The Road Beneath Blue Lanterns
The Road Beneath Blue Lanterns
“A sealed treaty, a haunted road, and a forest that remembers every name.”
— Hook · escort
“Magistrate Voss places a sealed treaty case on the table and asks you to carry it through the Ashenwood to Saint Vey before moonrise tomorrow. The road's last guide vanished after reporting blue lights in the trees, and enemy scouts are already searching for the courier route. If the treaty does not arrive, three villages will stand alone against the coming war.”
— Hook · escort
At dawn, Magistrate Voss brings the party to a shuttered archive room in Bellwether Crossing. Mira Fen waits beside a travel pack, a silver compass, and a black iron treaty case sealed with blue wax. Voss explains the route, warns that the road must be completed before the following moonrise, and refuses to answer why the treaty's seal is cold enough to frost the table.
Magistrate Elian Voss
Magistrate Elian Voss requests a private meeting, offers immediate payment, and emphasizes that discretion matters as much as speed. He presents the assignment as a straightforward diplomatic escort but becomes evasive if asked about the treaty's unusual seal.
Rumours
d5 · table- 01The missing guide was seen walking into the Ashenwood without a torch, following a child-sized blue light.
- 02Saint Vey's treaty was written after a war that technically never happened.
- 03Hunters who sleep beneath the old boundary stones dream of places they have never visited.
- 04Captain Rusk once served as an escort for the same magistrate now hiring the party.
- 05The blue lights are said to be lanterns carried by people who died without reaching the monastery.
If the escort fails, three villages lose their alliance and face a coordinated attack. If the treaty seal is misused, the Blue Warden may awaken and turn the Ashenwood into an expanding supernatural border that divides the region.
Background Lore
The river-road town of Bellwether Crossing depends on a weekly courier route through the Ashenwood. Three nights ago, the route's appointed guide vanished after reporting strange blue lights among the trees. The missing guide's replacement is a young cartographer carrying a sealed treaty that must reach the fortified monastery of Saint Vey before rival powers learn its contents.
The party is hired to escort cartographer Mira Fen and a sealed treaty from Bellwether Crossing to Saint Vey through the Ashenwood. Rival agents want the treaty, the appointed guide has vanished, and strange blue lights have appeared along the route. The characters must protect the courier, survive the road, and decide what to do when the forest's hidden power begins responding to the sealed case.
