Ethorian Home

Session 043 | The Battlefield Within

The party woke weighing whether they were ready for Sir Magnus Opus U'rilius Corbus's tower — and went to train instead. Hours of hard preparation followed: dragons, leyline energy, Sinora's shield drawing blood before she refined it into something sharper, Aedric empowering her charge, gear damaged and lessons learned the hard way. By the end of it they were ready enough to meet their new companion.

At the Manticore they met Zar'Keth and his Dinogon. Kin and Cord in the same room — tense at first, then settled. Zar'Keth offered a glimpse of his power and quietly repaired Warwick's shield. Trust began in that small gesture. From there, the party made for Theros, boarded Loid, and traveled near the tower of Sir Corbus.

Near the tower, Warwick sent out an arcane eye and felt it extinguished by an antimagic field before it could see everything — but he saw enough. Legs. Teeth. An awareness that did not belong to stone. Before a plan could form, Broj ran. The party took flight to follow. Then the tower disappeared — not destroyed, not retreating, but realmstriding away on its own terms, a great eye turned upon them one final moment before it left. Zar'Keth named what they were now facing: Corbus was hunting Kin.

The journey back to Loid broke open what had been building between Broj and his dragon all session. Aedric forced the matter into a Zone of Truth. Inside it, Broj vented — raw, honest, tangled with insults — and the fracture between rider and dragon was made visible rather than healed. Broj walked away to sort through the battlefield in his own mind, and it left him weakened, struggling, his dragon looming over him in the dark with their conflict still unresolved.

Session 042 | Gathering Shadows

The morning after everything broke, the party had no time to breathe. Agelaius stepped forward where others hesitated — standing before the Plague Dragon with offerings of poison and alchemical gifts, buying the group one more stretch of days before the dragon's patience ran out entirely. The dragon accepted. The land beneath it kept rotting. The clock kept moving.

Back in Wyrmhollow, Vyr pointed them toward the lodestones needed to bring Loid to Ethoria — and Myriam guided them across planes to find them. What they found instead was a warning: an inverted sliver hive in Shandalar, crawling with creatures that become catastrophic in numbers, with a lodestone-secreting overlord buried at its heart. They built attuning rods and withdrew. They would return stronger.

At the ash-filled crater on Theros, Loid — larger and more knowing than before — pulled them aboard to meet the one who had been chasing their wake across worlds. Aedric Vale. Sharp, controlled, and carrying his own history. The introduction was awkward. The trust was still being built. Agelaius pressed Porthos for any thread on Xavril — and found nothing. Loid then steered them to a lone tower in the Theros forest, where a Realmstrider flare burned inside stone. The growing belief: the tower itself is what remains of Sir Magnus Opus U'rilius Corbus — not a ruin, but something still alive.

In the Grove of Nymis, Sorina and Sinora reached through the earth to find their goddess — and something else reached back. Vespera. A flash, unwelcome and brief. Then Broj noticed the sisters' necks glowing. Aedric looked closer and named what he saw: not a curse, but a demon-binding pact. The sisters had been claimed. That revelation settled over the grove like winter, and the darker conversations that followed — the tower, the scouting, the possibility of killing their father — left no one untouched. They trained instead of breaking. Broj became the target. One tree did not survive the evening. Aedric revealed his abilities, and then his dragon made herself known — bright, bubbly, and thoroughly unbothered by everything her rider carries. Another confrontation is coming. They are not yet ready. They are getting closer.

Session 041 | The Cost of Power

What began as an argument in Wyrmhollow did not stay one for long. Tyel'Koron struck first, hurling himself into the fight in his displacer beast form, while Xerocomath answered with mockery, illusion, and the likeness of Broj turned into a weapon. Warwick tried to intervene — and lost control of his own body when Xerocomath ignited the seed buried in his mind. Agelaius soul-bonded the two duelists together in desperation, and Xerocomath dragged the fight across planes to Gloomspire, to the place where Vendui died.

There, after trading blows, sharing wounds through the soul-bond, and forcing Warwick to cast against his will, Xerocomath released him — only to speak down to him. Warwick answered with the magnitude of his grief: a 9th-level Scorching Ray. Tyel'Koron stepped in front of it. No hesitation. No calculation. Just instinct, loyalty, and sacrifice. The blast killed them both where they stood.

Across the planes, the wound spread. Sinora and Sorina felt the curse ignite on the backs of their necks as Tyel'Koron fell. Ruroko consumed Xerocomath's body, and Chigintonth, the Creep, died with a wail. Agelaius broke his oath of silence to hold Warwick together. Back in Wyrmhollow, the lone tree behind the Manticore took Tyel'Koron into its bark — and Dalnylthir's visage appeared in a lowering branch as a last farewell. The party, shattered and still moving, prepared for the plague dragon without one of the hearts that had carried them this far.

Session 040 | The Boiling Point

The party gathered in Wyrmhollow knowing that calm was not rest—it was preparation. Agelaius and Tyel'Koron flew to the Buckbee farm to source the overripe grapes needed for their deadly brew, only to be turned away at the door by a wary farm woman. Tyel'Koron went to the farmland itself and called a grove into being with druidic power—and the grove answered with wild excess. Vines, grapes, and explosively bursting pumpkins, squash, and corn erupted across the fields, battering both Realmstriders as they fought through the chaos to harvest what they needed. Nature provided. Nature also punished them for asking.

Back in Wyrmhollow, Warwick worked to imbue a crystal from Vyr while Sinora walked near the ghostly well and spoke with her dragon. Broj practiced with his axe. Through the night, Agelaius brewed without stopping—molded grapes, fungus, and venom gathered by Ruroku—until the result proved its nature by killing a squirrel with fumes alone. He bottled it carefully and said nothing. Morning brought a different danger when Sorina helped Broj train a new hardening ability. Stone crept too far, creeping toward his mouth until Sorina intervened and pulled him back from the edge of being entombed in his own skin.

When Sinora called the party together under a lone tree behind the Manticore, Old Man Bryn told them the hardest truth yet: the Oni's mask was not a disguise. It was a divine object—ancient and terrible—and the actual seat of the enemy's power. The revelation changed everything. Then Xerocomath declared the group an obstacle to saving his son. Broj left for Amonkhet. Words grew sharper. Tyel'Koron struck Xerocomath. Xerocomath answered with the most solid and real duplicate of Tyel'Koron the party had ever seen him produce—no longer a bard's flourish but a demonstration of what he stops pretending not to be. The session ended at the boiling point. The fellowship is still standing. Whether it stays that way is the next question.

Session 039 | Bargaining With Corruption

The party limped into Nymis Grove on Theros hollowed out and heartsore. Their dragons were furious with them. Schiznin scolded Sinora harshly through the night while Warwick sat in quiet reckoning with his own, admitting to Tyel'Koron before dawn that he does not believe he could kill a friend even if it was the only way to save them. Tyel'Koron carried that admission alongside the memory of what he had already done, and neither man slept easily. When morning came, the party debated their next steps while Nymis twice reached into the air to touch something invisible—the second time dispersing leyline workings that revealed the presence of Sir Magnus Opus U'rilius Corbus, Arch Mage of the Cerilian Spires of Arkon. Something larger was watching.

The debate ended when Xerocomath stopped talking and realmstrided directly to the cultist camp, dragging the rest of the party in his wake. They emerged to blaring horns, a monstrous four-armed Barlgura charging their entry, and a towering Balor across the camp's waterway with flame whip drawn. There was no preparation, no stealth, no plan. There was only chaos. The Barlgura grappled Clisculit, Sorina's silver-bonded dragon, and broke him—the dragon vanishing back into her in an instant that felt like a death. Warwick dove to help and missed, getting his own dragon struck in retaliation. Sinora fell in the chaos and was caught mid-drop by Schiznin. The party fled, one dragon bond shattered and the rest of them barely intact.

Retreating toward Wyrmhollow, they crossed paths with the plague dragon of the farmlands. Tyel'Koron descended and bargained with it—securing its aid against the cult in exchange for two days and dominion over all that remains after the battle. The dragon lashed out as they left to remind them of its nature. Then Warwick touched the corruption coating the land and was immediately struck with a devastating plague. The approach to Wyrmhollow nearly cost them a second life as the guardian Roc challenged them, but Tyel'Koron, Broj, and Vyr's aid guided it away. Warwick collapsed. Sorina's healing cocoon sealed around him and began to suffocate him. Sinora cut it open—and together the twins pulled the plague from his body, internal and external, in a display as grim as any battlefield. He breathed. They reached the Manticore. Two days remain before the dragon alliance must be activated.

Session 038 | Dead Lips Whisper

They thought Vysteerie would be safe. Sinora and Tyel'Koron had retreated to the spire gardens to rest—and in that moment of stillness, the trap closed. Cloaked cultists with lidless eyes surrounded her, and the masked Oni known as Onshi struck Tyel'Koron's sword hand before vanishing, then dropped Sinora with a Power Word Stun and dragged her into an anti-magic chamber. Broj tried to realmstride to her—and could not. The rest of the party converged on Tyel'Koron's call, guided by Chi-gin-tonth to a hidden alley. They found Sinora alive—and three cultists drained to nothing beside her.

The horror did not end with the escape. Tyel'Koron felt it first: Sinora's spark had been bound by the Cord. The leylines no longer answered her. Her body began to blur at the edges—flesh softening, turning incorporeal with every step toward the dwarven city. Warwick and Sorina were sent ahead for diamonds while the rest watched Sinora dissolve. They returned to find Tyel'Koron snapping her neck. Sorina shattered. Orange runes lit beneath Sinora's skin. Her dead lips whispered—and her sister, trembling with rage and grief, waited until the last possible second before calling her back with Revivify.

They retreated to the Skipping Comet Inn to eat and breathe. But Onshi followed. She came through the walls, taunted Tyel'Koron, and moved on Sorina—who realmstrided away before the blow landed. Warwick found anti-magic sigils written in blood and the dwarven innkeeper's body limp in his room. There was nothing left to debate. The party realmstrided back to Theros and Nymis Grove, carrying everything they had survived and the certain knowledge that the masked figure was still watching.

Quote of the Week: "Go sit down in the corner!" — Sinora | "Sorina does not exist… nothing but rage is there" — DM

Session 037 | By Name and By Blade

The party split three ways as the night began: Xerocomath threading the dwarven city from within, Tyel'Koron and Sinora climbing toward the spire and its secrets, and Warwick, Broj, Sorina, and Egg hunting down the magistrate. Warwick's attempt at conversation with a cluster of elves turned into a quiet encirclement—but instead of trouble, an elf guide led them to the archway and showed them how to open it. The portal set them down on a stone summit above the dwarven city, where the modestly dressed magistrate sat at a long table lined with dragon perches and demanded one thing: proof they were riders. They proved it. The pass was theirs.

Back underground, the city revealed itself from a carved stone tablet at the entry—Gateworks above, Stone Market at the heart, Anvildeep below, with the Delves and Darkwater Works reaching deeper still. The Stone Market scattered the group: Egg and Sorina sold wares in Anvildeep, Warwick and Broj found the Skipping Comet Inn (Broj wrestled the innkeeper), and Xerocomath paid a private visit to a dwarven alchemist—leaving the potion shop so foul with the smell of urine and feces that Egg and Sorina turned around the moment they stepped inside.

In the spire library, Tyel'Koron and Sinora spent the day buried in dragon histories—the Arcane Wane of the Second Era, the fall of the Third, and the haunting mention of the crystal tombs that ended dragon reign and opened the Fourth Era. Then, in the garden below, Tyel'Koron pushed the name Vespera through the Realmstrider bond into Sinora's mind—and both twins collapsed in violent convulsions. In that moment, cultists moved in from behind. A blade met bone in Tyel'Koron's hand. He strided away with his dragon as the cut landed. Sinora pulled herself upright to find the Oni—the same creature that once cursed her—standing over her.

Quote of the Week: "Are you drunk?" — Egg | "Nah I'm good!" — Warwick

Session 036 | The Bond Made Whole

The party regrouped from their split rest across Theros—some in the Crystal Catacombs, others in Nymis' Grove—wyrmlings hovering close and lashing out at anyone but their bonded rider. Back in Vysteerie, awkward bonding resumed: Broj was pinned by Droonoth, Warwick attempted a trust fall with Vuldel, and the Gith offered blunt counsel: train harder, rely on them less. The bond proved incomplete until a full long rest—and when the party woke, their dragons were gone from beside them. They found them perched on their shoulders, invisible to all but the bonded rider, already attuned to the leyline.

During his extended trance, Tyel'Koron pushed toward Vespera on Dalnylthir's advice and received a vision of burning red and black eyes—and the certainty that something is locked away. Meanwhile, Chigintonth, The Creep revealed she had already carved out a shifting sewer lair beneath Vysteerie, then pulled Xerocomath through their bond to a hidden chamber where Ethorian Law was carved in stone—alongside a hoard of unstamped Kaeposh coin. They filled chests and returned. The session ended with the party split: Tyel'Koron and Sinora headed for the elven spire, while the rest were turned away at the dwarven gates—except Xerocomath, who realmstrided inside alone.

Quote of the Week: "I can do that! What do you mean...??"

Session 035 | The Wyrmling Pact

The party scattered across Vysteerie's Horseshoe Ring learned the brutal truth about bonding with wyrmlings: death itself is the mechanism. Xerocomath fell first, drawing a Jabberwock wyrmling's wrath. Sorina died and her Silver wyrmling realmstrided with her—revealing the path. Sinora's Black wyrmling spoke plainly: "To Die!" One by one, they threw themselves from the platform, dying and realmstriding until the pact was sealed. Each death reset their timers. Each stride bound dragon to rider through the leylines themselves.

They gathered in a grove on Theros, each with a wyrmling standing vigil: Dalnylthir (Gold) with Tyel'Koron, Ruroko (Green) with Agelaius, Droonoth (Red) with Broj, Vuldel (Blue) with Warwick, Clisculit (Silver) with Sorina, Skeznin (Shadow) with Sinora, and Chigintonth the Creep (Jabberwock) with Xerocomath. This wasn't the Githyanki bond of mount and rider—this was stranger, deeper. Death was the price. The wyrmlings now walk the planes with them.

Quote of the Week: "Are you good?" - Warwick | "No, I think we are supposed to die" - Sinora

Session 034 | Leap of Faith

The party reconvened at The Manticore alongside Myrium, Jorso, and Ju'bile to map out the next phase of the campaign: building enough power, allies, and resources to confront Gorrath, the Maliced Scaled. The group agreed this fight can't be won alone—a united front on Tarkir is the best path forward—and the Realmstriders committed to helping the party seek the alliances they'll need. Atarlax was raised as a potential ally, and Warwick pressed Jorso for guidance on recharging the party's crystals, successfully triggering a volatile, body-rattling recharge surge.

In a strange turn, Vyr vanished and later returned with Xavril unconscious but alive, offering no comforting context—only urgency. With Vyr's agreement to guide them onward, the party realmstrided first to Amonkhet (where Broj's trumpet call met a distant response), then onward to Ethoria, arriving at a ridge overlooking the vast, ancient elven city of Vysteerie.

At Vysteerie, the party was met by a massive flying mount and escorted to the Horseshoe Platform, a Skyguard outpost perched above the city and tied into a colossal ring structure hovering over the skyline. There they were greeted by V'a'nas, a veteran Gith Skyguard rider and trainer. The Skyguard made it clear: dragon-riding here isn't "taught" so much as earned.

To secure wyrmling mounts, the party learned they must first obtain something deceptively simple: the mount's true name—and the first step toward that bond is faith. What followed was an increasingly chaotic "rite of passage" as party members repeatedly launched themselves from the platform, gambling that a chosen wyvern would catch them before impact. Some were caught, some were battered, some were hunted like prey, and several narrowly avoided death through frantic realmstriding at the last possible moment. Between near-fatal plunges, wild midair scuffles, and improvised magical problem-solving, the party began to understand the Skyguard's lesson: bonding isn't dominance—it's trust, timing, and connection.

Quote of the Week: "The height is about 1000 dwarfs tall."

Session 033 | The War Has Started

Dawn broke over the forest as Sorina and Xercomath showed visible signs of Arcane Wasting spreading through them. The Dream Entity began speaking through Broj in cryptic musical metaphors—"skull-cave" for mind, "mouth-melody" for speech—observing the party through golden-flashed eyes. Navigating treacherous brambles that glowed with magic and acted as living alarm systems for hushstalkers, they crossed a ravine where Xavril lost his sword but Egg saved him twice and offered his own blade. When Myrium realmstrided them through Tarkir, Xercomath made an impossible choice—staying behind to search for his son while the party sought Nymis the Seedbound God on Theros. After three days, a unicorn cleansed the Arcane Wasting from both infected party members, but healing couldn't touch Xercomath's deeper wound. In anguish, he lashed out at TyelKoron and declared: "I am going to war. With or without you." Alone on Tarkir, Xercomath descended into the Underdark marked by Gorrath the Malice-Scaled's runes. In Gloomspire's hidden chamber, he found Vendui—his closest friend—pinned dead to the wall by a shadow dragon scale. Inside Vendui's mouth: his son's eyestalk, left as a message. Faint echoes of weeping filled the chamber as Xercomath realized the war had already started.

Session 032 | Dreams Can Catch You

Day 3 of the trek began with a desperate attempt to wake the unconscious pteranodons and guard. Sorina's X-ray vision revealed her bones glowing red while Warwick's mana-infused shocking grasp turned grotesque—the pteranodon's brain melted, leaving it dead. After discovering the guard had died from brain damage, TyelKoron's Speak with Plants spell inadvertently summoned White Apes drawn to the party's magical signatures. The brutal combat left Sorina and Xercomath infected with Arcane Wasting—a contagious curse that spreads through targeted spells. Meanwhile, an entity began hunting the Golden-Eyed Dream Deity through Warwick's burning Mind Palace, causing him severe psychic damage and memory loss. TyelKoron, caught between two patrons, approached the Sisters with flames in his eyes speaking Abyssal. That night, Broj dreamed of a colossal apocalyptic entity approaching across scorched wasteland. By morning, both infected party members showed visible illness as they continued toward Vysteerie—wounded, haunted, and pursued by forces that hunt even through dreams.

Session 031 | The Dream Deity

Day 2 of the flight to Vysteeri turned catastrophic. After Warwick restored Sinora's hair and Tyelkoron meditated on his new fire-orb powers, the party reached a bowl-shaped mountain platform filled with stale water. When Broj accidentally knocked Sinora off the edge, Tyelkoron leaped after her empowered by Egg's "Indestructible" spell, stabilizing her while Broj drained the bowl. That night, a Dream Deity possessed Xerocomath with golden eyes, causing guards and pteranodons to convulse. The entity transferred to Warwick, but morning revealed devastating consequences—guards suffered severe memory loss, pteranodons failed, and the platform crashed. Two guards died in the fall. After lighting funeral pyres, the journey to Vysteeri transformed from escort mission to survival arc.

Session 030 | The Marked Journey

The party departed Wyrmhallow aboard massive pteranodons, bound for Vysteeri across a treacherous three-day flight. As Sinora's cursed Oni mark flared with renewed pain, four pursuers—an Oni and three cultists on giant vultures—followed relentlessly. During their first night on a shielded platform, the party shared their origin stories around the fire, bonding through vulnerability. When the Oni raced ahead toward Vysteeri, desperate attempts to remove Sinora's blood magic curse revealed it could only be broken by its creator's death. Tyelkoron, bearing his own curse tied to Gorrath the Malice-Scaled, intervened—accepting a fiendish pact that transferred the mark to his hand along with a living orb of fire. Sinora was freed, but Tyelkoron now carries a darkness yet to be understood.

Sessions 023-029 | The Crimson Awakening

Captured and imprisoned as living leyline batteries, the party awakened in the Arch Mage's sinister laboratory. Xercomath, trapped in a birdcage, coordinated their escape through telepathy. They freed Porthos, an albino giant Realmstrider held captive for years, whose violent awakening destroyed the lab in crimson fire. In the Arch Mage's hidden chamber, they discovered his true allegiance—a collection of severed Realmstrider heads from the Ætherborn Kin. After a catastrophic battle on Theros that ended in a mushroom cloud explosion, the party survived by their Realmstrider instincts. Now, with Porthos guarding their sentient ship Loid, they head to Vysterie, carrying the weight of dark revelations and unanswered questions.

Sessions 021-022 | Unfortunate Events

The party descended into the crystalline gorge to meet Arch Mage Sir Magnus Opus U'rilius Corbus, agreeing to clear blocked mine passages where trespassers had become fused with essence-draining crystals. After exhausting work in the mines, their attempt at goodwill with Loid's potent goodberries went catastrophically wrong—a farmer was accidentally killed, his wife injured, and the body reanimated as undead. The party's confession led to their imprisonment beneath the Cerilian Spire in magic-dampened cells.

Session 020 | Infernal Gateway

Dreams bled between minds as the party awoke aboard Loid. The tiefling twins Sorina and Sinora ignited, their touch tearing open a portal to the Nine Hells. A Chain Devil clawed through while something worse pushed from beyond. Sorina sacrificed herself with a radiant blast to seal the breach. The party then journeyed to a crystal mining town, spotting a dragon across the chasm before being escorted to the Cerilian Spire to meet the despised mage-lord Magnus Opus.

Session 019 | Loid's Awakening

The Realmstriders readied their new illithid-grown airship Loid, discovering it feeds on flesh. While hunting fuel, they encountered a magic-negating flail snail and negotiated peace with a pack of territorial lycanthropes. Fed vampire heads, Loid transformed—tentacles becoming hands as sentience emerged, communicating through sign language. Upon reaching a crystal-choked crevasse, a Cord mage confronted Xerocomath with a death threat, ordering them to land outside the town walls.

Session 002 | Warcrimes and Wit

Fresh from Camp Sethreal, the party received their first real mission: help the Duckbee family deal with goblin raiders. Agelaius concocted an infamous "creative solution"—poisoned stew placed inside chickens to be fed to the goblins, who would then be fed to their worgs, sending the beasts into a frenzy. While tactically effective, this questionable strategy earned the party a complicated reputation in the region.

Session 001 | Bootcamp at Camp Sethreal

The journey begins at Camp Sethreal, a remote training outpost where would-be Realmstriders learn to harness the power of the Æther. Under the watchful eye of Bringar "Old Brin," a grizzled dwarf with a mysterious past, seven souls converge to receive their first taste of what it means to walk the planes. Each recruit receives a leyline-enhanced crystal and faces their first trial.

Deceased Player Characters

Heroes who have fallen along the journey