Page 76 - Critical Role: Tal’Dorei Campaign Setting

tal’dorei campaign guide

tHe aStural ScrollS

Clemain Astural covered thousands of pages of parchment with his writings, ranging from alchemical formulas to
powerful spells to esoteric star charts… but his later notes descend into paranoid, half-crazed ramblings. One of the
heroes that killed Astural, a wizard named Atz Yuminor, took as many of the scrolls as he could find and brought
them back to his house in the Dividing Plains. Yuminor’s bloodline continues in Estella Ladimar, headmistress of the
Westhall Academy in Westruun, and many of the Astural Scrolls are kept secretly by the Scions of Yuminor in the
academy’s observatory.

throw an annual coming-of-age festival, in which the destroy his tower, and bury his corpse in the rubble. Wret-
tribe drinks and brawls the night before their young tis is now a moss-coated ruin, but some chambers within
warriors leave to cross the mountains on a pilgrimage to and below the tower still hold secrets, as well as creations,
the Shrine of the Ruiner in the Dreamseep Marshlands. of the mad mage.
Those who brave the perils of the wilderness return as
true warriors. ruhn-shaK
The Frostweald is also home to a host of benevolent fey,
most of them pixies or dryads, using the forest as a safe
haven away from the Feywild. If pressed for answers on Small City • Population: 6,670
why they have left the Feywild, their answers are always (92% Dark Elf, 5% Deep Gnome, 3% Other)
cryptic and dissatisfactory, but always ominously suggest a If you find carved arches and steel gates in the mountain
“Great Shadow” has descended upon their lands, perhaps slopes, do not rest there, no matter the cold. There are no
even a host of warriors from the Shadowfell? A nymph dwarf-halls among these forsaken peaks.
named Arethusa (use mage statistics) watches over a clus- Deep below the surface world, countless caverns and
ter of three mirror-like pools that form a pathway into the tunnels wind into regions where light finds no purchase.
Feywild, each to a different Archfey’s forest. She is sus- It is here, beneath the Stormcrest Mountains, that the
picious of all mortals, and both her trust and a favor, are largest subterranean society of dark elves maintains its
required for passage. tyranny. Hidden entrances riddle not just the mountain
Many forgotten obelisks of the Knowing Mistress also range, but the Dreamseep, and darker regions of the Ver-
lay buried under the ice and snow, half-lost beacons that dant Expanse, allowing hunting and raiding parties quick
guide travelers to the Cavern of Axiom. If any living and easy access to the surface under cover of night, slaugh-
creature knows why these ancient monoliths reside here tering many, enslaving the rest, and taking the spoils as
when no other ruins of the Knowing Mistress have been gifts to the Spider Queen.
discovered, they have kept the knowledge secret from This twisted network of tunnels are easily collapsed and
the other scholars of the world. Ten years ago, the half- reopened through the use of “Pit Witches”, dark elf druids
orc Emonian archaeologist Jorlund Vohr discovered a who master the art of rock and dirt manipulation, making
cache of Ioun stones buried here and returned them to it near impossible to give chase. Syngorn is ever alert and
the Alabaster Lyceum of Emon, but his research and seeking a way to find and destroy this center of dark elf
findings were stolen the week after he returned. Vohr has society on Tal’Dorei, but the sly and cunning ways of
since stated he “got over it,” and is back to work on new Ruhn-Shak have yet to meet a match.
research on Visa Isle.
ruhn-shaK adventures
wrettis SlaveS of the Spider-Queen

For mid-level characters: While traversing the Storm-
A relic of the Age of Arcanum, Wrettis is the ruined crest Mountains, the party plunges into a deep pit as the
tower of a powerful mage driven mad by the seductive seemingly solid stone all around them gives way. Badly
whispers of beings from the beyond. What few leg- pummeled by the fall, they are set upon by a hunting
party of dark elves to be taken captive. If captured, the
ends survive of Wrettis’s master say he was known as
Clemain Astural, the Sight Shepherd, and that he was adventurers are taken to the slave markets of the dark
elves’ city and must plot their escape, perhaps with the
a powerful arcanist who peered into a realm beyond the
planes in search of power to end the war that ravaged his aid of their fellow captives. If they overcome the dark elf
ambush, they must still find their way out of the maze
world. He found it, and thought it would serve him. He
of underground tunnels created by the Pit Witches, who
was wrong.
Astural’s sanity crumbled, but his power only grew, have sealed off the way through which the characters fell
into the dark.
fueled an entity he called the Sightless One. As dev-
astation crept across southeastern Tal’Dorei, heroes of
the land rode to Wrettis to end Astural’s chaotic reign,

chapter 2: gazetteer of tal’dorei 75