Donigi — Abandoned Aundairian War Cache
Donigi — Abandoned Aundairian War Cache
“A sealed war cache has opened, and two dead men are waiting inside with a key, a fortune, and a message meant for Cannith.”
— Hook · explore
“Donigi leads you through wet woodland to a half-buried Aundairian door she once found magically sealed. Now it hangs open, its stone threshold dark with blood, and Jules Marcen, the treasure hunter who entered before you, has vanished inside. Donigi tightens her grip on her knife and says, “We find my key, we find Jules, and we learn what opened that door.””
— Hook · explore
The cache entrance lies beneath a slope of fern-covered stone near Feathered Rest. Donigi recognizes the Aundairian construction immediately, but the open doorway unsettles her because she personally tested the sealed entrance and found no ordinary way through. Blood stains the threshold in two directions: one trail leads inward, while another has been smeared across the outer stone as though someone crawled or was dragged. Donigi studies the marks, taps the hilt of her knife twice, and admits that she expected old traps, not recent blood.
Donigi
Donigi approaches the party before dawn with a rolled map, a hooded lantern, and an expression that tries to look practical. She explains that she has personally visited the cache and could not open its magically locked entrance. Jules later entered after discovering the door ajar and bloodied, then disappeared. She offers the party first choice of recoverable treasure after the key, but her voice tightens whenever Jules’s name is mentioned.
Rumours
d5 · table- 01Jules found the cache door open, but the door had been sealed when Donigi visited it.
- 02A fortune in Eberron dragonshards was hidden beneath the Riverwood during the Last War.
- 03A wounded officer was seen on the mine road shortly before Jules disappeared.
- 04The cache’s defenses were designed to protect supplies from enemy soldiers, not treasure hunters.
- 05Someone in House Cannith may have been expecting a delivery from a person who never arrived.
Jules is dead, Donigi’s key may be lost, and the cache’s surviving defenses could injure or trap the party. More importantly, the courier’s message may reveal that the abandoned site is only one piece of a conspiracy centered on the Cannith mine. If the party mishandles the evidence, the mine’s enemies may remain hidden while the Ashbound crisis intensifies.
Background Lore
During the Last War, Aundair concealed a subterranean emergency cache beneath the Riverwood, stocked with field supplies, arcane munitions, dragonshards, and records intended for officers who might need to operate behind enemy lines. The site was sealed by layered magical defenses rather than a simple lock. Donigi personally found the entrance years later and could not open it. Recently, treasure hunter Jules Marcen discovered the door standing ajar, its threshold bloodied, and entered with Donigi’s Angel’s Trumpet Key. He never returned. The cache’s breach was caused by a former Aundairian officer turned Lords of Dust courier, who was attacked by a wolf-like creature while traveling toward the Cannith mine. Wounded and desperate, the courier used broad Aundairian military knowledge to reach the cache, though he had never visited this specific installation before. His corpse and Jules’s now lie within, along with a message addressed to “N. d’Cannith” that may expose the mine conspiracy.
Donigi has asked the party to accompany her to an abandoned Aundairian Last War cache near Feathered Rest. She wants to recover her Angel’s Trumpet Key, which she lost to Jules Marcen in a wager, and learn why Jules entered the site after finding its magically sealed door standing open and bloodied. The cache may still contain Aundairian war spoils and Eberron dragonshards, but its arcane military defenses remain active. What happened inside, and why was the door opened now, are unknown.
