## The Sentinels of Balance The Sentinels of Balance are an international secret society, focused on uncovering details about and preventing what they say is a near-certain coming apocalypse. * You had contact with Priya Van Richten when in Barriton dealing with the House of Kas vampires. * You worked with the Halfling Postal Service personnel in Sojourn City. They were concerned with the undead threat in the Dead Lands and with gaining material to blackmail the Empress of the Forssen Empire, in order to have her and her forces as an asset when preparing for the coming crisis. * You intend to approach the HPS personnel in The Citadel as well. ## The Army of Darkness - You learned that Morgath the Dread is at the head of an army of automatons that seem to have originated somewhere in the Underdark. - Morgath recognized that you were carring a Lodestone and that the Matron Mother Ryya Quenas also possessed one. You escaped from him. - The Army is pushing out of the Underdark and into Rasten Forest, clashing with the Empire. ## The Lumi Invasion - The Lumi are fiery extra-planar invaders who value Lawful Good tendencies above all. They have opened some sort of rift and invaded from mid-southern Aithar, pushing into the Tortle Collective. Rumor says that Mindel has been sacked, and their armies are advancing inexorably towards Grove City and The Citadel. - The crazy preacher Silver who claimed "the void" would doom us all says that the Collective is enabling it, witting or not, by excavating something powerful under the Citadel, and that the Lumi will destroy them and secure the (whatever it is) and provide safety for the mortal realm. - Little else is known currently about the Lumi ## The Undead Hordes - You are aware from speaking with the Sentinels that they blame the Novaki, the gods of the gods who created all, for the death of the gods Tyr, Primus, and Asmodeus (META: You know the latter was not them haha). They think the remaining Novaki after those battles have taken refuge in the Dead Lands. - You know undead hordes are spilling out of the Dead Lands into the northern Empire and into the Wilderness region. Mostly undead elves, though there is also the desiccated version of the legendary giant Bartec Ferrum. Who was interred long, long ago under the Realm Tree in the Dead Lands (then the Woodland Realm). ## The Lodestones of Power * You read a book about these "Lodestones", _The Forbidden Truths of Legacy Magic and the Lodestones of Power_, which said: * There are six Lodestones * The beings that created all of the multiverse (The Novaki) took the magic they used to create things, called Creation Magic, or by some, Legacy Magic. Divested this part of their powers and stored it in Lodestones, hidden all over Aithar, a sparsely populated continent on the Material Plane. * There is some sort of safeguard that stops the Novaki from taking back up this power that they gave up. * The stones are powerful enough to alter magic and reality around them, at times, even without being tapped directly. * You know that Morgath wants these, badly, for some nefarious purpose. ### Status of the Stones 1. One of the Lodestones was known to have been in Galduun, in what is now Celdun, in the southwest, buried somewhere under Mount Galindre. Morgath the Dread died during a conflict over it, long ago. Source: The book noted above. 2. You possess a Lodestone that came from the Crystal Shaman, who inexplicably lied to you about the stones, and did not tell you he had secreted it onto your persons. 3. You possess a Lodestone that came from Matron Mother Ryya Quenas, in Zenzovir. 4. Unknown 5. Unknown 6. Unknown