Our current heroes started out in the frontier regions of the Free Cities. The Free Cities is a loose assoication of cities, townships, and counties on the inner coast of the continent of Trinalia. The major cities in the area are the human cities of Trith, Mintar West, and Mintar East, the sea elven city of Loshimar and the gnome city of Gravely.

    To the south and west of the Free Cities region is the Athos Regency (now the Athos Principality,) a long established Aborian kingdom. To the montainous frontier region east of the Free Cities is the Young Baronies, a nation built around an association of nobles, mages, and priests and knights devoted to Orion, a deity of swordsmanship and temperance. To the north is the rapidly expanding Empire of Drakar.

    While exploring the region, the party plumbed undergound caverns that were once held by dwarves in the region. Some of these caverns were inhabited by horrific alien creatures under control of the Dark Circle as well as dark elf expatriates fleeing from the grasp of their malicious brethern. Unfortuanately, most of these dark elves were no less malicious and attempted to slay the party to prevent there secret hideout from being revealed. The dark elf fugitive were defeated, but some of their numbers escaped.

    At the same time the party found the underground keep, assassinations started occuring among the party. They eventually found that there was a doppleganger among them, an agent of Drakar, trying to sabotage their efforts.
One of the earliest losses to the party occured when Waun, the party's mage and a member of the Gray Knights, was dominated by a sinister green amulet that he found on the doppleganger.

    Furhter explorations into the region revealed that the dark elf expatriates were not in such a desperate situation as the party was led to beleive. Dark elves had been gathering Kharzak (orc) forces in the region and had enslaved numerous humans that were living in nearby villages. Through a bit of subterfuge, the party was able to confront the dark elf leaders and vanquish them.
 

    Caernyc "rewarded" the party with various "curses." A ranger with the party gained a gift that allowed him to radiate fear--and repulse the forest creatures that once would befriend him. A half-dragon warrior with the party at the time gained a great ferocity in combat, but he basically became a beserk killing machine. And Caernyc increased the randomness--and inherant hazard--of Darren's wild magic threefold.

    A final, strange curse was that all of the party's gold was changed into lead.

    Realizing the magnitude of their folly, the party researched Caernyc. They discovered from local sages that Caernyc was once a mighty servant of the deity Frey Firehawk. Caernyc once lived in the Crystal Lands, glorious planes of good. He had too much of a lust for the beauty of gold... enough of a lust that he eventually led 12 lesser angels into an ambush at the hands of demons for a sizable sum of it.

    Caernyc was cast out of the crystal lands for his transgression and cursed so that he could never touch gold again. Any gold near Caernyc was irrevocably turned into lead.

    There was an exception. There was one magical gold that could bear Caernyc's prescence: the Faegold. This gold was rare in the extreme and carried a curse of its own, but Caernyc desired it just the same. He dominated an ancient kingdom known as the Semtar Kings for the express purpose of gathering this Faegold.

    In an attempt to unearth some means of defeating Caernyc, the party journeyed to the isle of Stygia.  Stygia is a major isle to the southeast of Trinalia where the Semtar Kings once reigned. There they met the last semtar king, a horrifying but honorable undead being. They managed to gain some information from him.

    Caernyc showed up. Seeing the party as capable potential pawns, he laid a geas on them. The power of this magical geas was such that they could only defy it at peril to their own life. The nature of the geas: to retrieve all the Faegold for Caernyc.

    The party set up a holding in Majenka, a major port city on an isle of the same name. One by one, gathered ancient artifacts for their accursed master. They slowly gained information and power at the same time, hoping to one day strike at the accursed fallen angel.

    One day one of the servants at the party's mansion in Majenka was found dead in the basement. After a little searching and judicious use of divination, the party found a horrifying undead being, some manner of cross between a ghoul and a vampire, had burrowed its way into the basement.

    Lord Blyrraent Huron, a landlord of some nearby keep came to the party's mansion and offered a bit of information. He claimed that his tenants had also suffered at the hands of such nefarious undead creatures, and recommended that the party search in the City of the Dead (a walled of portion of the city considered to be cursed.)

    The party searched for and found the vampire's hideout and destroyed some of the beasts. As they fled the hideout, however, a hoffiying rotting vampire with a degree magical prowess assaulted the party with dark spells. The party took some damage but managed to slay the undead creature.

    Eventually the party uncovered the horrifying truth. Lord Huron was no altruistic and helpful soul. He was a vampire who used his position as a landlord to gain free entry to the domiciles of his tenants, who he considered his cattle. Lord Huron was the vampire lord of a clutch of vampires in competition with the clutch that he manipulated the party into destroying.

    The party discovered his ruse; they fought him and forced his retreat, and turned his magical bloodsword over to the temple of Xanathar (goddess of justice and foe of the undead), but the sword mysteriously dissapeared.

    That didn't last for long. Four dragons perched on the king's palace and Caernyc's undead Semtar King herald delivered the message that if trade into Cymbria did not recommence, Majenka would be devastated.The king was furious. He promptly summoned the party to be questioned about their involvment in this affair.

    Now the party knew where their foe went, but had no way to battle him. Only the most powerful weapons will harm such a powerful being. Further, Caernyc can teleport at will, making it difficult to force a confronation.

    The party searched high and low for magical weapons of sufficient power.

    One such weapon was a holy sword that the party heard rumor of existing on a remote tropical island. However, this tropical island was covered with huge, deadly carnivorous lizards. Making their way through the beasts, the party found an isolated keep built on the island centuries ago.

    Within the keep, the party found a tortured priest with his entrails hanging out... kept alive through means of some curse such that he could feel everlasting torment. The party freed the priest and healed him, but the damage to his sanity was irreversible.

    The search into the keep turned up the holy sword that they had came looking for... but also turned up a fire demon that had been summoned and bound to this place eons ago. They were able to disintigrate the fiend, destroy the fiends minions and close the gate that it emerged through.

    Other forrays to gain power were even stranger. One weapon was found in a glittering vehicle of some strange ancient race immersed in a volcano.

    The problem is that this artifact was on another plane of existance in the nether domains of the fiends themselves. According to Karenda, the fiends are split into factions that eternally war. Fiends have magical transportation abilities similar to Caernyc's. To force confronations, the fiends use an item called a gateward.

    One such gateward was taken from a unit of fiends on one of the battlefields of the fiends recently by one of her agents... but the agent has turned stag. To recover the gateward, the party must find the rogue agent and take the gateward.

    The party uses magical means to find their way to the plane of existance that the agent was supposedly headed towards. Upon arriving, however, the party runs into angered fiends in search of their missing gate ward who is busily torturing the local populace to determine the wherabouts of the agent. Eric, the Garath (chaotic paladin) in the party found such brutality repugnant and set upon and vanquished the fiends leader, a devil-lord by the name of Tolgathang.

    The thankful populace pointed the party in the right direction, towards the bizarre stone mines where the mage Darannath has a secret tower. On the journey there, the party faced the peril of dragons whose horrible breath withers and disintigrates any metal.

    They found the mage Darannath's tower and parleyed with him. Apparently, he hired the agent to bring the gateward to him because his research led him in contention with fiends, and he could protect himself with the gateward. The party managed to make a reasonable trade for the temporary loan of the gateward.

    They then confronted Caernyc, and were facing serious casualties when Karenda hurled a swarm of fireballs at Caernyc and everyone in hand-to-hand combat with him. This destroyed Caernyc, but also incinerated some party members.

    Then Karenda animated two faegold statues of demonesses and departed. This troubled the party because it meant that Karenda's secret patron is actually the witches.

    Rumors started drifting about that Drakarian forces had new weapons that would make them invincible on the battlefield: firearms. It was soon uncovered that Drakar was importing firearms from the eastern  continent of Cheldeth. Mithril formed a seperate party to travel to Cheldeth and try to stop the weapons at thier source.

    Their sinister purpose was not revealed until the warlord himself raided the palace of Trinnoc and took the Kingsword. The Kingsword is a magical golden two-handed sword that represents the rulership of the Aborian people. The lawful priesthoods of the land are, as a point of order,  powerless to act against the holder of the Kingsword.

    Supposedly, anyone who does not have the blood of the royal line of Suertrea cannot handle the Kingsword without being destroyed. Apparently, Dorion (the Warlord-Emporer of Drakar) is either immune to the effects of the Kingsword or is actually of the Suertrea bloodline. At any rate, there is little or no chance to take on the legions of Drakar without the best trained holy knighthoods of the land.

    The adventures that follow took the party across the land in pursuit of the various pieces of the Rod. [Details can be found in the Rod of Seven Parts boxed set by TSR.] Everywhere the party went, they were pursued by the servants of a nefarious being known as the Chaos Queen.

    There are two notable deviations from the boxed set. The first is that instead of the first part detailed in the boxed set, I used the last book of the Night  Below boxed set [again by TSR, again no spoilers engendered here.]

    Second, in pursuit of the final piece of the Rod, the party went to Cymria, where they had their final stand with Caernyc. They discovered that the curse Caernyc had inflicted on the people the people of Cymbria had been lifted by the new ruler of Cymbria: a mysterious sorceress named Shiron.

    The people of Cymbria explained that in order to work her magic, Shiron required blood sacrifices of the people; those who volunteer to give their blood to "save the city" are called "givers." The players discovered that this was a clever ruse. Shiron lifted the curse with her own magical power. Shiron is some form of vampire queen; the blood sacrifices were actually designed to provide a continous supply of blood for her and her clutch.

    Shiron's home is a dark cathedral deep below the cinder cone that Cymbria was built on. The party arrived at the cathedral in time to witness on of the vampires' bloodletting ceremonies in front of their queen brandishing a staff of bone. The paladins and priests in the group would have none of that and charged the fould undead beast. Four undead dragons and four obsidian golems propmtly animated and attacked!

    The party eventually cleaved their way through the skeletal dragons and obsidian golems. The vampires retreated. Shiron slung spells and eventually retreated once all of her servants were defeated.

    The encounter with Shiron was disquiting; she had powers beyond that normal for a vampire. She was nearly immune to all metal weapons and had a dark array of magical powers. The party suspects that she is something beyond a vampire, perhaps even a blood lich. Halcion took Shirons Bone Staff in the hopes that next time they meet, the staff would be able to harm her.

    The party recovered the Rod of Order and called on Queen Ariel. The rest, as they say, is history.