3. Diplomatic Dispatches: Zhentarim Activities

Diplomatic Dispatches: Zhentarim Activities


  • [A thread for Aoth's reports and IC actions regarding the Zhentarim.]


  • Sparrow-Delivered Elven Letter
    Flamerule 07/12/24 (Two days post Eastland Skirmish; seven days until 3,000 Zhentarim arrive.)
    From: Elonon Waelvor
    To: Aoth Sepret / "Elder Windcaller"

    Aoth Sepret, Elder Windcaller,

    It is with some difficulty that I pen this letter, to the accomplices of those descendants of mankind that drove the Tel-Quessir of old from the north, after rejecting its boreal wonders and magic in favour of demonic patronage.

    My house has its roots in Cormanthor, home to the Standing Stone, monument to the unity between elf and Dalesman.

    There is no such monument in the north.

    Yet your consort, the Fisher Princess, did not hesitate to demand the invader humans from the West to leave our forests as part of the north's treaty negotiations.

    My house and our allies do not agree with the Riildath Stewardship's position against you and the northmen.

    We are only one faction of Riildath. We have 400 strong elves, including among them 80 powerful arcanists, clerics, and druids.

    We move north on the morrow. To assist your northern war.

    We do so with great jeopardy, but that jeopardy yields to my personal belief in the natural friendship between man and elf, represented by the Standing Stone of my ancestor's Cormanthor homeland.

    Do not break this fragile trust that we extend now to you and your kin.

    Expect our arrival soon.

    -- Elonon Waelvor.

    [DM Xanatos Gambit]


  • In the canopy, two metallic-green eyes glimmer, before a sinuous white neck extends, a delicate dragon's head regarding first Aoth, then any others gathered around the circle. The wyrmling drops down with a soft swoosh of leathery wings, perching on one of the stones.

    "Destruction is their purpose. Not for rebirth, but for more destruction's sake. And destruction is our solution too?"

    The wyrmling's voice is faintly female, but flat in tone, not challenging so much as genuinely wondering as it poses its query, head tilted to the right.

    "I do not understand much of revenge. But these men are part of a network of ruin, opposing the green. We should disrupt their protocol. I stand by to assist, Elders."


  • Swift wings carry the reply after a day's consideration...

    You mistake a title for a purpose, but perhaps it makes no difference after all. I had intended to speak in your favor with my circle, to suggest a new equity in the regrowth to come. Instead I thank you for the wisdom, for this lesson in how the Riildath was divided and lost. When the war is over, I will ask my circle only to celebrate the strength we gained in the embrace of our differences.

    Do enjoy the reprieve from your own war, such as my wife gifted you. Already there are fewer Zhentarim to gnaw at your roots when they march south again.

    In faith,
    --Elder Windcaller

    =

    In the downtime following the Underdark mission, Aoth emerges from a tree near the druid glen. Her eyes are tired and dark despite her youthfulness, and when she sits at the stone circle, one is tempted to describe a sense of actual relief.

    "I must apologize for my absence even if to do so brands me a heretic in my faith. Many of you are better hunters than I, as many of you know more trees by name than I do. Someday I will hear how you bled those who cut a hole in through our woods and how you have bled in return. Since the time of my initiation during another war, my duties have been elsewhere - preaching to the unlearned that some magic, some weapons, should never be wielded. I am pleased to report they have a different breed leading the Nar cause these days.

    "Today I bring you an opening, a chance, if you choose to take it.

    "In a few days time, if I have my way, the forces in Norwick will be drawn northward. They have already lost a third of their number, and if I am correct, they will soon be quite vulnerable from the south.

    "I will be elsewhere, preventing more of them from reaching Narfell, but if you hunger for revenge, if you wish to break their weapons and their tools and reclaim them for the woods, then call on the trees - the oak guardians we tend for times of need, the awakened if they can be roused. Call on the wolves, the bears, or the wyverns if they can be persuaded to free their own. Stir the goblins if you dare. If the Zhentarim turn their backs, as I predict, then you have a chance to teach them a true, primal fear such as their masters have never done.

    "What do you say, old friends?"


  • A swallow flies back north, with a letter written in the same language, though with a distinctly Elven cursive.

    Elder Windcaller,

    We know who you are.

    We know of your marriage to human royalty, descendants of the old Nars Empire.

    You are the very "human behind a stone wall deciding the future."

    Your words are no more than a desperate plea to spill Elvish instead of northmen blood.

    The Nars Empire's descendants face the same that they, in yesteryear, imposed upon the Elves of Riildath.

    When the humans finish killing one-another, and the last drop of human blood feeds the soil, perhaps then these northern lands will heal.

    With all due sincerity,

    -- Stewards of Riildath.

    [DM Xanatos Gambit]


  • A falcon flies south with a letter in the runic language of the druids...

    To the stewards of Riildath,

    It is plain that we cannot rely on the humans behind their stone walls to decide the future. I cannot speak alone for my circle any more than I can for the woods. Our circle keeps a grove hidden near the center of the Rawlinswood. You will find the protector, the great tree Irmunsil, growing there. The Zhentarim will not have found it.

    Meet our elders there. It is time for all speakers of the wild to lift our voices and decide what is to be done.

    Elder Windcaller


  • CONFIDENTIAL

    Summary: Thayvian wisdom.
    Location: Peltarch.
    Food/Wine: If the Tuigan offer you a drink, ask no questions.

    Facts:

    • An intelligence failure doomed future missions and weakened our logistics core.

    Interpretations:

    • We have no reason to believe Reeving was alone even if he acted alone, and must proceed as if infiltration will repeat.

    Recommendations:

    • Find a Far Scout captain already. Gloom? She had the audacity to accuse the Geese, which is a top qualification.
    • Begin operating in cells. Neither the broad picture nor future actions should be discussed in front of the entire council, sundry knights and half-hearted allies.
    • Require the Ceruleans to operate in pairs as much as possible.
    • Request agents of the divine play a greater role in our magical anchors?
    • Allow the Geese greater independence---let us be a wild card. And the Geese should begin relying on their own abilities and resources.
    • Consider allowing the Selunites an equal measure of freedom outside Peltarch? Give them a list written in confidence and let them choose.
    • If not the Selunites, then Prince Adrian's snakes and skulkers.

  • Once Cormac's khanate makes camp, Aoth spares a few hours each day to translate between the nomads, nearby farmers, and the city. She also attempts to get to know their shamans and soothsayers, whether they serve Teylas-Akadi, Etugen-Grumbar, or stranger spirits. She is especially keen to learn of any who might be gifted with handling animals.

    Over drinks and roast meat, Aoth will happily share the tale of her first circle and the elder Tuigan druid, living in hiding from he slavers in Thay, who sharpened her teenage apprentice into a weapon too dire to handle. "She was one to fear. If she lived to be one hundred and one, she still died with a sword in her gut and her knife in the killer's throat, of that I am certain."


  • Throughout the tenday before Peltarch’s third confrontation with the Zhentarim, the white-haired shaman of the goddess of speed is spotted in multiple towns. Here she casually exits a tree outside the gates, and there she settles down in a misty form beside a temple. Then, quicker than rumor can travel by foot, she is gone again and sighted in a town several leagues away. Like the wind itself, a crisscrossing, difficult path to follow for anyone who isn't willing to expend the special effort to reconnoiter her trackless path.

    Still, no stranger to these lands, the wanderer when she appears would be unmistakable even if her mithril wedding gift wasn’t atop her head and glittering in the sun. While publicly buying bread in the morning or ordering wine in the evening, she lets slip a vague premonition—that Peltarch foresees trouble in a few years time---a threat to trade and peace---but there is time left to act if wisdom rules.

    Privately, when she bows before chiefs and lords and shakes hands with guild leaders, she speaks of more urgent matters. As her intemperate, oracular cloak whispers sweet words into her ear, her story shifts and adapts for each audience.

    To one group, she says, “King Thamalan of Peltarch, the devout, has through prayer received his holy appointment to expel the servants of the Black Hand from his lands and to cut off their access from the northeast once again. He invites you to fulfill our charge as stewards of the people, and to take part in the glorious victory to come while the gods of duty and civility watch over us.”

    To another: “King Thalaman of Peltarch, the golden-haired protector of the Long Road, sends his regards and wishes you good health and greater wealth. He also tasks me his servant with delivering a plea. The law, justice, and common propriety demand we secure our region from the Accursed Hand, who would impose illegitimate tariffs, terrorize our caravans, and destroy what our houses and guilds have built for generations. We cannot give to their capricious games.”

    To yet a third: “The Tyrant is sending his goons because he thinks we are weak and will cow readily under their boot. Are we not the Unapproachable East? Will our children remember us as the cowards who bent or will our would-be enemies know us as the unshakeable wall that they broke their noses upon? There will be blood either way, and glory for some.”

    In the discussions that follow, the details are adjusted slightly at every stop on her journey. At one, the count of the forces or the list of allies already pledged, and at another, the goods which Peltarch requires and the routes that carry them. Details are expunged, predictions and plans reduced and partial—all little flies planted to test the web of information.

    Aoth does not, presently, demand soldiers and direct contributions to the war efforts, but seems to prefer laying avenues of trade and the message of each region actively ensuring their local trade roads will be protected. She advises that if no town gives in, the Zhentarim will find no foothold to turn into a position of strength. "If one falls to fear, all suffer," she says, with her perceptive eyes watchful of both hesitance and quick but empty agreement.

    Always she is careful never to acknowledge the prisoner exchange.

    ~:~

    As she crosses the fields of the Great Dale and the Cold Road where the griffons hunt, Aoth takes special note of the magical beasts' movements and the composition of each pack. Sitting high in a tree as she eats the bread or drinks the wine from town, she watches them hunt and memorizes the pack leaders and proudest in their numbers. Observations for future benefit.