Lost Sands

Lost Sands

Watch Part 2 (after stream went down)

View all episodes in season three.

The Mythic Cycle turns again, beginning Season Three’s main adventure with the player characters stranded in the South Desert (also referred to as the SudenLund or South Lands). The adventurers are working for the Maercant’s South Trading Company, tasked with securing trade routes in the treacherous wastes. Facing brutal desert hazards, including scorpions and a massive sandstorm that wipes out the majority of their caravan, the characters become destitute. Their desperate trek leads to the discovery of the half-buried step-pyramid known as the Tomb of the Ancients, the location of the lost city of Khet-Nakor, which is ruled by rival cults. The ultimate objective is survival, seeking refuge in the ancient tomb, and preparing to navigate the faction politics within the lost city.

The world is driven by a constant struggle between order and chaos, creation and destruction, where the mythic cycle endlessly turns. The Gods actively interfere, with Balek aligned with the Maercant and Mot with the Ardenne, engaging in a “dramatic divine gambit with the lives of humans”. The player characters are introduced as potential heroes who “defy the predetermined course of fate” and are about to embark on a heroic journey. The setting is the most desolate of places, the “arid sands of the South Desert,” traveling the “paths of destiny”.

Episode 2

We meet our would-be heroes caravaning in the desert wastes. They are accomapning a Maercant caravan and securing trade routes and are a mix of personalities and backgrounds. Perils abound in the desert from monstrous creatures to human raiders. When a sandstorm sandstorm swallows their caravan, the adventurers are stranded in the deep desert. Hope seems lost until they spot a half-buried pyramid jutting from the dunes.

• Beneath the Brazen Sun: The adventurers begin caravaning across the Southern Desert, working for the South Trading Company (STC), an organization intent on expanding and protecting Maercant trading interests. They are accompanied by a dozen other travelers.
• Characters Introduced: The main player characters are introduced, including Woot, an “infantry support target elimination system” who is “not too impressed by what I see”. Another character, Sinbiscuit, a Kobold Ranger, is noted as riding a camel.
• Initial Survival: The party must immediately contend with a blistering sun, water rationing (visually tracked using crystals in glass cylinders), and exhaustion mechanics.
• First Loss: Zara al-Kindi, the resourceful human merchant, and a camel go missing without a trace after leaving the riverbank.
• Scorpion Ambush: The group is ambushed by two scorpions. Two caravan members, Gra and Kylen, are killed instantly, suffering severed arteries and spines. The character Bart Bumblefoot is left near death from venom. Looting the fallen only yields two waters because Kylen’s water skin was severed.
• Tinkering for Survival: Characters collaborate on a project to build a Sudlund vase water urn—a contraption intended to find water. This process requires spending magical tinkering charges from multiple characters to function, establishing the collaborative mechanical nature of the group.”
• The Oasis Encounter: The group reaches a large oasis where they find water but are immediately attacked by a crocodile. They attempt to revive the poisoned Bart by dribbling water into his mouth, but he remains seized up and severely dehydrated.
• Tracks and Marauders: The party finds tracks leading further east. Following these tracks leads to an encounter with Malik, a Marauder leader who is “grotesquely missing his nose,” a mark indicating he is a criminal in the Southlands. Malik warns of an imminent sandstorm and offers shelter for a camel, but a deal is not struck.
• The Vengeful Sandstorm: The Marauders depart, and the sandstorm hits “with a vengeance,” creating a maelstrom of wind and grit that engulfs everything and separates the surviving party from the rest of the South Trading Company.
• Antlion Pit: During the continuing journey, the caravan stumbles into a conical Antlion Pit, resulting in the death of another camel and companion pulled beneath the sand.
• The Guiding Light: After the sandstorm, the successful Sudlund vase water urn begins to glow, providing a bearing pointing due east, which the party follows.
• Tomb Discovery: The journey concludes as the sun sets, revealing the “Tomb of the Ancients,” a colossal, ancient pyramid rising impossibly from the shifting sands. This pyramid marks the lost city of Khet-Nakor.
• Outer Courtyard: Tremors ripples underneath as creatures move underneath the sand. They pursue vibration. One bursts onto the surface, foreshadowing the unstable nature of the area.
• Inner Courtyard: The fountains and channels adorning the inner courtyard are dried up and abandoned. Four figures await the adventurers on their approach!

Act I: South Trading Company

“Tonight we shall find ourselves in the most desolate of places among the arid sands of the South Desert, ready to lose ourselves in a collective imaginations traveling the paths of destiny the greatest adventures often start in the most on the most unlikely of trails and in the most unlikely of places we shall see what the sands of time reveal.”

Beneath the Brazen Sun

“I’m Woot uh I’m in infantry support target elimination system and I’m looking around and I’m not too impressed by what I see to be honest.” -W00t (Rogue)

The expedition for the mercantile Maercant’s South Trading Company (STC) began not with glory, but with the brutal reality of the Southern Desert. Under a blistering sun that turned the golden sands into an endless, shimmering expanse, a caravan of roughly a dozen souls trekked east, hired to carve out and protect new trade routes in the treacherous South Lands. The atmosphere was thick, oppressive, and every breath was a parched struggle against the dry heat. Among the weary contractors rode the main protagonists, struggling to find cohesion in the shared misery. Among them was Woot, an “infantry support target elimination system”, who greeted the hostile environment with a mechanical disdain, stating flatly, “I’m looking around and I’m not too impressed by what I see to be honest”. Traveling alongside the rest of the company, which included personnel like the resourceful merchant Zara al-Kindi and the cheerful halfling Bart Bumblefoot, the caravan sought a desperate passage.

“I don’t know what delicious is so that’s okay the most satisfying experience you’ve had i’m not satisfied oh there was this time that I stabbed this guy and he made some gurgling sounds that was interesting so that peculiar as it is feeling could be experienced with food wow you should you should try stabbing some soup!” -W00t (Rogue)

The Price of Water

Survival was measured moment by moment by the level of liquid visible in the group’s crystal-filled glass cylinders, which served as their visual water tracker. The party immediately felt the crushing pressure of the scorching heat, forcing them to adopt water rationing and endure the looming threat of exhaustion.

After cresting a dune, the sight of a meandering river offered a momentary promise of salvation. The camels instinctively drank, and the adventurers hastened to refill their water skins and other vessels, delaying the inevitable dehydration. It was here that the expedition suffered its first, chilling loss: Zara al-Kindi, the shrewd human merchant responsible for tracking provisions, and a camel vanished without a trace after leaving the riverbank. A quick search was mounted, consuming precious time and an additional measure of water, yet the desert was absolute; there were no tracks to behold, and the merchant was simply “lost to the desert”.

The Serpent and the Scorpion Ambush

“I’m just going to also check the boot that he’s still wearing for snakes!” -Ustus “Bang” (Artificer)

The attrition continued its cruel pace. The halfling livestock master, Bartholomew “Bart” Bumblefoot, discovered a sunbaked cobra hidden in his pack and was bitten upon the leg. Bart was left “seized up” by the venom and severely dehydrated, his body burning with fever. Although Bart was not killed outright, his state required the continuous, vain efforts of the cleric to cure. A greater threat arose soon after as the caravan disturbed a pair of large scorpions hidden among the dunes. In the ensuing melee, the monsters struck true, instantly killing two unfortunate caravan members, Gra and Kylen, who suffered severed arteries and a crushed spine. Kylen’s own waterskin was severed in the attack, leaving only a meager remnant of two waters to salvage from the chaos. This encounter established the brutal and often instant fatality of combat in this campaign.

“I’m gonna go back to the snake and chop it a few more times for good measure. Why are you doing that man i’m already dead heck is still talking” -Ralph (Cleric)

Tinkering for Survival

Faced with mounting losses and the overwhelming prospect of thirst, the party turned to desperate ingenuity. Relying on fragments of lore regarding the famed “Egyptian water urn”, the characters collaborated to build a Sudlund vase water urn—a device intended to mechanically (not magically) guide them toward water. This complex, collaborative process required the expenditure of “magical tinkering charges” from multiple characters to make the contraption function, establishing a powerful theme of mechanical reliance and collective ingenuity in the face of natural peril.

Act II: Traversing the Wastes

The Oasis Encounter

The sight of the oasis was a promise of salvation, a fleeting vision of emerald green and crystalline water amidst the endless, searing gold of the desert. Exhaustion forgotten, the adventurers rushed toward the pool, desperate to replenish their decimated water supplies and seek refuge. But the desert offers no mercy, even in paradise. As one character approached the shimmering edge, the pool exploded with powerful, muddy thrashing. A massive crocodile, its scales the color of muddy green and its jaws agape, lunged from the depths. The encounter was swift and brutal, securing the water but leaving a cost. Bartholomew “Bart” Bumblefoot, already suffering from an earlier snake bite, remained in a dire state. Despite the ministrations of the cleric, who carefully scooped water to dribble into his mouth, Bart remained seized up, afflicted by venom and severely dehydrated, his body burning with fever. The oasis was safe only for a short rest; long-term sanctuary lay elsewhere.

Tracks and Marauders

“Greetings travelers!”,” he calls out his voice smooth and melodious. -Malik (NPC)

As the group resumed their arduous trek toward the East, their survival instincts sharpened. They discovered faint, yet deliberately obscured, tracks—a combination of heavy footprints and the broad impressions of scuffed camel hooves—suggesting travelers who wished to hide their passage. Following this sinister trail, the party soon encountered the Marauders. The leader, Malik, was a figure of unsettling charisma, his face tanned and weathered, but alarmingly missing his nose—a subtle sign, known only to those familiar with Southlands customs, that he was a criminal. Malik greeted them with melodious voice and disarming smile, extending “the hospitality of the desert”. He offered to trade guidance and shelter from an imminent sandstorm, but his price was high: one of their few remaining camels. Despite the Marauders’ seemingly upfront approach, messages passed between the adventurers revealed a chilling probability: Malik was staging an ambush, leveraging their desperation for gain. Unable to strike a satisfactory or trustworthy deal, the adventurers chose instead to defy the bandit’s warning and press onward.

Well gentlemen, if they can’t do the deal to save their own lives or their halflings life then we have no business here.” -Malik (NPC)

The Vengeful Sandstorm

Malik’s warning proved tragically accurate. The sandstorm struck “with a vengeance,” transforming the world into a chaotic, terrifying maelstrom of wind and stinging grit. Exposed in the open desert, the characters huddled close to their beasts of burden, the world spinning in a “sickening lurch”. They were fully exposed, suffering the oppressive heat, and disoriented, losing sight of the sun and all directions. Only the presence of their shimas (head wraps) and their collective resolve prevented the relentless wind from claiming their vital water reserves. When the storm finally evaded them and passed, the familiar landscape was gone, the dunes blown into new, unrecognizable patterns, leaving the survivors utterly lost and separated from the rest of the South Trading Company caravan.

“The sandstorm hits with a vengeance a malstrom of wind and grit that engulfs everything the world becomes a chaotic blur of stinging sand and roaring wind” -DM

Antlion Pit

The desperate forward march brought the caravan over a massive, steep dune. As they descended into the shallow valley between the crests, the ground ahead looked strangely steep and conical, a funnel-like depression that seemed unnatural to the landscape. Without warning, the sand erupted outward from the nadir of the pit, revealing enormous, jagged mandibles the size of scimitars. A massive antlion had sprung its trap, clamping onto the leg of a camel and a companion, pulling them underneath the sinking sand in a terrifying, swift death. The swift, brutal loss reinforced the lesson learned since the scorpion ambush: in this wasteland, all life is highly expendable.

The Guiding Light

Following the cataclysmic events of the sandstorm and the Antlion pit, the party reached their own nadir—lost, dehydrated, and nearly out of options. Yet, a desperate act of resourcefulness by thier Artificers offered salvation. The Sudlund vase water urn, the contraption created through collaborative tinkering earlier in the day was filled with water and activated. The glyphs representing the cardinal directions illuminated, giving the characters a fixed bearing pointing due east. This proved that the city to the south was a mirage, this new guiding light promised water and an escape from the hostile desert. The adventurers chose to follow this tangible sign of hope, a new path forward toward an unknown destination.

Act III: Arrival at Tomb of the Ancients

Tomb Discovery: The Colossus in the Sand

As the relentless sun began its slow, inevitable descent, painting the boundless desert sky in hues of fiery orange and somber violet, a new silhouette emerged on the horizon: the Tomb of the Ancients. It was not a dune, but a structure—colossal, ancient, and impossibly vast, rising with daunting majesty from the shifting sands. The sight struck the exhausted adventurers with the awe of the sublime, one survivor murmuring a fractured piece of old poetry, recalling “two vast and trunkless legs of stone standing in the desert”. This immense step-pyramid had five tiers, each designed to ascend toward the heavens, though the bottom-most tier was almost completely covered with sand. Its weathered and scarred faces betrayed millennia of wind and sand, yet jagged edges and crumbling steps suggested a forgotten majesty built for gods or kings. This monumental ruin marked the lost city of Khet-Nakor. This was the promised refuge, the convergence point marked by the glyphs on their salvaged water urn.

Outer Courtyard

As the survivors followed the unwavering direction of the glowing urn, an unsettling phenomenon occurred: a massive tremor rippled across the sand. Creatures move underneath the sand attracted by vibration. Sinbiscuit uses lizards to test the uneven ground which causes a creature to burst onto the surface. The party carefully used the fallen walls and broken stone to navigate on the outside of the outer courtyard and avoided an encounter with deadly tremors. The survivors moved cautiously from the rough Outer Courtyard, its perimeter defined by crumbling walls and the remnants of immense, stylized statues half-buried in the grit.

The Inner Courtyard

” It seems like once upon a time this actually was an area that was perhaps plentiful in water, but no longer. Instead, there’s dried dust and sand that lines the areas where the water would otherwise flow.” -DM

Following the natural ascent, the party entered the Inner Courtyard, a place that provided instant contrast: it was fully paved and led to a flight of stairs rising to the next level. The heavy silence was broken only by the whisper of the wind through the vast space. Flanking their ascent were channels and basins that suggested they were once beautiful fountains, though all the water was now choked with dried dust and sand. This architectural detail offered a potent, mournful revelation: Khet-Nakor had once been an area “plentiful in water”, a true oasis that had somehow been swallowed by the desert, underscoring the desperate predicament of the current adventurers. The courtyard ascent led the adventurers directly toward the colossal steps of the pyramid itself where four figures await them.