The Rod of Law

 From the stories of Slash the Bard

The Rod of Six Parts

Also called: The Rod of Law, The Unmaking Rod, The False Binding

Forged in ancient times to imprison the Elder Elemental God, the Rod of Six Parts is a legendary artifact of immense power. Though once believed to be a force of order, the deeper truth is far more troubling. In Hommlet Dark, it is a double-edged key—capable of containing elemental evil, but also of unlocking it entirely.

Each recovered segment pulses with dark energy and ancient runes, whispering to its bearer. When assembled, the Rod does not simply bind chaos—it draws it forth, tempting mortals to break the barrier between planes and summon what should remain buried in the void.

Its reputation as an object of Law is now tainted. In the right—or wrong—hands, the completed rod could be used to shatter the seals of the Abyss, unleashing the Elder Elemental Eye from its prison.

I'm Sorry Did We Interrupt The Human Sacrifice?

 I'm Sorry Did We Interrupt The Human Sacrifice?  Alternate Title:  Rods And Tentacles

What games are these Abbey Cultist up too?  First we fight the Sons of  Kyuss and then we run into more tentacles and another new type of undead.  Rods and Tentacles just the way we like it.  Spicy indeed!   

However, starting to worry about the Ranger carrying this bizarre contraption!  The more parts of the Rod we find the stronger it gets.  At some point it will take over his mind.  

Dixon Lumlir Dwarf of the Toy Makers Guild

Chapter 3 / Episode 6 - The Rod of Law

Players:
Dog, Ranger of the Gnarley Forest
Irving, the Reluctant, Paladin of St. Cuthbert
Dixon, Dwarven Fighter
Muspell Heavyhand, Gnome Illusionist
Slash the Bard
Oleg the half elven Cleric/Magic-User/Thief of St. Cuthbert
Tiger Wong, Kung-Fu Monk of the Eastern lands

Coldeven 21, 576 CY - Dusk

Weather:
Cold, clear skies. Temperature: 18.7°F to 47.6°F. Light breeze from the north.

 
Underground

The halls beneath the Abbey held the chill of old death, the kind that never leaves. The echoes of the battle with the Sons of Kyruss still hung in the air—rotting flesh smoldered faintly where radiant energy had done its work. The party advanced cautiously, torches flickering as they stepped into a 30-foot corridor carved from ancient stone. Dog and Slash led the way, blades drawn, boots silent.

“We press forward,” murmured Dog, eyes scanning the darkness. “There’s something… waiting.”
Down the passage, torchlight revealed widening stonework. Dog paused at a bend and placed an ear to the wall. Nothing—just the dull throb of unseen water.

They advanced, careful and ready, until a door with glowing glyphs halted them in their tracks. Fear, cold and primal, radiated from the runes. Irving faltered, breath shallow. Terry clutched his holy symbol, beads of sweat lining his brow.

“Fall back!” Dixon barked, hauling the stunned Irving away. “They're warded—blasted runes!”
Dog, normally unshakable, recoiled in a full panic. Slash caught him. “Easy, brother. It’s just a spell... it’ll pass.”

After Terry dispelled the glyphs, they opened the cursed door, revealing a chamber lit by eerie sconces. A pool of dark water dominated the center, and beyond it—an altar. A hooded figure stood beside a pale body laid upon the stone.

Without waiting, Irving surged around the northern rim of the pool, mace raised. Oleg’s voice cracked with a spell as a bolt of force leapt toward the figure. Dog fired an arrow, while Dixon, suspicious of illusion, hurled a hammer.

Then the pool stirred.

Massive, slithering tentacles erupted from the water, lashing out with horrifying speed. Tiger Wong's flying kick was caught mid-air, flung aside. Irving was wrapped and lifted. Dixon swung wildly, trying to sever the rubbery limbs.

“It’s not just a guardian,” Terry shouted, “It’s part of the temple itself!”

Tentacles tightened. Muspell cast a blur over Oleg, who dodged a strike. Terry raised a vial of holy water and whispered a prayer to St. Cuthbert. With a cry of divine wrath, he hurled it into the center of the pool.

The water hissed, bubbled—then boiled. Tentacles spasmed and writhed, then dropped lifeless into the pit. The figure at the altar vanished in a shimmer.

As silence fell, the torchlight flickered against a strange glint on the desecrated altar. Embedded in the stone were three metallic fragments—shaped like the pieces of a rod.

With reverence, Dog approached and placed the two pieces they carried alongside the third. The rods pulled together as if magnetized, fusing in a shimmer of arcane light.

“What is it doing?” whispered Slash.

Oleg flipped through an old passage in the Dungeon Master’s Guide he'd copied from Burne. “The Rod of Law,” he breathed. “But there’s more to this than we thought.”

Wounded but victorious, the group laid the body to rest with full rites. Dixon, bruised and bleeding, leaned on his hammer while Terry and Irving exhausted their last healing scrolls.

They would camp in the abbey ruins one more night. With three pieces of the Rod of Law now in their hands, the tide had shifted—but no one could say in which direction.

XP 1000

Dogs Song to Ehlonna

 Fairest of ladys- soft as the breeze

Watch o'r your faithful who watch o'r the trees

The evil and the wicked- oh come to me!

The Hands of Ehlonna will strike with great speed

The whole of the Gnarley our band has just freed

But the war is not won til the righteous stampedes

For now the dark clouds- fade and recede

But the land and her people are still in great need

So come all her children- gather around

We watch from the tree tops- down to the ground

Chapter 3 / Episode 5 - Down the Well

Players:

Dog, Ranger of the Gnarley Forest

Irving, the Reluctant, Paladin of St. Cuthbert

Dixon, Dwarven Fighter

Muspell Heavyhand, Gnome Illusionist

Slash the Bard

Oleg the half elven Cleric/Magic-User/Thief of St. Cuthbert

Tiger Wong, Kung-Fu Monk of the Eastern lands

Coldeven 21, 576 CY - Dusk

Weather:

Cold, clear skies. Temperature: 18.7°F to 47.6°F. Light breeze from the north. 

Cold air hung still over the Abbey like a breath withheld. The well in the courtyard, ringed in frost, beckoned with ancient hunger.

A chill wind stirred the trees as Dog paused at the stone rim of the well. Something was wrong. The rope was wet—recently used. A bucket dangled in the dark like bait. But it was not sight or sound that summoned the group—it was a voice. Not heard, but felt: a low, gurgling whisper in each of their minds. Place the rod into the well...

Slash frowned. “That’s not ominous at all.” He conjured a drifting orb of dancing light and sent it spiraling downward, illuminating only more shadow.

Dog volunteered first. Tying the rope around his waist, he descended, torch in hand, vanishing into the throat of the world. Forty feet down, he found a chamber: slick, damp, thirty by forty feet wide. The light flickered on glistening walls. The others followed, some by rope, others by plunge—Dixon with a grunt, Oleg with a splash.

The narrow passage that greeted them reeked of age and moisture. No breeze. No footprints. Only stillness, and the drip of unseen water. "Like something's been waiting," Dog murmured. Terry chuckled darkly, "Reminds me of a long, wet nine-month stay... I don’t recommend it."

The group pressed forward in single file, Dog leading with a torch, Terry behind, then Dixon, Oleg, and Tiger. In the darkness ahead: motion. A writhing, furry shape. Then another. Two great osquips—mutated moles with gnashing yellow teeth—lunged from the gloom.

The tight space made the fight brutal. Terry’s mace was too large to swing. He stabbed with a spear—missed. Dog’s torch flared as claws raked him, drawing blood. Oleg muttered arcane syllables and sent a magic missile arcing into the shadows. Slash shifted back to allow Tiger to vault forward, his fists like iron.

The creatures clawed and bit, but the party held their ground. Dixon moved in with a crushing blow from his war hammer, finishing the second beast. They stood panting in the torchlight, blood dripping, tunnel steaming.

Wounds were mended with spells and potions. Then onward—Dog’s torch revealing a hidden wooden door beneath the Abbey, half-rotted and swollen with damp. Terry pressed it open slowly. Beyond: a 50-by-50 foot chamber. Quiet. Undisturbed. A second door at the far end.

They approached—and it opened. From within spilled the stench of decay and the clatter of skeletal limbs. Five creatures emerged, twisted and malformed: the Sons of Kyruss. Pallid eyes glimmered with cursed awareness.

Steel met bone. Dog slashed with precision. Terry called down holy wrath. Dixon crushed ribs and skulls with a fury born of grief and justice. One creature bit Dog—its filthy teeth carrying disease—but he fought off the sickness by will alone.

The final blow came from Dixon and Terry together, holy mace and hammer smashing through the last of the cursed. Silence fell.

XP 500

To the Abbey Bandits - Thanks for the Treasure!

****Contents of Letter hastily written and left affixed to the Abbey Double Doors**** 

From Dixon Lumlir of Lumlir Bridge Saprisam Earldom, Duchy of Ulek.

Thank you so much for your donation of treasure to our journey.  Next time please stay and be a good host to us.  No need to run away and hide.  We will stop by again sometime.  

PS please repair the Statue of the Elf Goddess inside.  Dog is very upset, and it is in bad taste.  

One final note:  I understand not wanting to live down south with the orcs and trolls.  You are Elves & Humans after all.  If sincere peace can be attained?  I would speak to the Earls of Ulek and Elven Lords of Celene to grant you a small homeland.  There is so much wildland still available.  We must be able to fit you in somewhere?

Enjoy this rose till next time!  

Chapter 3 / Episode 4 – Beneath the Broken Altar

 Chapter 3 / Episode 4 – Beneath the Broken Altar

Players:

Dog, Ranger of the Gnarley Forest

Irving, the Reluctant, Paladin of St. Cuthbert

Dixon, Dwarven Fighter

Muspell Heavyhand, Gnome Illusionist

Slash the Bard

Oleg the half elven Cleric/Magic-User/Thief of St. Cuthbert

Tiger Wong, Kung-Fu Monk of the Eastern lands

Coldeven 21, 576 CY - Dusk

Weather:
Cold, clear skies. Temperature: 18.7°F to 47.6°F. Light breeze from the north.

The cold morning broke over frost-laced ruins, but the sun could not reach into the shadow-choked halls of the ancient abbey. Beneath its long-rotted timbers and weed-cracked stone, something vile still lingered.

Cartography by Greyhawk Grognard This map comes from his T0 module available his site.

Dog, the Ranger of the Gnarley, moved like a whisper through the shattered cloisters. Beside him walked Irving the Reluctant, plate armor gleaming faintly under his winter cloak, ever watching. The rest followed close: Dixon’s dwarven breath fogged the air before him like smoke from a forge; Tiger Wong’s feet never made a sound; Muspell Heavyhand grumbled quietly under his fur-lined disguise; Slash, bard of uncertain loyalties, scribbled in a leather book; and Oleg, half-elf of two paths, whispered minor protections into his hands.

Inside the bathhouse, a silence lingered too long to be natural. The first strike came not from man or beast, but from stone itself—a gray ooze sliding silently from a cracked pipe, its surface shimmering like thick mercury. Dixon’s hammer struck with a loud crack; stone sizzled and smoked as the ooze hissed in agony. Irving ended the thing with a righteous blow, and the slick puddle collapsed into lifeless paste.

Beyond that ruined chamber, in a mold-choked building, they found another scene—tables hastily abandoned, meat half-eaten, mugs still frosted with ale. "They left in a hurry," Dog muttered, kneeling to study the bootprints. A second story tower loomed above, its roof caved in like a broken jaw. They climbed, despite warnings. In the dust they found little—until Dixon’s torch poked a dark wet patch. It sizzled.

A shadow lunged from the beams.

The giant spider struck fast. Fangs found flesh. Muspell screamed as venom coursed through his arm. TerryOr stepped forward to help—only to be bitten. He fell to his knees, eyes wide with fear, clutching at his throat as poison seized him. “He’s choking—gods—he’s choking!” Slash shouted.

Irving, silent, raised his blade. One swing. The spider split in two with a wet crack. Dixon fumbled for the antidote—Terry’s breath returned in ragged bursts. Alive. Barely.

They pressed on, shaken.

In the darkness of a shattered chapel, beneath a defaced statue of Ehlonna—goddess of woodland peace—they found it: a low hum thrummed beneath the altar. Dog approached, the fractured rod in his hand pulling toward the stone like iron to lodestone.

“No,” Dog whispered. “It’s here.”

They moved the altar, muscles straining. Beneath, wrapped in torn velvet, lay the second piece of the Rod of Chaos—cold to the touch, but pulsing with ancient purpose.

“The Water Temple was here,” Dixon said grimly, eyeing the signs. “This was their place.”

The rooms beyond confirmed it: secret stores, hastily abandoned treasures, and a scroll with forgotten magic. The group divided the coin, shoulders sagging under its weight. They would ride soon—north, perhaps—but tonight they camped in the ruins, watched by old shadows and quiet gods.

Outside, the cold deepened. The rod hummed quietly, as though aware of its nearing unity.

1800 XP each