). Determine the officers’ findings.
  Afterward, Sergeant Macon suggests sending some scouts to 
  keep an eye on any locations they found, and recommends each 
  group should consist of 3 officers. Mark those down and roll to deter-
  mine their success (or let the PCs roll on their behalf), and then let 
  the players take the reins from there. Don’t have any moles sabotage 
  these initial missions.
  Kell’s Operations.
  The party starts off knowing the location of the Theater of Scoun-
  drels and the three strongholds—The Grand, Casa de Kell, and 
  Machete Hill. The Case a District mission gives the party the loca-
  tion of some of Kell’s fronts and hang-outs, as well as the times of 
  illicit transactions.
  Bosum Strand, Central District, or North Shore. Success un-
  covers one operation. Roll on the table below to determine the type, 
  and secretly roll to determine how many hostiles will be present.
   1d6 
  Result
   1–3 
  Front. 1d4+1 hostiles are present.
   4–5 
  Den of Thieves. 1d8+1 hostiles are present.
   6 
  Illicit Transaction. 1d12+4 hostiles are present.
  Parity Lake. As above, but success uncovers 1d4+2 operations.
  The Nettles. As above, but success uncovers 1d4 operations. Re-
  roll any fronts, since there’s not enough commercial activity in this 
  district to support them.
  
  6 | EN5ider Presents: Cauldron-Born, Part Two
  Act One, Thread One: The Downfall of Kell
  Bust Up a Joint.
  Officers target a Front or a Den of Thieves, looking for clues. 
  Fronts are typically less well-guarded, but Dens of Thieves yield 
  better information. Since the task force is likely to hit up multiples 
  of these, be sure to narrate enough details about the locations so 
  they feel distinctive.
  * Minimum Officers: Equal to the number of hostiles.
  * Optimal Officers: Three times the number of hostiles.
  * Check: DC 20 Charisma (Intimidation) to get hostiles to 
  surrender.
  * Success: The task force arrests or kills all the hostiles, and 
  suffers no casualties.
  * Failure: The task force suffers casualties equal to half the 
  number of hostiles, and takes out a number of hostiles equal 
  to the number of officers sent in.
  * Mishap: Spice things up by requiring a DC 15 check to avoid 
  some complication — Charisma (Persuasion) or Charisma (In-
  timidation) to get bystanders out of the way to avoid innocent 
  deaths, Dexterity (thieves’ tools) to keep a trap from killing 
  officers, Wisdom (Insight) to avoid piling too many people 
  into an unsteady building in the Nettles, etc. A failure results 
  in 1d8 good guys incapacitated.
  * Consequence: Regardless of the result of the skill check, if 
  the task force takes out all the hostiles and has at least one 
  survivor, it earns a Task Force Token. At a Den of Thieves, 
  victory yields two tokens instead.
  If all the officers sent are incapacitated without taking out 
  the hostiles, the hostiles execute the officers.
  Sting.
  Officers target an Illicit Transaction, with the goal of disrupting 
  Kell’s business and taking out his men. You cannot scout for a Sting, 
  so there’s greater danger of committing the wrong number of officers.
  Mechanically, a sting works like “Bust Up a Joint.” If the task 
  force takes out all the hostiles and has at least one survivor, it earns 
  a Task Force Token and earns one Strike toward locating Kell.
  After the task force has successfully stung three Illicit Transac-
  tions, the guild gets skittish and cancels all other big meet-ups for 
  the near future. Thus, Stings can only earn a total of 3 Strikes.
  Assault Stronghold.
  Officers storm one of the strongholds — the Grand Suites, Casa de 
  Kell, or Machete Hill. Success takes out part of the guild’s leader-
  ship and seizes a huge chunk of its assets. Mechanically, an assault 
  works like a Sting, but with many more hostiles. Each stronghold 
  that is taken out earns the task force a Strike.
  * Grand Suites. 30 hostiles. DC 20 Charisma (Intimidation) 
  check to force surrender. Gunmen watch from the upper win-
  dows of this fancy six-story tower. Underground tunnels let 
  the hostiles flee to the sewers. If a first attack is rebuffed, the 
  1d6 replacement hostiles arrive per day through the tunnels.
  Scouting discovers the tunnels. If the task force either 
  blocks the escape or attacks through the tunnels, they have 
  advantage on their Charisma (Intimidation) check. Blocking 
  also prevents reinforcements.
  * Casa de Kell. 22 hostiles. DC 20 Charisma (Intimidation) 
  check to force surrender. Scouting reveals that this old 
  mansion is surrounded by machinery factories and that traps 
  fill the hallways. During an attack, make a DC 15 Dexterity 
  (thieves’ tools check) to avoid an extra 1d8 deaths.
  * Machete Hill. Counts as 21 hostiles. If the party didn’t take 
  down Rufus Hammerton, he’s here, and  the effective total is 
  25 hostiles. DC 20 Charisma (Intimidation) forces surrender.
  This gated compound has several squat buildings with 
  quaint shuttered windows, laid out at angles so attackers 
  entering the gate have to pass through a crossfire of cannons. 
  Yes, cannons, and they’re loaded with small shards of metal 
  as grapeshot, since they’re being used at close range.
  Scouting discovers the cannons, which can be neutralized 
  with a careful advance behind tower shields, or by attacking 
  through the gates. Otherwise, the task force suffers 2d6 
  deaths at the start of the mission, before they make the 
  Charisma (Intimidation) check.
  Assault Theater of Scoundrels.
  The task force takes on the seat of Kell’s guild, a tattered theater 
  that has been renovated into a killing gallery, guarded by 100 
  hostiles in the theater and nearby buildings. A DC 22 Charisma 
  (Intimidation) check forces a surrender, but they definitely refuse 
  to admit defeat as long as Kell is present. As noted above, he goes 
  into hiding after the task force accumulates 3 strikes.
  Once Kell leaves, for every other stronghold the task force has 
  taken out, 20 of the hostiles desert because of low morale. At best, 
  the party only has to deal with 30 hostiles.
  A success here counts as 3 Strikes, though the party would be 
  wise to acquire Task Force Tokens first. Smart, callous players will 
  just burn this place down with all the criminals inside. Maybe pull 
  the arson brothers Eberardo and Valando out of prison for the job. 
  Doing so still requires getting close enough, though, and the hos-
  tiles aren’t just in the theater, but in all the surrounding buildings.
  Capture Quentin Augst.
  This is a bit more involved than a simple task force mission. See At-
  torney of Scoundrels, below. But if successful it counts as 2 Strikes 
  against Kell’s guild.
  Quentin Augst. Lorcan Kell’s lawyer, and 
  the guy who handles the guild’s affairs. Augst 
  started off just representing Kell’s toughs in court, 
  but eventually grew frustrated with the guild’s in-
  efficiency and promised Kell he could make both of 
  them a lot richer if he could handle logistics.
  Augst home in North Shore is maintained by 
  his half-elf handmaiden, who has looked after his 
  children ever since Augst’s wife died several years ago in a tragic fire—a fire 
  Augst set when his wife realized his criminal connections.
  A fan of opera, Augst usually sticks to Central District, where his friends 
  know him as a bookish teetotaler who has to be dragged from his home simply 
  to play polo. Though the guild members think he’s weak, he makes sure every-
  one gets paid well, which engenders more respect than stabbing a back-talker 
  ever could.
  
  EN5ider Presents: Cauldron-Born, Part Two | 7
  Act One, Thread One: The Downfall of Kell
  Enemy of My Enemy Is 
  My Family
  Social. Real-Time.
  The Family can help get Kell.
  A few hours after the task force reaches three strikes against 
  Kell, a letter is dropped off at the RHC headquarters, or might be 
  delivered to the party by a courier if the PCs are too busy to stop 
  by base.
  I have men in your organization that tell me Lorcan Kell is priority one. I 
  have men in Kell’s organization who can deliver him to you. Meet me at 
  the Brave Hall fashion show, corner of Yearling and Healers in Central 
  this afternoon, and we can make a deal.
  —Morgan Cippiano
  The fashion show is going on all week, every evening. Alternately, 
  the party might think to approach the Family themselves, in which 
  case Morgan will meet them wherever they suggest, confident they 
  won’t betray him.
  Dressed to Kill.
  Brave Hall is a stodgy gentleman’s club intended for men from 
  aristocratic families, though they have started allowing men and 
  women with newly acquired fortunes in on a provisional basis. Ev-
  eryone is in coats and top hats, drinking brandy and smoking cigars 
  as they watch handsome young men and waifish women parade 
  about in unorthodox fashion like seersucker suits, denim pants, and 
  a huge variety of sashes which, Morgan is confident, will just be a 
  passing trend.
  Morgan has no great reason for meeting here, other than that 
  he’d already scheduled it and figured it might motivate the party to 
  dress nicer. He asks them out to a balcony for fresh air, and talks 
  business while looking at the sunset across Flint Bay.
  You Actually Can Refuse This Offer.
  His offer is simple. He will have his man who has infiltrated Kell’s 
  guild give the crime boss an excuse to leave his hiding spot — most 
  likely a fake meeting with Kell’s contact to the Obscurati, a man 
  who goes by the name Norm. Yes, Morgan says, he’s got some in-
  kling about Kell’s involvement with the group, though he hopes the 
  party knows more about them than he does, because he can’t find 
  out much of anything.
  Morgan’s man will report back with the route Kell will take, and 
  it will be up to the party to take him down. Morgan recommends 
  enlisting some of the locals to be ready to protest or riot in order 
  to cut off certain roads and funnel Kell where they want him. Mor-
  gan’s suggestion is one of the bridges along Stanfield Canal, where 
  Kell won’t be able to slip down alleys to escape.
  What does he want in exchange?
  First, a moratorium on murder investigations in Parity Lake, at 
  least for a few weeks. It’s dirty business, but this city deserves a 
  better class of criminal. If his people don’t cull the ranks of Kell’s 
  thugs, there’ll just be another round of street wars in a few years. 
  He’ll practically be doing the city a favor, and he doesn’t want his 
  people getting locked up for it.
  Second, a prisoner release. Morgan reminds them that his ‘fam-
  ily’ originates in Crisillyir. Though he doesn’t like to get involved in 
  politics, he promised a relative that he’d help out a family friend if 
  he could. That friend is one Giovanni Algardi.
  The party remember him as an aged sculptor nicknamed “The 
  Carver” provided they succeed on a DC 13 Intelligence (History) 
  check. It eventually was discovered that he could animate his stat-
  ues to assassinate people inside their own exquisitely-carved homes. 
  Algardi confessed to the murders of several Risuri nobles, but in-
  ternational politics has kept him from the gallows for three years.
  Morgan wants him released and teleported tomorrow to Alais 
  Primos, capital of Crisillyir. Family members there will contact 
  Morgan via sending to verify the delivery.
  Finally (and you can skip this if it doesn’t apply to the party), 
  Morgan asks what Ashima-Shimtu told them. The party likely met 
  with the imprisoned demoness several months ago, in Adventure 
  Four, Always on Time. Morgan wants to know whether they made 
  a deal with her. If pressed on how he knows about this, he just says 
  that word travels fast when people land on islands that have been 
  cursed for centuries.
  Good Faith.
  To show he is well-intentioned, Morgan offers them a free bit of 
  information. The man in charge of the Obscurati facility here in 
  Flint is Leone Quital, known as the “Steelshaper.” Morgan reiter-
  ates that he doesn’t know much about the actual group, but word 
  has gotten around of the man making an appearance in The Nettles 
  a few months ago, and he’s distinctive enough that Morgan was able 
  to find out who he is.
  Morgan says that Leone is supposed to be able to control metal 
  with his mind, to bend, break, or levitate it with ease. He doesn’t 
  know if it will be of much help in the current mission, but he can 
  also give the party the location of the Quital family estate, north-
  east of Vendricce.
  Making a Deal.
  On their own, the party cannot hope to get either the moratorium 
  or the prisoner release, but if they ask the king he’ll back their deci-
  sion. He has misgivings about releasing the Carver, though. It’s a 
  judgment call for the party whether they’ll be able to nab Kell on 
  their own, or if they need to accept Morgan’s offer.
  As for Morgan’s third request, if the party shares the details of 
  their encounter with Ashima-Shimtu he doesn’t seem fazed at all. 
  Morgan Cippiano. Morgan Cippiano heads 
  the local branch of the Family crime syndicate, 
  based out of Crisillyir. Though gruff-voiced and 
  cocky, Morgan has an unusual fascination with 
  fashion. He rejects trends, but has a good eye for 
  classical styles that people of any culture can ap-
  preciate. He hopes some day to be seen as a father 
  figure to his community, but for now he’s willing to smash a few heads and 
  order a few throats slit in order to clear out the competition.
  
  8 | EN5ider Presents: Cauldron-Born, Part Two
  Act One, Thread One: The Downfall of Kell
  He’ll thank them for doing business, then go back to the show. After 
  it’s over, he’ll pass it along via sending to his contacts in the clergy 
  back in Crisillyir.
  Man on the Inside.
  If the party agrees, a few hours after Morgan gets word that 
  Giovanni made it home safely, the RHC is visited by Morgan’s man 
  on the inside, Dester Rathtine. Scruffy, dressed like a common 
  pickpocket but packing a pair of finely-crafted concealed daggers, 
  Dester is cheeky, chatty, and a little arrogant. He’s been a low-level 
  street enforcer for Kell for years, but was recruited a few months 
  ago by the Family as a double agent. Now he’s one of the trusted 
  runners who deliver information between Kell and his guild while 
  he’s in hiding.
  Dester tells the party where Kell is hiding, about his bodyguards, 
  and that he has mentioned a few times his “escape plan,” which 
  Dester thinks will let him teleport, but that he can only use once. If 
  the RHC tries to assault him, he’ll almost certainly be able to get 
  away. He’d have used his ace in the hole, but it might take days to 
  find him again.
  What Dester thinks will work better is if he tells Kell that “the 
  other guys” (by which he means the Obscurati) have agreed to get 
  him to safety, and want to meet him. Dester suggests a bar on the 
  south side of the Nida Street Bridge, along the Stanfield Canal, at 3 
  in the morning. The RHC could then whip up some sort of ritual to 
  block Kell’s get-away plan, and place it on the bridge, which would 
  be deserted at that time of night.
  The party can call upon Principal Minister Harkover Lee to per-
  form a ritual akin to dimensional shackles on the bridge, blanketing 
  a 100-foot radius in magic that prevents all methods of extradimen-
  sional movement (including teleportation or travel to a different 
  plane of existence). See Duke of Slaughter (page 12) for how Kell 
  reacts.
  Sunset Bench*
  Social. Real-Time. Level 8.
  The B-Team escorts Brakken and some dignitaries to one of Kell’s 
  fronts.
  On the evening of the 10th of Spring, Brakken decides to take 
  dignitaries from both Risur and Danor out for a night on the 
  town, hoping that some fun will form bonds. The B-Team escorts 
  the group from Hotel Aurum to a fancy club in North Shore, the 
  Sunset Bench.
  The outing consists of Brakken, Geoff Massarde (Risur-allied 
  tiefling engineer), and Captain Rosalyn Taylor (representative 
  from Danor’s navy). The B-Team acts as bodyguards for all of them. 
  Brakken leaves Feroz at the consulate, saying, “In Ber, you never 
  bring your bear to a bar.”
  These NPCs reappear at the banquet in Part Two (included in 
  Cauldron Born Part 3), but this scene and a few others with the B-
  Team gives the GM an opportunity to introduce them to the players, 
  so a half-dozen new NPCs don’t need to be presented all at once at 
  the banquet. The short version goes like this:
  * Geoff Massarde. Tiefling lush who helped build the Risuri 
  flagship Coaltongue. Strong advocate for technology and rec-
  onciliation. Drinks too much and hits on women. Has a wand 
  that can chill things with a touch, which he uses to make ice.
  * Captain Rosalyn Taylor. One-eyed redheaded captain of 
  Freux Rouge, Danor’s last sail-powered warship. Old-fash-
  ioned, high-spirited, and responsible.
  A Very Important Mission.
  When Brakken brings up the outing with the B-Team, he claims 
  he needs their help for what might be the most important part of 
  the peace talks: making sure everyone has a good time at a club. 
  Depending on your party’s enthusiasm for the B-Team, you might 
  breeze through this scene, or let them treat it as a mission to get the 
  two sides to be friendly.
  Busy Night.
  Sunset Bench is a truly fine establishment, on the ground floor of 
  a five-level building with apartments for two dozen wealthy occu-
  pants. Every hall and room is gently lit by colored glass sculptures 
  that have light spells active within. Beyond the foyer and its coat/
  sword check, the main room of the club is circular, two hundred 
  feet across, with a sunken central area and small private cubbies 
  dotting the outer walls. At the far of the sunken area, spot lights 
  illuminate the stage, behind which a curtain leads to the kitchens, 
  dressing rooms, and storage. On the near side by the entrance, glass 
  shelves loaded with various alcohols line the wall behind the bar.
  The club is hosting the last night of a week-long tour starring 
  local celebrity Rock Rackus. A band backs him up as he sings, nar-
  rates, and jokes about his many exploits across the world. He might 
  even have a bit about the main PCs, if they interacted with him 
  before. Brakken reads Rock’s thoughts and is enthralled that the 
  man’s wild claims are actually true.
  Also present tonight but keeping a low profile is Quentin Augst, 
  who is meeting a representative of the Obscurati — a non-descript 
  Risuri man who goes by Norm (actual name: Sylyx). Augst is trying 
  to bargain for help from the conspiracy, and the desperation in his 
  voice is slowly convincing Norm that they’ll need to kill the lawyer 
  before he can talk to the authorities.
  When the B-Team enters the club, with a DC 22 Wisdom (Percep-
  tion) check they might recognize Augst in a corner of the crowded 
  club, which could give them a chance to eavesdrop or make a move 
  on the man, though he does have bodyguards lingering nearby in 
  the crowd. If the constables succeed on a DC 13 Dexterity (Stealth) 
  check can get close enough without attracting attention, they hear 
  the Ob rep offer an escape route to the Bleak Gate for Kell and a few 
  of his lieutenants, but he can’t send any forces.
  Tip Your Servers.
  Unless the constables suggest otherwise, Brakken takes a table 
  near the stage, psychically nudging the current occupants to leave 
  and make room.
  After half an hour, Rack takes a break to let his band get some 
  drinks, and he makes a point to remind everyone that this is his 
  more casual show, put on by the greatest venue in the city, Sunset 
  
  EN5ider Presents: Cauldron-Born, Part Two | 9
  Act One, Thread One: The Downfall of Kell
  Bench. But if you want to slum it a bit, he’ll be headlining the 
  Navras Opera House tomorrow night. After that he hops off the 
  stage to hobnob with the crowd.
  Wishing to hear more of Rock’s tales, Brakken enlists Geoff and 
  Rosalyn to go with him to meet the man. Shortly after they get up, 
  the discussion between Augst and Norm gets heated, with Augst 
  snapping at a waitress who comes by to offer them drinks, then 
  yelling, “We’re not running. That’s just throwing money away! We 
  need firepower, not a damn escape route! And because you couldn’t 
  just shut up and agree, now I’ve missed half the show!”
  Norm tells Augst to calm down, but instead Augst gestures to 
  his bodyguards and storms out. If Augst leaves unaccosted, Norm 
  finishes his drink and follows a minute later.
  Making a Move.
  If Augst realizes the constables are onto him, he’ll leave in a hurry. 
  If confronted, he looks at his men meaningfully, and suggests the 
  two groups take things outside so no innocents get hurt. Then, just 
  as he nears the exit, he says, “Do it, please.” One of his bodyguards 
  pulls out a flask of alchemist fire and chucks it at the shelves of 
  liquor behind the bar. Flame bursts across the wall, and the crowd 
  begins to panic.
  Augst and the Ob Rep
  •	 Quentin Augst
  •	 Norm, Obscurati liaison
  •	 3 Kell-guild pistoleers
  •	 4 Kell-guild scoundrels
  Quentin Augst
  Medium humanoid (human), neutral evil
  Armor Class 14 (studded leather)
  Hit Points 36 (8d8)
  Speed 30 ft.
   STR 
  DEX 
  CON 
  INT 
  WIS 
  CHA 
   8 (–1) 
  15 (+1) 
  10 (+0) 
  17 (+3) 
  13 (+1) 
  14 (+2)
  Saving Throws wis +3
  Skills Deception +6, History +5, Insight +5, Intimidation +4, Investiga-
  tion +5, Persuasion +4
  Senses passive Perception 11
  Languages Common, Dwarvish, Giant, Primordial
  Challenge 1 (200 XP)
  Eyes of Charming (3 charges). Augst can expend 1 charge as an action 
  to cast the charm person spell (save DC 13) on a humanoid within 30 
  feet of him, provided that he and the target can see each other. The 
  lenses regain all expended charges daily at dawn.
  Actions
  Multiattack. Augst attacks twice.
  Dagger. Melee or Ranged Weapon Attack: +3 to hit, reach 5 ft. or range 
  20/40 ft., one target. Hit: 4 (1d4+2) piercing damage.
  Alchemist’s Fire (3). Ranged Weapon Attack: +3 to hit, range 20 ft., 
  one target. Hit: 2 (1d4) fire damage, and the target takes 2 (1d4) fire 
  damage at the start of each of its turns. A creature can end this dam-
  age by using its action to make a DC 10 Dexterity check to extinguish 
  the flames.
  Norm, Obscurati Liaison
  Medium humanoid (human), lawful evil sorcerer (shadow) 6
  Armor Class 14 (mage armor)
  Hit Points 33 (6d6+12)
  Speed 30 ft.
   STR 
  DEX 
  CON 
  INT 
  WIS 
  CHA 
   12 (+1) 
  13 (+1) 
  14 (+2) 
  12 (+1) 
  12 (+1) 
  16 (+3)
  Saving Throws con +5, cha +6
  Skills Arcana +4, Deception +6, Insight +4, Stealth +4
  Senses passive Perception 11
  Languages Common, Primordial
  Challenge 4 (1,100 XP)
  Obscurati Wand. Norm keeps a special wand stashed in his apartment 
  that he can use to complete transition to the Bleak Gate after using 
  the canal path (see below).
  Sorcery Points (6/long rest). Norm can use sorcery points to gain 
  additional spell slots, or sacrifice spell slots to gain additional sorcery 
  points.
  Creating Spell Slots & Sorcery Points. As a bonus action on his 
  turn, Norm can expend one spell slot and either gain a number 
  of sorcerer points equal to the slot’s level or create a spell slot by 
  expending sorcery points (1st-level—2 points, 2nd-level—3 points, 
  3rd-level—5 points).
  Metamagic: Subtle Spell. When Norm casts a spell, he can spend 1 
  sorcery point to cast it without any somatic or verbal components.
  Metamagic: Twinned Spell. When Norm casts a spell that targets 
  only one creature and doesn’t have a range of self, he can spend 
  a number of sorcery points equal to the spell’s level to target a 
  second creature in range with the same spell (1 sorcery point if the 
  spell is a cantrip). To be eligible for Twinned Spell, a spell must be 
  incapable of targeting more than one creature at the spell’s current 
  level.
  Shadow Eyes. Norm can spend 2 sorcery points as an action to cast 
  darkness and he is able to see through it. He can also use a spell slot 
  to cast darkness but when doing so it functions normally (and he is 
  unable to see through it).
  Shadow Hound. Norm can spend 3 sorcery points as a bonus action to 
  conjure a shadow hound. The shadow hound targets one creature he 
  can see within 120 feet and it uses the statistics of a dire wolf with 
  the following changes:
  * The shadow hound is Medium sized and has 3 temporary hit points 
  when conjured.
  * The hound treats other creatures and objects as difficult terrain 
  but takes 5 force damage if it ends its turn inside an object.
  * The hound innately knows the location of its target at the start of 
  its turn (a hidden target ceases to be hidden to the hound).
    
  Norm conjures the shadow hound in an unoccupied space within 
  30 feet of the target and it rolls its own initiative. The shadow hound 
  always uses its turn to move in the most direct route towards its 
  target and uses its action to attack the target, only taking opportunity 
  attacks against the target and no other creatures.
    
  In addition, the target has disadvantage when making saving 
  throws against Norm’s spells if the shadow hound is within 5 feet of it.
    
  When 5 minutes have passed, it is reduced to 0 hit points, or its 
  target is reduced to 0 hit points, the shadow hound disappears.
  
  10 | EN5ider Presents: Cauldron-Born, Part Two
  Act One, Thread One: The Downfall of Kell
  Spellcasting. Norm is a 6th-level spellcaster that uses Charisma as 
  his spellcasting ability (spell save DC 14; +6 to hit with spell attacks). 
  Norm has the following spells prepared from the sorcerer’s spell list:
  Cantrips: acid splash, mage hand, ray of frost, shocking grasp, true 
  strike
  1st level (4 slots): detect magic, disguise self, mage armor
  2nd level (3 slots): darkvision, invisibility, suggestion, web
  3rd level (3 slots): none
  ACTIONS
  Dagger. Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft. or thrown 20/60 ft., 
  one target. Hit: 3 (1d4+1) piercing damage.
  Kell-Guild Pistoleer
  Medium humanoid (human), chaotic neutral
  Armor Class 14 (studded leather)
  Hit Points 33 (6d8+6)
  Speed 30 ft.
   STR 
  DEX 
  CON 
  INT 
  WIS 
  CHA 
   14 (+2) 
  15 (+2) 
  13 (+1) 
  10 (+0) 
  8 (–1) 
  12 (+1)
  Saving Throws Str +4, Dex +4
  Skills Athletics +6, Acrobatics +4, Deception +3, Perception +3, 
  Stealth +4
  Senses passive Perception 13
  Languages Common, Primordial
  Challenge 1 (200 XP)
  Grappler. The Kell-Guild Pistoleer has advantage on attack rolls against 
  a creature they are grappling and they can use an action to try to pin 
  a creature they’ve grappled. To do so, the Kell-Guild Pistoleer makes 
  another grapple check. If they succeed, the Kell-Guild Pistoleer and 
  the creature are both restrained until the grapple ends.
  Strangler. When the Kell-Guild Pistoleer starts their turn grappling a 
  creature, the creature they are grappling takes Sneak Attack.
  Sneak Attack (1/turn). The Kell-Guild Pistoleer deals an extra 3 (1d6) 
  damage when they hit a target with a weapon attack and has advan-
  tage on the attack roll, or when the target is within 5 feet of an ally 
  of the Kell-Guild Pistoleer that isn’t incapacitated and the Kell-Guild 
  Pistoleer doesn’t have disadvantage on the attack roll.
  Actions
  Shortsword. Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. 
  Hit: 5 (1d6+2) piercing damage.
  Broken Pistol (10 bullets). Ranged Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, range 
  30/60 ft., one target. Hit: 6 (1d8+2) piercing damage.
  Kell-Guild Scoundrels
  Medium humanoid (human), chaotic neutral
  Armor Class 15 (studded leather, dual wielder)
  Hit Points 33 (6d8+6)
  Speed 30 ft.
   STR 
  DEX 
  CON 
  INT 
  WIS 
  CHA 
   14 (+2) 
  15 (+2) 
  13 (+1) 
  10 (+0) 
  8 (–1) 
  12 (+1)
  Saving Throws Str +4, Dex +4
  Skills Acrobatics +4, Animal Handling +3, Deception +3, Intimidation 
  +3, Perception +1, Stealth +6
  Senses passive Perception 11
  Languages Common, Primordial
  Challenge 1 (200 XP)
  Sneak Attack (1/turn). The Kell-Guild Scoundrel deals an extra 3 
  (1d6) damage when they hit a target with a weapon attack and has 
  advantage on the attack roll, or when the target is within 5 feet of 
  an ally of the Kell-Guild Scoundrel that isn’t incapacitated and the 
  Kell-Guild Scoundrel doesn’t have disadvantage on the attack roll.
  Actions
  Extra Attack. The Kell-Guild Scoundrel attacks twice.
  Shortswords (2). Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one 
  target. Hit: 5 (1d6+2) piercing damage.
  Alchemist’s Fire (2). Ranged Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, range 20 ft., 
  one target. Hit: 2 (1d4) fire damage, and the target takes 2 (1d4) fire 
  damage at the start of each of its turns. A creature can end this dam-
  age by using its action to make a DC 10 Dexterity check to extinguish 
  the flames.
  Tanglefoot Bag (2). Ranged Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, range 20/60 
  ft., one target. Hit: The target becomes covered in hardening sap and 
  must succeed a DC 10 Strength check or gain the grappled condition. 
  At the start of each of its turns, the target receives another check to 
  remove the grappled condition. The sap can also be destroyed (AC 13, 
  6 hp).
  Tactics.
  The pistoleers grapple anyone who gets adjacent to their boss, but 
  otherwise shoot to keep the constables at bay. Any shots that miss 
  almost certainly strike someone in the club. The scoundrels gang up 
  on vulnerable PCs to take them down, and shout at the constables 
  to back off if they don’t want anyone to die. The B-Team is likely 
  outmatched here, and if given a chance, Augst and his men make 
  a run for it.
  If that’s not feasible, such as if the constables called in back-up, 
  Augst chucks his own alchemist fire, then pulls out his wand of 
  charm person.
  Norm silently casts disguise self then hides in the crowd and 
  watches, but if it looks like Augst is about to be captured he might 
  get involved (he’ll be relying on the fact that onlookers will be too 
  focused on the ruckus with Augst to notice Norm standing there 
  and wiggling his fingers casting spells). Once Augst is down, Norm 
  will shock him again to make sure the man is dead. This won’t stop 
  the party from speaking with his corpse or spirit, but it should re-
  duce what they can get out of him.
  If Augst and his crew successfully get away, Norm will suggest to 
  his superiors that the lawyer needs to be silenced.
  Lorcan Kell. The grizzled Kell grew up an en-
  forcer for local gangs and eventually murdered his way 
  into a position of leadership. Now he feigns gentility, 
  dressing in elegant clothing that conceals no less than 
  eight blades at any time. 
  Kell is unpredictable and hot-headed, confident he 
  can kill anyone who’s a threat. He possesses a great 
  knack for instilling loyalty in intelligent minions who 
  can run operations for him. His guild’s recent work with the Obscurati earned 
  him a nice variety of magical toys, and as the turf war with the Family heats 
  up, the Ob have promised him more aid to keep him loyal.
  
  EN5ider Presents: Cauldron-Born, Part Two | 11
  Act One, Thread One: The Downfall of Kell
  Follow-Up.
  If captured, Augst tries to cut a deal: a reduced sentence in exchange 
  for information. This provides ten Task Force Tokens for the main 
  party’s efforts against the guild, and also counts as 2 Strikes.
  Additionally, Augst knows the five arcane signs that are required 
  to activate the rusted ring gates along Stanfield Canal. When the 
  guild smuggled materials to “the guys on the other side,” as he 
  puts it, they would mark crates or objects as they were loaded onto 
  barges going down the canal in the real world. Though the Ob were 
  secretive, Augst figured out that each bridge had ring of rusted 
  metal worked into its stone on the underside, and the sigils were 
  linked to each gate. As the barge went under the bridges one by one, 
  each gate would draw the marked item more fully into the Bleak 
  Gate. Eventually the item would shift fully over, disappear from 
  the barge, and plunge into the canal, where he assumes it would be 
  recovered by the other side’s men.
  One time he did a test, marking an empty box with the five signs, 
  and sending it on a barge when the Ob were not expecting a de-
  livery. The box did disappear from the barge briefly, but the crew 
  spotted it floating in the water behind the ship and recovered it. 
  Augst isn’t sure if somehow the Ob can turn their gates on and off, 
  or if there’s some extra process at the end that’s required to make 
  the transition permanent.
  It’s the latter, by the way. When the Ob expect a shipment, a 
  team waits at the end of the Bleak Gate analogue of the canal, then 
  casts a minor spell from a wand on each object (or person) coming 
  through. If they don’t cast the spell, the object slips back to reality 
  after a few minutes. Norm has one of these wands, which he uses 
  to slip back and forth on his missions, but he keeps it stashed in his 
  apartment in North Shore.
  Augst can share these signs, which can get the party mostly to 
  the Bleak Gate. Capturing Norm gives them a chance to get his 
  wand (he also knows the arcane sigils), which would complete the 
  deal. See Canal Route (see Pick Your Team in Act Three, Expedi-
  tion to the Bleak Gate) if they try this method.
  Dead Lawyer.
  If Augst dies, it only counts as a single Strike, plus maybe one token 
  if the party can use magic to interrogate his corpse and asks the 
  right questions.
  Escaped Lawyer.
  If Augst gets away, Brakken comes to the constables and tells them 
  that he overheard someone muttering, “We’ll have to kill him be-
  fore he talks.” He actually just noted it telepathically, since it was 
  one of the strongest thoughts in the room.
  Norm will follow Augst, waiting for him to leave himself ex-
  posed without his bodyguards. Augst, though, is loath to run when 
  he thinks he can salvage things. He holes up in his home and keeps 
  sending runners out to try to coordinate with the guild.
  After a few hours, Norm comes up with a plan. He knows Augst’s 
  fondness for opera, and recalls Rock Rackus mentioning that he’d 
  be performing the next evening (Spring 11). So he purchases box 
  seats for Augst and his children, enchants the tickets with a subtle 
  suggestion, and has them delivered to Augst’s house in the morning, 
  with a fake note from Rock Rackus asking him to come.
  Augst obeys the suggestion and attends, along with his children. 
  He travels in a pair of carriages, never far from his bodyguards. 
  But once he’s at the opera house he asks his guards to wait outside 
  the box. Norm has tickets for the next box over, discreet enough 
  that no one will see him casting, and close enough to kill the law-
  yer with his favorite spell, shocking grasp.
  Of course, if the B-Team or the party or their task force put in 
  much effort, they can probably get enough manpower to swoop in 
  and capture Augst before Norm gets a chance to assassinate him 
  (treat this as an Assault or Sting against 8 hostiles), but smart 
  parties might wait for the Ob to make their move, in order to get 
  more information. Indeed, if the party does capture Augst, they 
  might use him as bait to draw out the Obscurati.
  
  12 | EN5ider Presents: Cauldron-Born, Part Two
  Act One, Thread One: The Downfall of Kell
  Duke of Slaughter
  Action. Tactical. Level 11.
  The party tries to capture Lorcan Kell.
  There are a couple of ways this can go down. Note that stats for 
  Kell-guild foes appear in Appendix D.
  Kell’s Team
  •	 Lorcan Kell
  •	 Kate Glenn
  •	 Nick Reder
  •	 3 Kell-guild veteran pistoleers
  Task Force Failure.
  If the party gets five or fewer strikes against Kell’s guild, they’re 
  unable to put enough pressure on Kell to leave his hiding spot, and 
  they don’t gather enough intelligence to figure out where he is. 
  On the afternoon of the 12th, a representative of the Ob informs 
  Kell via sending that they’ll get him out if he’s willing to work for 
  them. Kell agrees, but wants to send a message before he leaves 
  behind his guild.
  Kell and his bodyguards leave the safe house at 3:00 am on the 
  13th, track down the B-Team, and kill them. See Massacre below. 
  He and his bodyguards show up later in the Cauldron Hill complex.
  Task Force Partial Victory.
  If the party gets six strikes against Kell’s guild, they’re able to fig-
  ure out where he’s holed up. The party has a chance to catch him, 
  but he has a massive advantage because of his gatecrasher charm. 
  See Safe House Raid, below.
  The Ob still have agents in the RHC and police, and so if Kell 
  manages to escape the party here, the Ob track him down and bring 
  him to the Cauldron Hill complex. As above, he likely goes after the 
  B-Team first, unless he’s been substantially injured.
  Task Force Victory.
  With eight strikes, Kell sees his empire destroyed, his allies falling 
  or turning against him. The Ob don’t want to be dragged into the 
  conflict, though they will help him if he can get to safety.
  The party learns where Kell is hiding and have time to make 
  some sort of plan. Enough members of his guild turn on him that 
  the party should be aware of his gatecrasher charm, and they likely 
  concoct a plan to let him run and then ambush him at a spot that 
  blocks all methods of extradimensional movement (including tele-
  portation or travel to a different plane of existence). Most likely is 
  that he’s tricked into fleeing at 3:00 am on the 13th, and his route 
  will lead him into an ambush. See Road Ambush (page 13).
  Family Assistance?
  If the party takes Morgan Cippiano’s offer for help, things look 
  similar to the Road Ambush scenario. However, if there are still 
  moles in the task force, the moles warn Kell that Dester Rathnine is 
  a turncoat. Kell turns the party’s ambush against them. See Cruel 
  Variant (page 13).
  Massacre.
  There are several scenarios where Kell avoids being caught. He 
  might trick them into chasing his carriage (with a thug inside 
  dressed like him as a decoy), or he might use his gatecrasher charm 
  to outrun the task force, or they might simply never get close 
  enough to him. In these scenarios, Kell will try to spitefully kill 
  some RHC constables — the B-Team — before he links up with the 
  Ob and goes to the Bleak Gate.
  The tone here might be pure spite, or it could be to show that Kell 
  outwitted them and is taunting them. It might even be retaliation 
  if the B-Team captured Augst. Most likely, Kell and his bodyguards 
  attack the B-Team as they’re nearing the Beran consulate at dawn 
  on the 13th. Narratively, the purpose of this scene is to give the 
  players a sense of Kell’s capabilities before their main PCs deal with 
  him.
  Tactics.
  The pistoleers likely strike first, trying to rush from hiding and 
  grapple weak constables. Kell stalks into melee after them. If any-
  one seems to be legitimately a threat against Kell, Nick grabs them 
  and pulls them away. Kate hangs back and readies to counterspell 
  any takedown magic like hold person.
  The constables should be horribly out-matched, and unless they 
  run, Kell should slaughter them. Play up the smug enjoyment he 
  gets from sticking knives in people or gouging out eyes, and leaving 
  foes debilitated with bleeding wounds. If he deals enough damage 
  to outright kill someone, the killing blow likely involves a limb com-
  ing off or throat being slit.
  If he can blind someone, he’ll dump that person to the ground 
  and leave them as a witness. Otherwise, whenever he has only one 
  foe left, he’ll use nonlethal damage to knock them out, then will 
  carve out their eyes and have Kate stabilize them so they can live 
  to tell the tale.
  Kell is under orders not to kill Brakken, but if the minotaur (or 
  his bear) are present, he’ll gladly cut them up and leave them barely 
  alive. If the constables miraculously overpower him, he’ll try to flee 
  when reduced to 20 hit points. Otherwise, he cuts down the B-Team 
  then slips away. Any witnesses are too horrified to even consider 
  getting involved.
  Safe House Raid.
  Kell’s safe house is the fourth floor of a tenement, and his group 
  hides inside a rope trick to avoid divination. One thug watches the 
  roof, another waits at the base of the rope trick with a bell tied to 
  a rope around his ankle. If he isn’t careful to remove the rope, any 
  movement will ring out a warning to those inside the rope trick. 
  The third thug rests in the rope trick, so the trio can work in shifts.
  There is a clockwork time bomb next to the window, and another 
  next to the door (the same type the Kell-guild technologists had in 
  the first encounter). They are primed so a move action can activate a 
  four-round fuse. The countdown can be stopped with a DC 22 Dex-
  terity (thieves’ tools) check, or the bomb can be pried loose from the 
  wall with a DC 17 Strength check.
  
  EN5ider Presents: Cauldron-Born, Part Two | 13
  Act One, Thread One: The Downfall of Kell
  If either bomb explodes it blows up the whole roof, dealing 35 
  (10d6) fire damage to everyone on the fourth floor (DC 14 Dex-
  terity saving throw halves damage), and 7 (2d6) fire damage to 
  everyone on the third floor (DC 12 Dexterity saving throw negates 
  damage).
  The party can deploy any officers from the task force who haven’t 
  already gone on missions today. This would be a deadly fight for a 
  party of 7th level characters, but backed up by two dozen officers, 
  they have a good shot. The trick is keeping Kell from getting away.
  Tactics.
  If attackers are spotted, Kell and his people try to take up defensive 
  positions away from windows. If he has at least a minute before the 
  task force breaches the building, Kell gets one of his thugs to don a 
  disguise — a top hat and coat — and be a decoy. The man heads down 
  to the ground floor, goes to a rear entrance, and activates the figu-
  rine of wondrous power to conjure the mechanical carriage. Then he 
  jumps in and speeds off as fast as a horse. Depending on who chases 
  the decoy, Kell might be able to slip away.
  If forced to fight, he and his team do so brutally, hoping to break 
  the assault. If Kate goes down, or if Kell is reduced below 40 hit 
  points, he decides to run for it. He triggers the fuse on the time 
  bomb, then jumps out a window and plummets to a canal thirty feet 
  below. Four rounds later, the top floor explodes.
  If he thinks he’s still not clear, Kell activates his gatecrasher 
  charm. That gives him about a five minute head start, and he runs 
  for The Nettles, where he can leave a few signs that will draw the 
  Ob’s attention. If the party doesn’t manage to track him down with-
  in two hours, the Ob scoop him up and deliver him to the Bleak 
  Gate. Of course, clever parties might tail him and then steal the 
  Ob’s equipment so they can head into the Bleak Gate themselves.
  Road Ambush.
  Kell can be tricked into thinking he’s meeting with the Ob, and 
  convinced to head to a rendezvous on the south side of the Nida 
  Street Bridge. Though Principal Minister Harkover Lee is not a 
  warmage and won’t join the fight, he can prepare a ritual to blan-
  ket a 100-foot radius of the bridge with an effect that blocks all 
  methods of extradimensional movement (including teleportation or 
  travel to a different plane of existence) for several hours.
  Kell travels to the fake meeting in his mechanical carriage, and 
  likely the party can rig something to block his path. The bridge is 
  60 feet wide, 400 feet long, stone with metal railings and street 
  lamps spaced widely enough that the party could hide. Also, at each 
  of the pilings supporting the bridge, broad stairwells lead down to 
  landings and small docks, 30 feet below. A few boats moor at these 
  pilings, and so dozens of officers could hide just down the stairs.
  Tactics.
  If the party manages to block the carriage, Kell sends out a thug to 
  see what the problem is, but he stays inside. The carriage is bullet 
  proof and its doors can be locked for security (much like in the 
  first encounter; see what we did there?). Kell refuses to surrender, 
  and will try to activate his gatecrasher charm when he realizes he’s 
  trapped. When that fails, he’ll try to fight his way to the edge of the 
  bridge and dive off (at a spot that doesn’t have a dock below). He’ll 
  still have to swim at least 70 feet to get beyond the dimensionally 
  locked area.
  If he does manage to avoid being filled with bullets and gets away, 
  he links up with the Ob in the Nettles, as above.
  Cruel Variant.
  If the party relies on Morgan’s man on the inside, Dester Rathnine, 
  before they manage to get rid of all three moles in the task force, 
  Kell lays a trap of his own for the party. He sends out his carriage, 
  but when it stops on the bridge, no one gets out. If anyone opens 
  it, they pull a cord that triggers the fuses for four clockwork time 
  bombs stuck to the inside walls. And sitting right in the middle, 
  bound, gagged, and panicked, is Dester Rathnine. Iron manacles 
  around his feet loop through an iron ring on the floor of the carriage.
  Kell uses the distraction to track down the B-Team to massacre 
  them before joining up with the Ob, but he’ll listen carefully for the 
  distant sound of a massive explosion.
  Interrogation
  Social. Real-Time.
  If the party takes Kell alive, or at least recovers a body…
  So, the party has captured Kell. What have they won?
  You can let the party interrogate the crime boss, or leave it to 
  “professionals.” Kell resists normal threats, intimidation, and even 
  torture, but he can’t resist magical compulsion. A quick dominate 
  person by Harkover Lee gets Kell to share everything he knows 
  about the Obscurati. It’s mostly about the local cell’s operations in 
  the real world and how they get back and forth between the worlds. 
  He’s never been to the Bleak Gate facility, and hasn’t even met 
  Leone.
  Like Quentin Augst, though, he knows the five sigils used to 
  send crates down the Stanfield Canal. Also, he has a stash of amu-
  lets (just enough for the party and maybe a few other key NPCs) 
  various Ob agents used when they shifted partially into the Bleak 
  Gate. The magic of the amulets has faded out so Kell could never 
  use them, but with Harkover’s aid the party can reactivate enough 
  to get the party equipped.
  Finally, he managed to recover a broken wand of the sort the Ob 
  use to finalize the transition. Like the amulets, Harkover can figure 
  out what magic the wand had and reverse engineer it. With all these 
  elements combined, the party can now undertake the Canal Route 
  (see Pick Your Team in Act Three, Expedition to the Bleak Gate).
  If they killed Kell, it takes a day to arrange for a powerful cleric 
  from Crisillyir, Archmissionary Cornelius Eboracum, to teleport 
  in. He performs frankly evil magic to drag Kell’s soul out of the 
  afterlife and compel it to provide the information above.
  If Kell is defeated or dead, the Ob aren’t going to go to the effort 
  to rescue or resurrect him. Unless, that is, you get to the battle 
  in the Obscurati complex, and the party is having too easy a time. 
  Then...who knows? Ghost Kell? Golem Kell? Cyborg ghost?
  
  14 | EN5ider Presents: Cauldron-Born, Part Two
  I
  n this thread, the party aids Asrabey in 
  stopping Ekossigan.
  Following Fey
  Exploration. Montage. Level 15.
  The party keeps tabs on Asrabey or looks for Ekossigan themselves.
  Following Varal’s brief meeting with the king, the dreadnought 
  spends the next day gathering information from various contacts in 
  Flint. The party is likely occupied on the first day with setting up 
  the task force and looking for the dwarven radicals, giving Varal 
  free leave to meet with sympathizers to the Unseen Court, all of 
  whom he asks to keep an eye out for Ekossigan.
  His contacts include members of the Vekeshi Mystics, like Rear 
  Admiral Morris Dawkins (known as the Old Stag) in North Shore, 
  and possibly a Vekeshi PC. Many gnomes and elves grant him 
  hospitality, including The Alderman, a gnome beadle who lives in 
  an alder tree in Pine Island, and Valentina Yorke, an elvish druid 
  working in Central District to ensure their subrail construction 
  does not anger the local spirits.
  He also speaks with numerous fey throughout the city, including 
  a pixie named Mugwort who has been hiding in the rafters at the 
  RHC offices in Central District as a spy, and The Trash Heap, a 
  filthy hag-like entity who lives beneath the city’s dump northeast 
  of the Nettles and has a penchant for giving out strange cast-off 
  objects with prophetic usefulness.
  One person he is unable to reach is Gale, the fey terrorist.
  Following Asrabey.
  Keeping an eye on the high elf is tough, and doesn’t earn the party 
  much, except perhaps for political ammunition that goes beyond 
  the scope of this adventuore.
  Tailing him to each of his meetings requires a DC 16 Wisdom 
  (Perception) check but also a DC 20 Dexterity (Stealth) check to 
  keep from being noticed. The tail can make the Wisdom (Percep-
  tion) check with disadvantage by hanging back farther in order to 
  make the Dexterity (Stealth) check with advantage.
  If Asrabey spots his tail he will demand once that the character 
  leave him be or else be cut down. He actually draws a weapon and 
  will give the PC a minute to run away. The second time he spots his 
  tail, he immediately attacks, though he will not intentionally kill. 
  Remember how we said Asrabey is ridiculously stubborn? He also 
  really doesn’t like being followed.
  Frosty Relations.
  Varal shows up at the RHC office (or wherever the party is) on the 
  morning of the 10th, as he promised. He explains that he has met 
  with people around the city, none of whom have seen Ekossigan. 
  But he had trouble finding several of his contacts in the Cloudwood, 
  and he suspects that Ekossigan, as a powerful fey lord, is gathering 
  the local fey in the forest under his banner.
  Cloudwood Tension.
  The party just needs to read the newspaper to see that the Cloud-
  wood has been a hotbed of unexplained phenomena for the past few 
  days. If they check with police reports and civilian complaints, they 
  also learn that yesterday morning (the 9th) the body of a young boy 
  was found strangled, lying in a stream, partially gnawed on by cats. 
  No one in the district has reported any missing children, but people 
  in the district are begging the police to protect their children.
  On the 11th, the Flint Tribune (if it still exists) will break the 
  story, and also accuse the RHC of endangering children by wasting 
  police manpower on a violent and pointless crackdown in Parity 
  Lake.
  Where to Look.
  Asrabey knows the party has had previous contact with Gale, and 
  he wants them to arrange a meeting. He believes that even if she is 
  sympathetic to the fey cause, she is nevertheless an elf, not a true fey. 
  She might be persuaded to help, whereas the true fey are compelled 
  to serve Ekossigan.
  (If the party did not meet Gale in Adventure Two, The Dying 
  Skyseer, Asrabey still asks them for help. Perhaps the party can find 
  her by working through a journalist she gave an interview to, or 
  pulling police files to figure out where she’s most often sighted.)
  If the party still has the messenger wind Gale offered in The 
  Dying Skyseer, they can easily arrange a meeting for as soon as 
  the same morning. Otherwise they can head into the Cloudwood 
  to speak with the local druids, who can get a message to her. Any 
  Vekeshi Mystic PC would know how to reach her as well, through 
  a relay of contacts.
   Act One, Thread Two: 
  One Season Slain
  A Powerful Ally.
  Asrabey’s stats are presented in Appendix B, but generally you 
  should try to avoid involving him in combat. He’s dramatically more 
  powerful than any of the PCs, and his assistance would make fights 
  too easy and take the spotlight away from the party. We suggest 
  things for him to do in each combat encounter that involve him in 
  the action without having him face the same foes as the party.
  Where’s Ekossigan?
  To open a portal to the Bleak Gate, Ekossigan needs to sacrifice 
  thirty-one children on the branches of a century old tree. He has 
  found the Gallo’s School for Boys, an orphanage founded a century 
  ago in 401 A.O.V. by druids. It eventually faded into obscurity, but 
  it has continued to raise children quietly. The orphanage sits in the 
  boughs of a massive tree, a hundred feet high, about 7 miles east of 
  the city, in the southern Cloudwood.
  
  EN5ider Presents: Cauldron-Born, Part Two | 15
  Act One, Thread Two: One Season Slain
  Tell Me About Ekossigan.
  Varal does not go into much detail about the affairs of the Unseen 
  Court, but he has had some dealings with Ekossigan in the past. 
  The rebel fey has a nature that changes with the seasons, and some-
  times when an event really affects him, his change in mood will 
  change the seasons, leading to freak snowstorms in summer or 
  trees blossoming in the middle of winter.
  As for Ekossigan’s combat abilities, Asrabey relates that the fey 
  has shown little in the way of offense. He has great sway over true 
  fey, though, so his minions may be a greater threat than he is. In-
  deed, if any members of the party are actual fey, Asrabey gives them 
  a small charm to wear — a ring with gear teeth on the inside, within 
  which a pair of other gears can spin — that will protect them from 
  Ekossigan’s influence.
  Being part of the Unseen Court makes Ekossigan almost com-
  pletely immune to divination that try to find him. Like many fey he 
  can step from here to there without stepping in the space between, 
  and around him arrows never hit what they’re aimed at.
  His skin is treebark, making him hard to harm. Varal then goes 
  on to smile and mention that trees burn — while lightly igniting his 
  sword for effect.
  Casing the Cloudwood
  Exploration. Montage. Level 7.
  Ekossigan is hiding somewhere in the Cloudwood.
  There are three major groups in the Cloudwood that the RHC 
  have easy access to speak with. The local populace can be spoken 
  with by wandering the streets, stopping at street cafes, and the 
  like. The other two groups are conveniently located in the same 
  office — the local police force, and the district Mayor, Doyle Idylls.
  The Mayor.
  Doyle Idylls is spooked about recent events happening in his dis-
  trict, but he officially blames them on local hooligans rather than 
  actual fey intruders. Still, he’s having his building’s exterior paint-
  ed with a coat of crushed mulberry and powdered chicken bone — a 
  supposed ward against fey intrusion.
  Idylls knows the party is heading up the task force against Kell; 
  some of his police were pulled away for it, and he’s getting yelled 
  at by the locals who are afraid for their children. He won’t readily 
  meet with the party, though they can just barge in on him, or try to 
  convince his secretary. Forcing the issue will make the mayor and 
  his police uncooperative.
  The Police.
  The main police office is built on the backside of the mayor’s man-
  sion. Led by a boisterous second-generation immigrant from Danor, 
  Sergeant Langlois, the police won’t talk to the party unless they 
  get approval from the mayor. If a chat is approved, the sergeant and 
  his men can bring the PCs up to speed on a rash of vandalism that’s 
  overtaken many public offices in the district. During their visit to 
  the station, the officers complain about oddities: rotten bird eggs 
  keep falling on the sidewalk, gophers chew through his basement, 
  and every book in the building mysteriously lost its last page.
  They can also provide detailed maps of the forest, which is a 
  nightmare to patrol. The police just set up guard posts along key 
  trails to try to protect the district borders, and leave the deep woods 
  alone. There are dozens of square miles of forest within a day’s walk 
  of the city where Ekossigan could be hiding, so just roaming and 
  looking is pointless without some sort of lead.
  Sergeant Langlois and his men can be requisitioned to help 
  search the forest for fey. He really can’t spare the officers, since too 
  many of his people are already on the task force, but if the party 
  pulls strings he’ll go along with it. Another option is just to use the 
  task force men, if the party thinks they can spare them.
  The Kid.
  If the party asks to look at the body of the child found in the woods, 
  it’s a grisly sight. He was found naked, covered with patterns of 
  green paint, which a DC 17 Intelligence (Arcana) check identifies 
  as old fey ritual markings from the time when men regularly fought 
  the fey, nearly two thousand years ago. In-depth research, or a DC 
  25 Intelligence (Arcana) check, can pinpoint the ritual: a curse on 
  the child’s family to cause paranoia and in-fighting.
  The fingers and toes have been gnawed at by cats, and the throat 
  is crushed. Closer examination with a DC 13 Wisdom (Medicine) 
  check reveals that the child wasn’t strangled, but hung by a rope. 
  Also, he has dozens of thin lacerations across his body, like you’d get 
  running through trees and brush naked. That, combined with nu-
  merous small fractures scattered throughout his body, might clue 
  the party to the fact that he fell through tree branches.
  What happened was the boy, one of the orphans at the Gallo 
  school, was too old for Ekossigan to use in the ritual. He instead 
  hung the boy from the tree the orphanage sits in, then cut him 
  loose and sent some of his gremlins down to place the body where it 
  would be found, several miles from the orphanage. Since the child 
  was an orphan and he was being “raised by the state,” the curse is 
  spreading distrust through the whole district.
  A remove curse cast on the body will relieve the whole district, 
  and lets the party call in one free favor with the locals, which 
  doesn’t count against their normal limit per day. If the curse per-
  sists, though, tempers will soon flare.
  The Locals.
  Locals don’t want to talk, and if they realize the party is law en-
  forcement, they’ll be unfriendly and angry, blaming them for 
  leaving their children without proper protection.
  Aside from a few blocks that make up the business part of the 
  district, the Cloudwood is very rural, with farmland dominating 
  the north and woodlands on the low mountains and further south. 
  The place barely qualifies as part of the city. Your nearest neighbor 
  might be over a rocky hill a half mile away. Nevertheless, people 
  have been getting into fights, devolving into little tribes that are 
  edging closer to a fight.
  If the party can convince people to talk, they’ll explain that local 
  nighttime offerings of milk and sliced fruit to the fey have all been 
  disappearing — normally only a few offerings disappear overnight 
  (generally this is thought to be the work of starving homeless folk). 
  
  16 | EN5ider Presents: Cauldron-Born, Part Two
  Act One, Thread Two: One Season Slain
  A DC 13 Intelligence (Nature) check suggests that the offerings are 
  taken in greater quantities when the fey themselves feel the need to 
  pay tribute to something greater.
  People used to give these offerings out of respect for the fey, but 
  since Doyle Idylls became mayor here and began trying to convince 
  locals that the fey are a threat, the offerings have become more 
  protective, a measure to prevent bad luck. If the party’s clever, they 
  might try to follow the fey who snag the offerings.
  Fey Sympathizers.
  In the deep woods, a handful of lumberjacks, farmers, and hunters 
  are upset with Doyle Idylls’s anti-fey sentiment. Though unfriendly 
  to outsiders, if the party can earn their trust or feign having similar 
  beliefs, they can learn that the group knows there’s a major fey in 
  the forest, and they’re trying to meet him. Their goal is to force the 
  mayor out. They have no idea what Ekossigan’s real plan might be, 
  but if the party seems stuck you can have these people guide them 
  to the orphanage at the last minute.
  Fey Contacts.
  Any characters who have pre-established fey contacts with the for-
  est cannot find their contacts. The intent here is not to punish the 
  player or take away a lead, but rather to show what powerful influ-
  ence Ekossigan has.
  Her Majesty, Princess Fairy 
  Dust
  Social. Real-Time. Level 8.
  The fey terrorist Gale might know how to find Ekossigan.
  Gale has contact with a creepy gremlin named Ellik, who acted 
  as a courier for the Unseen Court. When Ekossigan arrived in 
  Cloudwood, Ellik sought Gale and asked for her help. She met with 
  Ekossigan, and he played to her desires of being accepted by the 
  fey, sweeping her up in a narrative of making a grand difference 
  to the world.
  Before she realized the danger, she had agreed to help him, and 
  the binding power of a pact to a fey lord now compels her into his 
  service. To make her a more useful tool, he imbued her with a sliver 
  of the power of summer, giving her destructive weather magic that 
  she never possessed before.
  Gale hates Danor and theoretically should agree with Ekos-
  sigan, but as she sees the rapid pace of the fey gathering and 
  preparing, she grows nervous. She wants to help the party, and 
  struggles against her master’s will so as not to betray them out-
  right. He has ordered her to warn him of any threats, and to kill 
  anyone who is trying to stop him, but that leaves her enough 
  wiggle room of interpretation that she can spare a few minutes 
  of conversation.
  When the party approaches her, she asks to meet them at a 
  switchback trail in the forest (if you still have the map from Dying 
  Skyseer, that works). She keeps her distance, hiding in the trees — a 
  DC 28 Wisdom (Perception) check for range and the concealment 
  of trees — and speaks to them via message.
  She warns them that Ekossigan is powerful, and asks that they 
  leave. She knows Ekossigan plans to go into the Bleak Gate, and 
  lead a small army of fey to Cauldron Hill. Though she’s afraid of 
  him, she thinks it will be best if the party just lets him go. If they 
  insist, she confesses her mistake in promising to help the fey lord, 
  and how she will have to fight the party if they continue.
  The party has a chance to finagle around the legalese of Gale’s 
  bond to Ekossigan, such as if they convincingly claim they have 
  no desire to stop Ekossigan. They can also break her free with a 
  remove curse or dispel magic, and protection from evil temporarily 
  blocks the compulsion.
  Gale doesn’t know where Ekossigan is; she communicates with 
  message. But if she’s freed from Ekossigan’s bond, she can lead the 
  party to Ellik, the gremlin who is his lead henchman. Ellik has 
  been to the Bleak Gate several times over his long life, and a year 
  ago he took Gale, but the same route won’t be available for years. If 
  Ekossigan intends to get there, it will involve powerful magic, and 
  she worries what the price will be.
  Tactics
  If the party insists on confronting Ekossigan, Gale attacks them, 
  taking the horribly unfair advantage of being a flying spellcaster. 
  She already has cast mage armor, mirror image, and nondetection 
  (included in her stats above). She casts storm shield and uses her 
  control winds ability to subject the PCs to strong winds, with the 
  result that she’s constantly upwind from them, and ranged weapon 
  attacks against her are made with disadvantage.
  Then she hovers 100 feet away, flies up to launch lightning bolts 
  and magic missiles, then takes cover behind the treetops, 60 feet 
  above the ground. If any PCs start to approach she drops a fog cloud 
  on them to slow them down, then changes position. If she runs low 
  on spells she’ll flee.
  Throughout the fight she shouts that she’s sorry, and that she’s 
  trying to resist. If Asrabey is with the party he hesitates to join a 
  battle. High elf women are exceedingly precious and rare, and he 
  doesn’t want to risk her being harmed. If the party can convince 
  him they can break Gale free from her compulsion he’ll help, but 
  will grow wrathful against any PC who does lethal damage to her.
  The party will likely have to use cover and stealth to defeat Gale, 
  or else simply outlast her. Fireball works pretty well too, but might 
  kill her. If she’s knocked out, she descends safely to the ground, as 
  with feather fall.
  Aftermath.
  If Gale manages to defeat the party, she contacts Ekossigan, who 
  sends gremlins to recover them and bring them to him. He cannot 
  use them as part of his ritual to reach the Bleak Gate, but he’ll 
  gladly hang them from the orphanage’s branches as a warning to 
  those who oppose the Unseen Court.
  If the party defeats Gale, she rambles semi-consciously about 
  Ellik’s location, the Nutgarden, an abandoned beer house that is 
  infamous in the district for burning down and claiming the lives 
  of forty people a few years ago. This information lets them skip the 
  “Finding a Gremlin” part of the challenge in It Takes a Gremlin, 
  and gives them a chance to go after the gremlin during daylight.
  
  EN5ider Presents: Cauldron-Born, Part Two | 17
  Act One, Thread Two: One Season Slain
  Hana “Gale” Soliogn
  Medium humanoid (high elf), chaotic neutral sorcerer 9
  Armor Class 14 (mage armor)
  Hit Points 31 (9d6)
  Speed 30 ft., fly 40 ft.
   STR 
  DEX 
  CON 
  INT 
  WIS 
  CHA 
   8 (–1) 
  16 (+3) 
  10 (+0) 
  14 (+2) 
  12 (+1) 
  18 (+4)
  Saving Throws con +4, cha +8
  Skills Arcana +6, Deception +8, Insight +5, Nature +6, Perception +5, 
  Persuasion +8, Stealth +5, Survival +5
  Senses darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 15
  Languages Common, Elvish, Primordial, Sylvan
  Challenge 7 (2,900 XP)
  Air Affinity. Gale can innately control winds, and is immune to the 
  effects of strong wind. She can fly at will and can speak with flying 
  animals, which usually are friendly to her.
  Control Winds (9/long rest). Gale can control winds in a 360-foot 
  radius. Each time she uses this ability it lasts for 1 minute. Activating 
  or controlling it is an action, and as long as she is not incapacitated 
  it continues for the duration. She can increase winds by up to three 
  steps (enough to turn a still day into a severe storm of 50 miles per 
  hour, or a strong breeze into a small hurricane). Any creature other 
  than her in the area must make a DC 16 Strength saving throw at the 
  start of its turn to resist the winds or is knocked prone.
  Fey Ancestry. Gale has advantage on saving throws against being 
  charmed, and magic can’t put her to sleep.
  Sorcery Points (9/long rest). Gale can use sorcery points to gain 
  additional spell slots, or sacrifice spell slots to gain additional sorcery 
  points.
  Creating Spell Slots & Sorcery Points. As a bonus action on her 
  turn, Gale can expend one spell slot and either gain a number of 
  sorcerer points equal to the slot’s level or create a spell slot by 
  expending sorcery points (1st level—2 points, 2nd level—3 points, 
  3rd level—5 points, 4th level—7 points).
  Metamagic: Subtle Spell. When Gale casts a spell, she can spend 1 
  sorcery point to cast it without any somatic or verbal components.
  Metamagic: Quickened Spell. When Gale casts a spell that has a 
  casting time of 1 action, she can spend 2 sorcery points to change 
  the casting time to 1 bonus action for this casting.
  Spellcasting. Gale is a 9th-level spellcaster. Her spellcasting ability is 
  Charisma (spell save DC 16, +8 to hit with spell attacks). Gale knows 
  the following spells from the sorcerer spell list:
  Cantrips (at will): mage hand, minor illusion, mending, message, 
  prestidigitation, shocking grasp
  1st level (4 slots): detect magic, feather fall, fog cloud, mage armor, 
  magic missile
  2nd level (3 slots): mirror image, shatter
  3rd level (3 slots): clairvoyance, lightning bolt, nondetection
  4th level (1 slot): storm shield (as fire shield but grants immunity to 
  and deals lightning damage)
  Actions
  Wild Swing. Melee Weapon Attack: +3 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 
  1 bludgeoning damage.
  Torches and Pitchforks*
  Social. Real-Time. Level 4.
  An angry mob disrupts Brakken’s visit to the Cloudwood.
  At dawn on the 11th, the B-Team meets Brakken at the Beran 
  consulate, picks up a dignitary from each side, and sets out for the 
  Cloudwood on another bid to create some unity between the two 
  groups.
  Today’s outing involves Kian Doherty (Risur’s Minister of Ag-
  riculture) and Pierre Riquier (Danoran Minister of Magic), and 
  Brakken hopes taking them out to the city district famous for its 
  fey-friendly woodlands will be a bonding experience. Unfortunately, 
  as the trio is enjoying some light brunch while hummingbirds flit 
  about and a monkey snags their scraps, an angry mob is gathering 
  just down the street, incited to paranoia by Ekossigan’s curse.
  (If the party already removed the curse, this scene is very short 
  and pleasant, sans angry mob.)
  * Kian Doherty. Well-groomed 40-something who values 
  Risur’s druidic traditions and hates being in Flint. Sullen, 
  but trying to keep an open mind.
  * Pierre Riquier. A rare Danoran half-elf, Pierre came from 
  a rich family that could afford magic lessons for him. Heavy 
  spectacles, messy hair, full of trivia about magic. Weak-willed 
  and obsequious, he isn’t that interested in magic, honestly, 
  but he’s one of the few people qualified for his position.
  A Wee Squabble.
  The restaurant is next to a creek that weaves under several small 
  bridges on the street. Other small shops line the road, and the may-
  or’s mansion is just two blocks away. A few minutes into the meal, a 
  young girl runs into view from between the buildings on the other 
  side of the creek. She hops the creek, scampers past Brakken and 
  the B-Team, and starts yelling for people to help.
  A few seconds behind her, a woman in a sun dress holding a roll-
  ing pin runs to the creek, then stops when she sees the girl calling 
  for help. After a moment’s panic she turns and runs.
  All that happened was that the girl, Circe, was taking a shortcut, 
  and she went past the house of the woman, Relle. Relle didn’t recog-
  nize the girl and yelled at her to get away from her house. Then, for 
  no reason either of them rationally understands, Circe threw a rock 
  at the house, and Relle gave chase. Nudged by Ekossigan’s curse, 
  the tiny distrust of a stranger turned into a chase.
  Within a minute, Circe gets a dozen people to come out and meet 
  her in the street, where she explains that she was chased, and she 
  thinks the woman was going to kill her. The crowd starts getting 
  weapons from their houses and shops, and over the next ten minutes 
  Timing.
  This scene takes place the morning after Brakken’s visit to the 
  Sunset Bench, detailed in Thread One. We apologize for the timeline 
  being split this way, we hope this arrangement creates a good pace. 
  Also, if you want to shuffle things a bit (such as to fill out a session 
  that has run short), you might move this up to the morning of the 
  10th, or even the afternoon of the 9th, but no sooner.
  
  18 | EN5ider Presents: Cauldron-Born, Part Two
  Act One, Thread Two: One Season Slain
  the group grows to thirty people. Then they’re ready, and they start 
  to follow Circe back to the house so they can drag Relle out, search 
  the house for signs of witchcraft, and burn the building down.
  While the crowd is gathering, the constables that make a DC 
  8 Wisdom (Perception) check notice another kid, dressed in long 
  sleeves and with a hood hiding his face, watching from the creek 
  bed. He has a bundle in his arms. None of the locals care about this 
  stranger, because it is actually a gremlin disguised as a kid. He was 
  out collecting the neighborhood’s offerings and got drunk on some 
  stolen wine, so he just now woke up.
  Preventing a Riot.
  Brakken can sense that the crowd won’t respond to reason, and 
  Pierre is too feeble to want to get involved, but Kian doesn’t like 
  how things are looking. When the mob is just forming, Kian gets 
  up and asks what’s going on. The crowd shoves him away and tells 
  him to stop sticking his nose into things. A few minutes later, 
  when it’s obvious things are about to get violent, Brakken tries to 
  leave, but Kian again tries to calm the group down, and they attack 
  him, shoving him and knocking him down and eventually throw-
  ing him into the creek, where they pelt him with rocks — nothing 
  big enough to kill him, but he eventually curls into a ball and yells 
  for mercy.
  A show of force from the constables — incapacitating at least four 
  of the crowd — can get the mob to break up. Killing anyone, though, 
  leads to a riot. If the group doesn’t get involved, the mob leaves Kian 
  cowering in the stream and goes to burn down Relle’s house.
  If the party goes after the gremlin, it runs. The constables can 
  try to pursue the goblin (see It Takes a Gremlin below), and have 
  a decent shot because they’re chasing the critter during daylight. 
  They might not know what to do with it if they catch it, though.
  Further Trouble.
  A few other small mobs attack people during the day. One albino 
  cow is lynched.
  Later that afternoon, people start frantically chopping down 
  trees as a rumor spreads that “someone” is going to set fires tonight. 
  The fires never occur.
  The next morning, a small crowd chases down a police officer and 
  beats him to death, on the rationale that if the police aren’t going 
  to protect the children, maybe they actually are the ones killing 
  children. (No other children have been killed yet, but rumors are 
  rampant.) Any Cloudwood police helping the party at this point 
  return to their station to protect it.
  Finally, at sunset on the 12th, if the curse hasn’t been broken, 
  the wave of paranoia reaches its peak. A huge mob of a hundred 
  townsfolk rally around Circe, who is convinced that Mayor Idylls is 
  a witch. The mob storms his house and a dozen people die before the 
  police give up and flee. The mob then drags the mayor to a dairy and 
  drown him in a huge tub of milk, then leave him out as an offering 
  to the fey, in hopes the madness will end.
  And ironically it does. Since the curse was tied to “the state” rais-
  ing the sacrificed child, killing the local head of state ends the curse. 
  Still, the district never quite returns to normal.
  It Takes a Gremlin
  Action. Montage. Level 7.
  Ellik or another gremlin might lead the party to Ekossigan.
  Chasing gremlins is a tough proposition in the middle of the 
  night, especially if the PCs don’t possess darkvision or a quickly 
  activated light source. Given these conditions, successfully chasing 
  down a gremlin and subduing it is broken down into a Skill En-
  counter as follows. This is meant to be a challenging pursuit, and it 
  might take the party a few tries to get it right.
  * Key Skills: Deception, Intimidation, Nature, Perception, 
  Persuasion, Stealth, Survival.
  * Difficulty: Unless otherwise noted, all skill checks are DC 21.
  * Goals: The party must first find a gremlin (of the nuglub 
  variety; page 21). Then they can either grab it and interrogate 
  it, or chase it and follow it back to Ekossigan.
  Finding a Gremlin.
  Ekossigan’s gremlin servants operate in the later hours of the night, 
  typically between 2:00 and 4:00 am. The tiny creatures move from 
  house to house, ignoring those with any visible light sources and 
  using their diminutive height to sneak under windows to stealthily 
  claim the offerings, which they carelessly shove into a large sack. 
  The actual quality of the offering is not important, merely the latent 
  spiritual power invested in them. The gremlins actively hide and 
  stick to the darkness when retrieving offerings.
  Recommended Tactics.
  The party can spot gremlins only after midnight, up until about 
  6:00 am. On the night of the 12th, the gremlins are active instead 
  from 8:00 pm until 11:00 pm, at which point they all rush to the 
  orphanage for the ritual.
  Checks made between 2:00 and 4:00 am, when the gremlins are 
  most active, are made with a +2 bonus to the required skill check. 
  On the other hand, if the party decides to wait until the night of 
  the 12th, increase the DCs by +2 because of the frantic activity of 
  the locals.
  A well-described action or a clever idea can grant advantage, and 
  a fool-proof plan counts as a success.
  To find a gremlin, the party needs to succeed on two of the fol-
  lowing skill checks (or do something similar and effective). Each 
  PC can make one attempt every half hour or so.
  * Dexterity (thieves’ tools). A character might rig up some sort 
  of trap near offerings, like a noose and a wire that rings bells 
  to alert the party.
  * Wisdom (Perception). A character can camp a particular 
  house or roam about in a likely area. Anyone with darkvision 
  has advantage on their check.
  * Dexterity (Stealth). A character can aid the party in be-
  ing stealthy and hidden, which makes it easier to lure the 
  gremlins in.
  * Wisdom (Survival). It is also possible to track down a roam-
  ing gremlin by searching for tracks.
  
  EN5ider Presents: Cauldron-Born, Part Two | 19
  Act One, Thread Two: One Season Slain
  Police Force.
  Bringing at least a dozen police officers negates the need for checks, 
  as the officers automatically discover several gremlins. Over a half 
  hour of coordinated searching, the officers find a gremlin and alert 
  the party to come by where they found it. The NPC officers won’t be 
  much use in chasing it down, though.
  Gale’s Help.
  If the party gets Gale’s help or defeats her in combat, they can 
  automatically locate the gremlin Ellik at the burnt out bar The 
  Nutgarden. Even better, they can find him during daylight, making 
  him much easier to chase down. If they give chase to him and fail, 
  though, they’ll need to start over and try to find another gremlin.
  Catch a Gremlin.
  After discovering one of Ekossigan’s gremlins, the tricky part is 
  capturing it. These creatures are fast and easily spooked if they so 
  much as sense another living being approach. Once the party gets 
  within 100 feet, they must use normal concealment and hiding 
  rules (against the gremlin’s darkvision and passive Perception) to 
  get close enough to grab it, knock it out, or otherwise disable it. A 
  captured gremlin can be interrogated.
  If it spots another creature, a gremlin madly dashes in an at-
  tempt to escape a potential captor. If the gremlin manages to get 
  more than 100 feet away from the party, proceed to the Chase sec-
  tion below.
  Chase a Gremlin.
  The party might have to chase a gremlin if they want to catch and 
  interrogate it. Gremlins are wily, and fey in the Cloudwood have a 
  tendency to teleport short distances, making pursuit erratic.
  The PCs and gremlin starts 100 feet apart, but keep track of each 
  PC’s distance separately, since the party might get split up. The 
  gremlin leads them on a merry chase, and each minute each pursu-
  ing PC can make a skill check to try to close the gap. A success 
  gets 25 feet closer. Success by 5 or more gets 50 feet closer. Failure 
  keeps the status quo, and failure by 5 or more means the PC falls 
  back 25 feet.
  Because the terrain doesn’t lend itself to flat-out sprinting, hav-
  ing a faster or slower base speed is not a deal-breaker. Anyone with 
  a speed less than 30 feet takes a –1 penalty for every 5 feet under 30 
  feet, and anyone with a speed higher than 30 feet gains a +1 bonus 
  for every 5 feet over 30 feet.
  Below are a series of suggested actions the gremlin can take, and 
  how the PCs can respond. The normal DC 21 applies to a night 
  chase when the party has light sources or darkvision. If a PC has 
  neither, they have disadvantage. If the chase happens during the 
  day, the PCs have advantage.
  * Gap in the Wall. The gremlin wiggles through a narrow 
  gap — a tall fence, hedge, wall of brush, or perhaps a fox bur-
  row. Characters must use Dexterity (Acrobatics) to follow.
  * Through a Pond. The gremlin dives underwater and tries to 
  lose the party. Characters must make a DC 7 Strength (Ath-
  letics) check to keep up, plus a DC 21 Wisdom (Perception) 
  check to see where the gremlin is under the water.
  * Up a Wall. A PC can use Climb to follow as the little bugger 
  is climbing up a cliff wall!
  * Crumbling Bridge. The gremlin scampers across an old 
  wooden bridge seeing its last days, forcing a DC 21 Strength 
  (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check to keep up.
  Chasers’ Options.
  A character can make a DC 21 Intelligence (Nature) or Wisdom 
  (Survival) check to try a shortcut. Success brings the PC 50 feet 
  closer. Failure causes the character to fall 50 feet behind.
  A character can try to make a ranged attack against the gremlin 
  or cast a spell, but doing so means the character isn’t moving as fast. 
  He falls behind 25 feet. Usually the gremlin will have cover and 
  concealment from the terrain.
  Ending the Chase.
  Once a character gets adjacent to the gremlin, they can make a DC 
  12 Strength (Athletics) check to tackle the critter. Other attacks 
  can take the gremlin out. If the gremlin manages to get 200 feet 
  away from all the PCs, it loses them. The party can follow its tracks 
  with three successful DC 21 Wisdom (Survival) checks.
  Tailing the Gremlin.
  The party might want to just follow the gremlin all the way to Ekos-
  sigan. To do this, one PC must manage to keep the gremlin in sight 
  (within 200 feet during the day, or range of their light source at 
  night) for at least 5 minutes. Then they must make three DC 5 Con-
  stitution checks and succeed at least twice to keep pace with the 
  gremlin during the rest of the pursuit. The whole chase covers an 
  erratic path some 10 miles long, and likely takes 3 hours.
  Interrogation.
  With a captured gremlin in custody, the party can extract informa-
  tion from the creature. Gremlins are impulsive in nature, and those 
  loyal to Ekossigan are borderline psychotic. Dealing with such 
  creatures should test the PCs’ patience, as keeping the creatures 
  on task is difficult.
  Only exceptionally skilled characters could hope to negotiate 
  with such creatures by succeeding on a DC 25 Charisma (Intimida-
  tion or Persuasion) check, and even the promise of release, riches, 
  or any other wild offering would be a hard sell and requires a DC 
  23 Charisma (Deception) check. During such talks, the gremlins 
  constantly switch topics, taking note of simple things like the color 
  of the PC’s clothing, or the current temperature in the room. The 
  party gains a bonus to these interrogation checks equal to twice 
  their Prestige with the Unseen Court.
  Magical compulsion effects or divination magic might pull the 
  necessary information out of the gremlin.
  If successfully negotiated with, the gremlin reveals that Ekos-
  sigan is staying in the orphanage. However, its sense of direction 
  doesn’t rely on normal human landmarks, so finding the orphanage 
  requires either a DC 16 Intelligence check, DC 20 Wisdom (Sur-
  vival) check, or some sort of magical guidance. If the district hasn’t 
  gone crazy yet, the party can also find the orphanage on a map in 
  the mayor’s office after about an hour of research.
  
  20 | EN5ider Presents: Cauldron-Born, Part Two
  Act One, Thread Two: One Season Slain
  Unless the party asks and succeeds a second round of inter-
  rogation, the gremlin does not mention that the children of the 
  orphanage are set to be ritually sacrificed. The creature simply for-
  gets this point — not thinking it important — and does not withhold 
  it as an act of slight towards the party.
  Asrabey Varal’s presence in the interrogation grants the party 
  an effective Prestige of 5 with the Unseen Court, and the dread-
  nought’s reputation is worth another +5 bonus (for a total of +15).
  Once the gremlin has talked, Varal quickly dispatches the crea-
  ture with a cold iron stake through the head — an act of mercy for 
  the fey’s betrayal of the Unseen Court.
  Gallo’s School for Boys
  Exploration/Social. Real-Time. Level 7.
  Dozens of children are imperiled. The party must approach Ekos-
  sigan carefully.
  A light drizzle falls regularly on the area within a half mile of 
  Ekossigan, marking his dour mood. It also helps discourage explor-
  ers from finding his hiding spot.
  Ekossigan has set up a small court for himself in an orphanage 
  in the southeast of the Cloudwood district. He and his fey minions 
  killed the headmaster, teachers, and attendants, but have kept the 
  children here. Miles away from the nearest settlement, no one has 
  any idea anything is amiss.
  If the party guesses from the dead child that he might have disap-
  peared from an orphanage, the locals do know about the place, but 
  it’s not prominent enough for any NPCs to suggest it. Similarly, if 
  they figure out what ritual Ekossigan is planning, tracking down 
  a “century-old” tree is hard, but with some asking around the party 
  could learn about the orphanage, which was founded one hundred 
  years ago, and whose logo is a tree with a book in place of its boughs.
  The party has until midnight of the 12th of Spring to stop Ekos-
  sigan. At that point he hangs the children at the orphanage, creates 
  a portal to the Bleak Gate, and leads a small army of fey through.
  Unless the party has tried to keep Asrabey Varal from following 
  them, he will accompany them to the orphanage.
  Gremlin Presence.
  Most of the gremlins sleep during the day, except for those on the 
  balcony. At night they head out to gather offerings, though they 
  make sure to all be back at the orphanage by 11:45 pm on the 12th, 
  in preparation for the ritual.
  If they detect intruders, the gremlins will fling rocks or shoot 
  arrows down at people advancing up the staircase. Once the party 
  gets onto the orphanage level, the fey try to slip through the holes 
  in the walls to avoid being cornered in melee.
  There are other fey around — pixies, brownies, satyrs, a couple 
  redcaps, and even a nymph — but they stay away from the gremlins 
  and won’t join the fight. Not yet, at least.
  Layout.
  Gallo’s School for Boys has a few activity buildings on the ground 
  level, but it is mostly one hundred feet above the ground in the 
  boughs of a massive tree, centuries-old. A sturdy but vertigo-induc-
  ing staircase spirals around the tree’s trunk up to the entrance. A 
  rancid stench drifts on the breeze.
  The orphanage sits in the boughs of a tree, and areas of leaves 
  on the map represent terrain with enough branches to support a 
  person. Moving through the branches requires a DC 8 Strength 
  (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check, and they count as diffi-
  cult terrain. A character can make this check with disadvantage to 
  move at full speed. Failure means the character makes no progress, 
  and a failure by 5 or more and, well, I hope you prepared feather fall.
  The outside of the structure is made up of wood, given a recent 
  cost of green paint. In places the slats and beams appear to have 
  started sprouting short leafy branches, like the dead wood has come 
  back to life. All the windows are shuttered, and now they’ve grown 
  enough that they cannot be opened, though they still let in dim 
  light during the day.
  The walls have warped enough that Medium creatures can usu-
  ally find a spot to try to squeeze through with a successful DC 20 
  Dexterity (Acrobatics) check. Small creatures can easily move 
  through (counts as difficult terrain), and Tiny creatures aren’t even 
  slowed down. The “walls” just provide partial cover, not total cover.
  Stench.
  Inside the orphanage, the new life is offset by the stench of rotten 
  fruit, pools of spoiled milk, and piles of refuse. Inside areas 7, 8, 
  and 9 the stench is overpowering. Creatures must make a DC 12 
  Constitution saving throw when they enter or be sickened for the 
  remainder of their stay inside the structure. Only one such save 
  needs to be made for a 24-hour period.
  Ekossigan vs. the Obscurati.
  The act of sacrificing the children and entering the Bleak Gate will 
  drive Ekossigan from a little crazy to completely. He takes three 
  dozen gremlins and numerous other fey with him, all of whom are 
  driven a little mad as well. Indeed they do find the Cauldron Hill 
  complex and attack it, and the gremlins set to work causing all the 
  technology and machinery within to go haywire.
  Ekossigan tries to attack within, but the defenders overwhelm him. 
  Kept barely alive he’s brought up to the arcanoscience lab (area 14 of 
  the Colossus map in Act Three) for experimentation. By the time the 
  PCs arrive (likely on the 14th), the complex is in disarray, but most of 
  the fey are scattered and unable to put up a unified front.
  If left to their own devices the battalion of fey will start to be-
  come twisted and monstrous, slowly shifting into blind grues and 
  wraith-like monsters that wander away into the hollow city sur-
  rounding the mountain. Ekossigan, trapped and helpless, cackles 
  himself to death. Alternately, if the party has already killed Lorcan 
  Kell, you could have the Obscurati implant machinery in Ekossigan 
  to turn him into a puppet for them, making him the headline foe in 
  the Ob complex.
  Should the party actually side with Ekossigan for the assault, 
  their presence can keep him a bit more grounded, but he still shrieks 
  at the sight of technology, making stealth fairly useless. See “Mass 
  Murder with Ekossigan” in Act Three, Expedition to the Bleak Gate.
  
  EN5ider Presents: Cauldron-Born, Part Two | 21
  Act One, Thread Two: One Season Slain
  Nooses.
  The balcony around each dorm has seven or eight rope nooses tied 
  to the railing, waiting for children’s heads to be slipped through.
  1. Balcony.
  The walkway has a good view of the ground below. Railings, sized 
  for children, make it hard to accidentally fall off. A pair of tiny 
  gremlins hide — seeing them from the ground requires a DC 25 
  Wisdom (Perception) check — and watch out for intruders, their 
  miniscule bows always in hand.
  •	 2 pugwampi gremlins
  Pugwampi Gremlin
  Tiny fey, neutral evil
  Armor Class 13 (natural armor)
  Hit Points 10 (3d4+3)
  Speed 30 ft.
   STR 
  DEX 
  CON 
  INT 
  WIS 
  CHA 
   3 (–4) 
  15 (+2) 
  12 (+1) 
  10 (+0) 
  14 (+2) 
  16 (+3)
  Skills Deception +5, Perception +6, Stealth +6
  Senses darkvision 120 ft., passive Perception 16
  Languages Primordial (very limited), Sylvan
  Challenge 1/2 (100 XP)
  Gunshy. Firearms aimed at a gremlin will not fire on first pull. If a 
  character holds his aim on the gremlin for a round, the shot will go 
  off at the start of the shooter’s next turn. Otherwise the gun fires the 
  moment the shooter stops aiming.
  Innate Spellcasting. The gremlin’s innate spellcasting ability is 
  Charisma (spell save DC 13). It can innately cast the following spells, 
  requiring no material components.
  At will: prestidigation, speak with animals
  1/day: shatter
  Magic Resistance. The gremlin has advantage on saving throws against 
  spells and other magical effects.
  Quick. The gremlin has advantage on initiative checks.
  Unluck Aura. The gremlin radiates an aura of unluck in a 20-foot 
  radius. Creatures in this area have disadvantage on all d20 rolls. This 
  is a mind-affecting effect that does not work on animals, gremlins, 
  or gnolls. Any character who gains any sort of luck bonus (such as 
  that granted by a stone of good luck or divine favor) is immune to the 
  gremlin’s Unluck Aura.
  Actions
  Dagger. Melee or Ranged Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft. or range 
  20/40 ft., one target. Hit: 4 (1d4+2) piercing damage.
  Shortbow. Ranged Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, range 80/320 ft., one 
  target. Hit: 5 (1d6+2) piercing damage.
  2. Lobby.
  The desk chairs act as beds for some gremlins, while others doze 
  in the desks’ drawers. They’ve taken stacks of paper and clumped 
  them into crude shapes of animals. If alerted, the tiny pugwampi 
  gremlins take cover behind the desk so they can shoot intruders. 
  The larger nuglub gremlins crawl through holes in the ceiling and 
  try to sneak and ambush the intruders from above.
  •	 4 pugwampi gremlins (see above)
  •	 2 nuglub gremlins
  Nuglub Gremlin
  Small fey, chaotic evil
  Armor Class 17 (natural armor)
  Hit Points 33 (6d6+12)
  Speed 30 ft., climb 20 ft.
   STR 
  DEX 
  CON 
  INT 
  WIS 
  CHA 
   13 (+1) 
  18 (+4) 
  15 (+2) 
  8 (–1) 
  9 (–1) 
  12 (+1)
  Skills Acrobatics +6, Intimidation +3, Perception +3, Stealth +8
  Damage Resistances bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from weapons 
  not made of cold iron
  Senses darkvision 120 ft., passive Perception 13
  Languages Primordial (very limited), Sylvan
  Challenge 2 (450 XP)
  Gunshy. Firearms aimed at a gremlin will not fire on first pull. If a 
  character holds his aim on the gremlin for a round, the shot will go 
  off at the start of the shooter’s next turn. Otherwise the gun fires the 
  moment the shooter stops aiming.
  Innate Spellcasting. The gremlin’s innate spellcasting ability is 
  Charisma (spell save DC 11). It can innately cast the following spells, 
  requiring no material components.
  At will: prestidigitation, shocking grasp
  1/day: heat metal
  Magic Resistance. The gremlin has advantage on saving throws against 
  spells and other magical effects.
  Actions
  Multiattack. The gremlin attacks once with a bite and twice with claws.
  Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +3 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 4 
  (1d6+1) piercing damage and the target is grappled (escape DC 11).
  Claw. Melee Weapon Attack: +3 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 3 
  (1d4+1) slashing damage and the target makes a DC 11 Strength 
  saving throw or falls prone.
  3. Office.
  Characters who are interested in keeping the orphans from being 
  abandoned in the aftermath might want to look here for financial 
  documents of the orphanage. There’s enough resources to at least 
  pay for a bit of lodging before the kids are left homeless.
  4. Common Room.
  This room is full of discarded toys, balls, and piles of clothes the 
  gremlins can put on when they need a disguise.
  5. Library.
  Ekossigan, not without pity for the children, has moved all the 
  books from the library to the various dorms. With no hope for es-
  cape, the children read to avoid thinking about their suffering.
  6. Classroom.
  The fey used mud, beeswax, leaves, and twigs to assemble re-
  markably life-like sculptures of adults sitting awkwardly in the 
  classroom’s chairs. One woman even has her arm raised like she 
  wants to ask a question. The statues crumble if touched.
  
  22 | EN5ider Presents: Cauldron-Born, Part Two
  Act One, Thread Two: One Season Slain
  7. Dining Room.
  Four wooden tables with an array of broken chairs litter this room, 
  all of them sprouting recent growth. During the day, a group of 
  gremlins lounge in this room, eating leftover morsels from the pre-
  vious night’s offerings. They attack any intruders viciously, hoping 
  to swarm them.
  •	 8 pugwampi gremlins (see above)
  8. Kitchen.
  A large crockpot and various old metal eating implements are 
  scattered throughout this room. During the day a duo of larger 
  gremlins works here, preparing food offerings for Ekossigan in the 
  attic. If interrupted the gremlins attempt to flee and get reinforce-
  ments from other fey in the building.
  •	 2 nuglub gremlins (see above)
  9. Storage Room.
  This is the source of the stench. Nothing much useful is here.
  10. Dorms.
  Unsteady walkways lead down tree limbs to the dorms, each of 
  which holds 8 children who sleep in bunk-beds, except the southeast 
  dorm, which only has 7 children. The doors’ wood has grown so they 
  won’t open except at the touch of a fey, or with a heavy shove (DC 20 
  Strength check from outside, made with disadvantage from within).
  11. Headmaster’s Office.
  If the party didn’t defeat or free Gale, Ekossigan summoned her 
  here when he sensed the party was coming. She sits on the roof of 
  this small building, undeterred by the light drizzle. Upon seeing the 
  PCs, she puts a finger to her lips and tries to discourage them from 
  going inside using hand gestures. If Gale fled before, she won’t fight 
  now, but she will cast feather fall on any PC who falls. If the party 
  hasn’t faced Gale, she’ll reluctantly fight beside Ekossigan.
  Inside the office the furniture has been shattered, leaving a 
  cracked desk atop a tattered rug. There’s a hole in the wall to the 
  east. The fey have stashed a sizable treasure trove of offerings un-
  derneath the bed (1,000 gp value total), though mixed in with coins 
  and jewelry are plates of half-chewed offerings and more than a few 
  squirrel carcasses.
  There’s no sign of Ekossigan, but if anyone steps onto the bal-
  cony around the office, or if any outsider speaks within earshot of 
  the building, Ekossigan addresses them. A fey lord like Ekossigan 
  can easily step between this world and the Dreaming, and so he 
  remains hidden in the parallel version of the office, speaking via a 
  limited form of telepathy until he’s ready.
  
  EN5ider Presents: Cauldron-Born, Part Two | 23
  Act One, Thread Two: One Season Slain
  Spring Returns to Winter
  Action. Tactical. Level 10.
  Ekossigan will kill those who are against him.
  When the PCs enter the chamber, read the following. Though 
  Ekossigan wants to say his piece to Asrabey, make sure he also 
  speaks with the PCs. He’s unlikely to stand down unless the party 
  agrees to let him sacrifice all the children, in which case he’ll invite 
  them along. If the party attacks before he manifests fully into the 
  real world, he just laughs.
  A wooden mask appears in the air in front of you, antlers sweeping back 
  from its jaw. Its eyes are hollow, but it tilts slightly, as if it’s consider-
  ing your appearance. Slowly a hood fades in behind the mask, giving 
  the impression of an unseen head, and then a mantle of leaves over the 
  shoulders of this invisible man.
  “Greetings. I am Ekossigan of Spring, devoted servant of the Unseen 
  Court and protector of the ever-turning seasons. It is with much re-
  morse that I come to your dull and colorless world, but I shall rid this 
  garden of the dark seeds being wrought in your midst.”
  The fey’s masks turns to look you over, then stops at Asrabey.
  “Ah, the guard dog of the Court. I had hoped that you would lend me 
  aid in my quest to find the truth in this polluted city, but you intend to 
  be the fire that destroys the weeds and renews the field. Yet you cannot 
  harm me, so the guard dog brings pups of his own.
  “Do you know what is inside Cauldron Hill, little pups? In the gate be-
  tween this life and the afterlife, in your world’s shadow, a foul seed has 
  been planted. And Asrabey, you know the gardener. Do you remember 
  your dear wife, Kasvarina? I’m afraid she doesn’t remember you.”
  Asrabey says, “How do you know—” but he stops mid-sentence be-
  cause the ground is trembling.
  You hear a noise over the constant drone of the rain. Movement, 
  dozens of creatures down below, wings fluttering, wet hair slashing tree 
  branches, hooves tramping the grass. From the dorms on the other 
  branches you hear nervous cries of children.
  Ekossigan’s mask seems to grow more solid. “To uproot the seed, I 
  must enter the gate, and the gate requires the death of innocents. 
  Spring’s new growth must return to winter’s grasp.”
  More of his form begins to appear and a chill blue light beams from 
  every surface of his wooden skin. The temperature begins to drop, and 
  the fey lord cackles once.
  Asrabey says to you, “You stop Ekossigan. I’ll keep his army at bay. 
  But keep him alive. I need answers.”
  Then he’s out the door, sprinting toward the staircase, and you see the 
  rain has turned to driving sleet. Ekossigan’s light flares to almost blind-
  ing, and then he stands before you, fully and physically in this world.
  “Greetings,” he says. “I am Ekossigan of Winter.”
  Killing Winter.
  The mad fey seeks to slay the party so that he can complete his ritual 
  sacrifice. While the party battles Ekossigan, Asrabey holds the 
  staircase against an oncoming tide of hundreds of fey. The party 
  has very little chance of being able to run, but once they defeat the 
  fey lord his sway over his minions will be broken.
  A pair of fey snow leopards, the Sentries of Winter, manifest 
  with Ekossigan and harry the party.
  Winter Storm.
  Ekossigan’s change in nature has killed the tree the orphanage sits 
  in. Its leaves begin to blow away quickly, its branches creak, and its 
  bark cracks to the touch. Simultaneously, the drizzle of rain has 
  turned to driving sleet. Surfaces across the tree are slowly coated in 
  ice, and if Ekossigan is not stopped, whole sections of the tree will 
  collapse under the weight of the storm.
  Unprotected flames are automatically put out. Protected fires 
  like lanterns have a 75% chance of being put out. Ranged weapon at-
  tacks and Wisdom (Perception) checks are made with disadvantage.
  Treefall.
  In the first round, frosty surfaces begin to get slick. Outdoor areas 
  are treated as difficult terrain.
  In the second round, everything is coated in ice. In addition to 
  being difficult terrain, the ice forces a DC 8 Dexterity saving throw 
  to move. Failing by 5 or more means the creature falls prone.
  In the third round, the larger branches begin to creak, and the 
  southwest dorm shudders as the branch supporting it splits down 
  its length. Creatures on that branch must make a DC 8 Dexterity 
  saving throw or fall prone.
  In the fourth round, the southwest branch cracks nearly through, 
  dangling downward at a precarious 45° angle. Creatures on that 
  branch must make a DC 10 Dexterity saving throw or fall prone.
  At the end of the fifth round, the southwest branch snaps off. 
  Anyone inside the dorm plummets; with feather fall, Gale can save 
  at most 5 creatures, who must be within 60 feet of her and not 
  inside the dorm building. With the branch gone, a large chunk of 
  the foliage disappears too, shrinking the battlefield.
  In the sixth round, the northwest and northeast branches have 
  their first crack. They’ll dangle on the seventh round, and plum-
  met away on the eighth. The southeast and due south branches also 
  crack on the eighth, and they fall away on the tenth.
  In the twelfth round, the whole tree teeters; at the end of the 
  thirteenth round it topples to the ground.
  On the Ground.
  A creature who survives a fall to the ground takes 5 damage per 
  round from the onslaught of a horde of fey, barring some sort of 
  trick to keep them at bay. There’s no feasible way to defeat the whole 
  horde, but the fey ignore anyone that runs away.
  Gale Assist.
  If the party seems to be in trouble, and especially if one of the PCs 
  dies, Gale frees herself from Ekossigan’s control (breaking the fey 
  pact because she promised to aid “Ekossigan of Spring”). She can 
  aid the party by casting protective spells on them and using her 
  power to control wind, but she still can’t bring herself to actually 
  attack the fey lord.
  •	 Ekossigan of Winter
  •	 2 Sentries of Winter
  
  24 | EN5ider Presents: Cauldron-Born, Part Two
  Act One, Thread Two: One Season Slain
  Ekossigan of Winter
  Medium fey (cold), chaotic evil
  Armor Class 18 (natural armor)
  Hit Points 105 (14d8+42)
  Speed 35 ft.
   STR 
  DEX 
  CON 
  INT 
  WIS 
  CHA 
   12 (+1) 
  21 (+5) 
  16 (+3) 
  14 (+2) 
  14 (+2) 
  21 (+5)
  Saving Throws dex +9, con +7, wis +6
  Skills Acrobatics +9, Animal Handling +6, Acrobatics +9, Nature +6, 
  Perception +6, Stealth +9, Survival +6
  Damage Vulnerabilities fire
  Damage Resistances bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage from 
  weapons not made of iron
  Damage Immunities cold
  Senses passive Perception 16
  Languages Common, Elvish, Primordial, Sylvan
  Challenge 9 (5,000 XP)
  Arrowtwist. Any arrowed fired at a creature within 30 feet of Ekos-
  sigan (including the fey lord himself) swerves toward the next nearest 
  creature instead. If multiple targets are equally close, randomly 
  determine whom the arrow targets. If there is no creature other than 
  Ekossigan within that range, the arrow simply thuds to the ground 
  near his feet. Yes, the party is encouraged to shoot at their allies.
    
  This effect applies to any ranged attack—arrows, bolts, bullets, 
  slings, axes, rays, even magic missiles. Area-effect attacks like fireballs 
  work normally, unless the attacker tries to peg a target with a pro-
  jectile. A flask of alchemist fire thrown at the ground at Ekossigan’s 
  feet will deal splash damage normally, but one thrown directly at him 
  swerves.
  Cold Skin. Creatures attacking Ekossigan with unarmed strikes or 
  natural weapons take 7 (2d6) cold damage each time one of their 
  attacks hits.
  Innate Spellcasting. Ekossigan’s innate spellcasting ability is Charisma 
  (spell save DC 17). He can innately cast the following spells, requiring 
  no material components.
  3/day each: chill metal, confusion, sleep
  1/day each: entangle, geas
  Quick. Ekossigan has advantage on initiative checks.
  Walk of Nature. Ekossigan can teleport through nature with ease. He 
  can use a bonus action to begin his transition. He begins to glow, and 
  chooses a destination within 60 feet that must be in or adjacent to 
  a tree. That spot also begins to glow. At the start of his next turn, he 
  can use 5 feet of movement to teleport to the chosen destination. If 
  he cannot, he takes 7 (2d6) damage.
    
  His feet hover slightly above the ground, so his movement is unim-
  peded by snow or ice. Additionally, he can choose to hover in midair as 
  long as he is within 5 feet of a solid surface he could stand on.
  Actions
  Multiattack. Ekossigan attacks twice with his claws.
  Claw. Melee Weapon Attack: +9 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 12 
  (2d6+5) slashing damage plus 7 (2d6) cold damage.
  Cold Breath (Recharge 5–6). Ekossigan exhales freezing cold in a 20-
  foot cone. Each creature in that area must make a DC 17 Dexterity 
  saving throw, taking 28 (8d6) cold damage on a failed save, or half as 
  much damage on a successful one.
  Sentry of Winter
  Medium beast, unaligned
  Armor Class 15 (natural)
  Hit Points 39 (6d8+12)
  Speed 40 ft., climb 20 ft.
   STR 
  DEX 
  CON 
  INT 
  WIS 
  CHA 
   16 (+3) 
  19 (+4) 
  15 (+2) 
  2 (–4) 
  12 (+1) 
  6 (–2)
  Saving Throws con +4, int –2, cha +0
  Damage Resistances cold
  Senses darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 16
  Languages —
  Challenge 3 (700 XP)
  Keen Hearing and Smell. The Sentry of Winter has advantage on 
  Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on hearing or smell.
  Pounce. If the Sentry of Winter moves at least 20 feet straight toward 
  a creature and then hits it with a claw attack on the same turn, that 
  target must succeed on a DC 13 Strength saving throw or be knocked 
  prone. If the target is prone, the Sentry of Winter can make one bite 
  attack against it as a bonus action.
  Rake. When the Sentry of Winter hits a creature in the same turn with 
  two or more attacks, that creature takes an extra 3 (1d6) damage.
  Snow Move. Because of its large, fur-covered paws, the Sentry of 
  Winter ignores difficult terrain that is covered in snow.
  Actions
  Multiattack. The Sentry of Winter attacks once with its bite and twice 
  with its claws.
  Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 7 
  (1d8+3) piercing damage.
  Claw. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 6 
  (1d6+3) slashing damage.
  Tactics.
  Ekossigan starts by using his breath weapon, then prepares to tele-
  port to a spot in the tree’s branches. He tries to distance himself 
  from the party while using his various spell-like abilities to turn 
  them against each other. He’ll seek to imperil someone on a branch 
  about to fall by putting them to sleep or entangling them with dry, 
  dying branches.
  If Ekossigan’s spells begin to fail him, he instead switches to 
  using his claws up close, trying to tear down weaker PCs in melee 
  and relying on his high armor and damage reduction.
  The Sentries of Winter move to protect Ekossigan, attacking 
  PCs that engage him, trying to give their master time to reposi-
  tion. If a Sentry is low on health, it charges into the thick of battle, 
  hoping to deal as much damage as possible to enemy PCs when it 
  is destroyed.
  During combat, Ekossigan will shout out the following quotes 
  which you can use to embellish the battle:
  * “You do not understand what manner of child sleeps in the 
  mountain. Your nation’s womb will birth a monster! He shall 
  not be awakened. HE MUST NOT BE AWAKENED!”
  * “So many screams! How many have been sacrificed to fuel 
  this thing? How many souls have died to create this abomina-
  tion? What are a few more to stop it? You would do the same 
  if you could hear it.”
  
  EN5ider Presents: Cauldron-Born, Part Two | 25
  Act One, Thread Two: One Season Slain
  * “Why do you persist? The cold of winter takes all 
  things — and even if it does not take you, that thing will.”
  * “You have seen him and he knows you, but you do not know 
  him. The old man wishes to make amends, but he needs a 
  body.”
  * “She waits in the hill Asrabey Varal, but for how long? Kasva-
  rina, your lover is coming. Why do you hide?”
  * (After a tree branch falls.) “You know, I was going to simply 
  hang the children, but this works just as well!”
  Ekossigan’s Demise.
  Once Ekossigan is defeated, the storm ends, the tree creaks but 
  does not collapse, and the fey who were trying to fight through As-
  rabey stop and then flee. If Ekossigan was merely knocked out or 
  otherwise disabled, Asrabey thanks the party, then presses a cold 
  iron spike to the fey lord’s heart and slaps him to consciousness.
  He demands to know about Kasvarina, and Ekossigan, still de-
  ranged, whispers that he has seen her held prisoner in a steel cage 
  lined with tapestries, beneath Cauldron Hill in the Bleak Gate. He 
  doesn’t know anything else.
  Unless the party stops him, Asrabey proclaims the Ekossigan is 
  guilty of betraying the Unseen Court. Rather than impale him with 
  the spike, though, he presses a dagger into Ekossigan’s hand, and 
  guides him to slit his own throat.
  When Ekossigan dies (even if the party just takes him out in 
  combat), his body begins to crumble away into a mass of dead leaves 
  which are carried away on the wind. A “life bloom” overtakes the 
  area, as plants begin to sprout and smaller trees begin emerging 
  across the ground beneath the tree. The orphanage stops falling 
  away, and each PC is returned to full health.
  Skyseer Vision
  Any character with the Skyseer theme feels his gaze drawn to 
  watch the leaves as they’re blown skyward, and he receives a vi-
  sion. It is simple: A bird made of black steel, weeping blood, lands 
  at the peak of Cauldron Hill. Then it flies away toward the harbor, 
  but there is no city beneath it. Instead its shadow falls across a 
  verdant forest.
  This invokes part of Nevard’s prophecy from Adventure Two, 
  The Dying Skyseer, warning that a second doom would come from 
  Cauldron Hill. It can also suggest to the party that when the colos-
  sus Borne heads for the harbor, they should try to drive him to the 
  Dreaming.
  Asrabey’s Departure.
  The high elf dreadnought, saddened from having killed many fey 
  who tried to assault the tree, perfunctorily thanks the party for 
  their aid if they simply killed Ekossigan. If they kept him alive 
  long enough for Asrabey to ask about Kasvarina he shows a bit 
  more sincerity. Either way he says he intends to ask their king for 
  permission to enter the Bleak Gate and explore Cauldron Hill, to 
  search for Kasvarina. He warns them not to trust the Danorans, 
  then leaves.
  Aftermath.
  The Cloudwood slowly returns to normal as Varal and Gale deal with 
  the remaining troublemaking fey. Doyle Idylls (if alive) is thrilled 
  at the turn of events, and if he knows of the party’s involvement, he 
  mails each of them a gift package containing two potions of superior 
  healing, a potion of heroism, and an oil of magic weapon. e
  Ekossigan. A fey lord of the Unseen 
  Court, Ekossigan appears as a slender male, 
  draped in robes adorned with leaves, his face 
  concealed by a wooden mask with empty eye 
  sockets. Ekossigan’s magic and demeanor 
  are tied to the seasons, alternately chill and 
  bleak in winter, spirited and hopeful in spring, 
  and so on. When he is swayed by strong emo-
  tion, though, his nature may change, and his mood can manifest in the world 
  around him. 
  As an ever-changing entity, Ekossigan has no set followers, but his very 
  presence can turn lesser fey to his side. Of all in the Unseen Court, Ekossigan 
  sees technology as the greatest threat because it will change the perpetual 
  cycle of seasons into a march for progress. He foresees a future where there 
  is no nature, and it has driven him to desperation.
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Dungeons & Dragons [multi]/5th Edition (5e)/3rd Party/EN World EN5ider/EN5ider 238 - Zeitgiest 5.2 Cauldron Born.pdf