Pilgrims of the Cinder Road

Game system: dnd5e

Keth-Sul — the volcanic spirit that has kept the Emberwild's fires predictable for three centuries — is dying from a wound it did not receive by accident.

## PREMISE The Emberwild Reaches are burning with the death-throes of Keth-Sul, the ancient volcanic spirit whose influence has maintained predictable eruption patterns across the region for 300 years. Something has wounded it deliberately. Its death will trigger cascading, uncontrolled eruptions within a month. The players can save Keth-Sul, grant it a mercy death, or exploit its vulnerability. ## LOCATIONS **The Ashfield Plains**: A week's travel of volcanic grassland in permanent smolder. Scorchwing harpies have been driven toward inhabited lands in unusually high numbers by the subsurface tremors. **The Smolder Shrine**: An ancient temple built into a lava tube, maintained by the Emberkeepers order for generations. Now abandoned. The last Emberkeeper left a cryptic warning scratched into the altar stone and nothing else. **The Heart Vent**: Keth-Sul's deepest sanctum, accessible only through a river of slow-moving lava. Guides who know the cold-stone path are scarce, expensive, and unwilling to approach closer than a mile. **The Three At-Risk Villages**: Cinder's Ford, Ashmouth, and the Ember Clan's seasonal camp sit directly in the projected eruption path. Two can be warned and evacuated in time. ## KEY NPCS **Keth-Sul** (Ancient elemental, dying): Communicates through tremors and ash-visions. Its requests are simple. Its gratitude would be immense. Its anger — even wounded — can swallow a settlement. **Ember-Warden Solla**: Last surviving Emberkeeper, now a wandering hermit in the Ashfield. Knows the cold-stone path to the Heart Vent but will not share it until the party demonstrates they will not harvest Keth-Sul's fire-core for profit. **The Obsidian Broker**: A merchant specializing in volcanic materials who appears wherever disaster strikes the Reaches. Different identity each time. May have sold whatever was used to wound Keth-Sul. ## HOOKS - Keth-Sul was wounded by an enchanted iron spike driven into its vent by persons unknown. The spike bears a guild hallmark from Cogspire. - The ash-visions Keth-Sul sends show a specific future: the Reaches reborn and thriving — but only if someone is sacrificed in the Heart Vent. The visions do not specify who. - Three villages sit in the eruption path. Two can be warned in time. The party must choose which warning to deliver first. ## FACTIONS **The Emberkeepers**: A decimated order of volcanic stewards scattered across the Reaches. Any survivors will rally to protect Keth-Sul or ensure a mercy death over exploitation — and they are watching the party. **The Ash Merchants' Consortium**: Views Keth-Sul's death as an economic opportunity — rare materials to harvest, new territory to develop. Quietly funding the destabilization through the Obsidian Broker. **The Reaches Clans**: Semi-nomadic communities who read omens in lava flows and have revered Keth-Sul for generations. Divided on whether it should be saved or given an honorable end on its own terms. ## GM NOTES Keth-Sul's moral weight lands hardest if players genuinely connect with it before learning about the potential sacrifice requirement. Build in at least one ash-vision communion scene before that reveal. The Obsidian Broker works best as a recurring presence across multiple encounters — always present near disasters, always with a plausible explanation — before the pattern becomes clear.

Tags: ["survival", "elemental", "wilderness", "emberwild"]

A community tabletop RPG campaign shared on TableTop DLC.