D20 SYSTEM✦ Normal

The Severed Cords of Echoing Cliffs

# Wilderness# Intrigue

The Echoing Cliffs, a vertical labyrinth of resonant stone and wind-sculpted canyons, are dying. The lifeblood of its ecosystem—the ethereal, glowing filaments that connect its floating plateaus and allow the great Winged Serpents to glide—is being severed by poachers. Their tool: a cursed, invasive lichen known as Attracting Bird-Moss, which grows over the safety-cords, making them brittle and luring avian life to a slow, starving end. Two desperate factions clash over the ruins of this natural wonder, and the party is caught in the crosscurrents of their survival.

Chronicle Prelude

The party arrives at the Cliffperch Outpost, a precarious settlement of rope bridges and cliffside hovels clinging to the lowest tier of the Echoing Cliffs. The air hums with a faint, mournful vibration. Scout-Captain Vael of the Cordwardens, a grim-faced faction dedicated to preserving the old ways, greets them with suspicion and a plea for aid against the poachers.

Environmental Traits

The entire vertical ecosystem of the Echoing Cliffs is collapsing. The Winged Serpents, crucial pollinators and keepers of aerial currents, are dying. The source of the corruption—the Attracting Bird-Moss—must be traced to its origin and stopped, or the Cliffs will fall silent forever.

Legendary Archetypes

Rayan

HP:45

STR:16

WIS: 12

CHA:11

Key Factions & Autonomous Nodes (8)

Scout Captain Vael
A severe-looking woman in immaculate Cordwarden leather, her face marked by wind-scars and a perpetual frown. She carries a well-maintained longbow and wears a pendant shaped like a coiled serpent.
Herbalist Thonn
An elderly Cordwarden scholar with ink-stained fingers and spectacles that magnify his worried eyes. He is surrounded by samples of moss, cord fibers, and alchemical apparatus.
Reeve Kara
A hardened woman with the wiry strength of a climber, her clothes patched but clean. Her eyes hold a fierce, desperate intelligence. She wears a necklace of polished bird bones.
Chemist Drissen
A gaunt man with soot-stained robes and a rattling cough. His hands are stained with purple and green pigments, and he carries pouches that clink with glass vials.
Windwalker Orin
A weathered hermit clad in cloaks made of woven bird feathers and moss, his eyes a startling, pale blue. He seems to listen more to the wind than to the person before him.
Sergeant Markus
A broad-shouldered Cordwarden sergeant in scarred armor, leading a tense patrol. His crossbow is already half-raised, his expression one of grim determination.
Scout Liena
A young Reclaimer scout, bound and gagged with cord, her clothes torn. She has a nasty bruise on her temple and watches with wide, fearful eyes.
The Resonant Horror
A massive, amorphous mass of pulsating crystal, twisted vine, and toxic purple-green moss. It emits a deafening, dissonant hum, and its form shifts and reforms around a core of blinding light.

Chronicle Prelude

Environmental Traits

Legendary Archetypes

✦ Related Cases ✦

The Goblin Plight of Rivervale and the Cryptic Mine

The Lost Workshop: Heart of a Raging Core