A Dark Fantasy Actual Play · Rovaksole
The Chronicle
Seventeen entries survive, recovered from the ash. What follows is the record as it was salvaged — the newest folio still unsealed, the oldest worn nearly to smoke. Read the campaign as it was lived, in order, from the first page.
The Shadowed Horizon
Rovaksole: A Shadowed Horizon
Before the dice ever hit the table, there was Rovaksole. This narrated prologue opens the dark history of a world born from cosmic chaos and reshaped by a mysterious cataclysm — a continent where ancient empires have risen and fallen, where dragons and deities carved their will into the land, and where cults still wage their wars in the shadows. It's the foundation the entire campaign is built on: the lore, the cosmology, and the weight behind every choice the party will later make. If you're new to the world, start here.
The Journey Begins
The real campaign began at session seven — so Episode 1 rewinds to show how this unlikely band first crossed paths. We revisit the awkward introductions, the early chaotic battles, and the strange coincidences that bound the party together. Luna, a cleric and former adventurer, is haunted by a recurring nightmare: a bloodied companion and a pair of yellow eyes burning with rage. Primo Balduchi, a human rogue running errands for the Harvester family, makes his entrance with the mechanical eye that spots a distant dragon before anyone else. This is where the story truly begins.
Shadows of Stormsend
A casual Tuesday in Stormsend: rescue a cleric, deliver a doom scroll, and get warned about a second shadow apocalypse. While the party regroups at McGillies, their threads scatter across the city — Primo collects a feathered blade from Duke Poppy, Drax loses a bare-knuckle pit fight at The Hollow, and Luna takes a secret temple meeting with Adriel that turns toward ritual sacrifice to Tiamat and a set of dark instructions. At the Librarium Citadel, the Grand Magistronox reads the scroll aloud and the prophecy lands: the "second advent of shadow," old blood, and hints toward a royal line. Juniper is back on her feet, the continent edges toward war, and the whole party hits Level 4 — now powerful enough to make much bigger mistakes.
The Reaper & the Red Dragon
Stormsend is on edge — armies marching, mercenaries flooding the streets — and what starts as a simple escort into the Under City spirals into something far worse. Divine visions, accusations of treason, and a deadly hunt for a missing man pull the party through the city's underbelly. Baraka receives a vision of the Great Reclaimer; a stop at Primo's mother's house reveals Fiona's worsening condition; a Centivian ambush ends with a Reaper interrogation and Captain Walco fleeing. Then the sky opens. A Red Dragon descends, snatches a farmer, and steel, spells, and fire collide on a covered bridge. Not everyone is guaranteed to walk away.
Rubies and Raptors
Fresh off a battle that's already becoming tavern legend, the party rides east into the wildlands, where quiet grasslands hide anything but peace. The Red Dragon fight resumes against a Forta Milius patrol and the whole party cuts loose: Drax rages after a reckless greataxe miss, Luna lands Guiding Bolt and Sacred Flame, Andre's Eldritch Blast snaps out like a lightning javelin, and Juniper answers fire with fire. Just as the dragon threat eases, a velociraptor pack ambushes the group. Strange dreams trail them, unseen predators circle, and a hidden network twisting through the region hints that Stormsend's shadow reaches farther than anyone guessed.
The Goblin Hunt & the Hellish Mine
The Farm House of Mystery
The group pushes deeper into the wilderness of Rovaksole, and as some old wounds begin to heal, a routine goblin hunt starts curdling into something more sinister. Juniper Von Snovail recounts the Crimson Bone attack, opening a thread of dark lore: the cursed dagger and the phenomenon of "turning," Drax's knowledge of Crimson Bone corruption and the mutations it breeds, and the grim history tied to the ruins of Carthage. The closer they get to the first marked location, the clearer it becomes that the bounty was never simple.
The Farm House of Mystery
A recap session covering the lost second half of the Farm House of Mystery. The party's investigation of the trap-filled farmhouse comes into focus: blood, spent arrows, and unmistakable signs of combat. Upstairs, Luna destroys a hellish shrine. Drax rolls a natural 20 to uncover a hidden cellar door — and claims Storm Fang, a Javelin of Lightning, for his trouble. Primo turns up narcotics and poison in the cellar while Baraka finds Potions of Healing outside. The session ends on a thread the party can't ignore: drag marks leading off into the hills.
Ancient Boons and Watched Towers
This episode splits between a mystery and a melee. Andre, separated from the group, follows the Astral Lynx through a vision of Rash into a cave — and emerges as the unlikely guardian of a glowing, mysterious egg, an ancient gift offered with the words "this orphan needs a parent." Meanwhile the rest of the party fights its way upslope to a goblin-fortified watchtower, the apparent heart of the hunt that's consumed the last several sessions. Is this the conclusion of the goblin hunt, or just the tip of the spear?
Expecting Guests
Now at Level 4, the party digs in to defend the high ground of the captured watchtower against an incoming incursion — and the question keeps nagging: where do these enemies keep coming from? Between waves, the character drama deepens. Juniper Von Snovail grows suspicious of Luna, and Andre keeps unraveling the secret of his egg, testing it with cantrips and discovering it responds to a spell focus. There's gallows humor too, from disposing of bodies to a prayer at the Last Lantern.
Into the Mine They Go…
The party finally reaches the "X" on the map. What began as a simple goblin-hunting bounty has led them deep into the Rovaksole wilderness, following a breadcrumb trail of disturbing relics and missing bodies — and now deposits them at the mouth of an abandoned mine where a terrible force has dug in. After buffing up with Bless and Aid, the group spots wargs and goblin archers at the entrance. Primo and Andre open with stealth strikes, a warg goes down fast, and the goblins are alerted. The deeper they go, the clearer it becomes: whatever made a base here is far worse than goblins.
Rumble in the Dark
The party presses deeper into the abandoned mine — and learns whose domain they've trespassed into: Baracarab, one of the gods of the Five Hells. The mine is a place of offerings, where combat and treasure feed a dark power, watched over by a mountain troll. The question driving the episode is whether the rot can be solved by knocking down a door, or whether it spreads all the way to the root. Combat resumes against exploding goblins — acid blasts, Eldritch Blast and arrow kills — while Andre snatches a bonus-action word with his patron Hex mid-fight.
Feathers Don't Make You a Bird
It's a race against time. The party pushes to save prisoners held by a cult devoted to Baracarab, god of the Iratum plane of Hell. The episode opens at the mountaintop watchtower with a showdown against a Goblin Shaman, then sends the group sprinting through perilous tunnels packed with exploding mutants and a mysterious puzzle bridge. With the full party in play — Andre, Primo, Luna, Drax, and Juniper, with DM Graham steering — the tension is whether they can reach the captives before the cult finishes what it's started.
In the Belly of the Beast
The party levels up to 5 — complete with live HP rolling and a breakdown of new abilities — just in time for the deadliest fight yet. Still racing to save the prisoners, the adventurers devise a novel way to bridge the mine's yawning chasm and charge into a vast hall of sacrifice. There, an evil Orc Enchanter is putting prisoners to death and harvesting their souls for his dark master. An epic battle erupts against the Enchanter, his cultists, and the hellish creation he summons. Part 1 sets the board and lights the fuse.
In the Belly of the Beast
The conclusion of the hall of sacrifice. The party bursts into the final chamber — chained prisoners, orc cultists, and Thakul the Cool waiting on the shrine. Andre weighs dropping Hunger of Hadar to swallow the room in void as the group debates the opening move. Thakul delivers his villain's welcome speech, then combat detonates: an Eldritch Blast opens the dance, the orcs return fire, and Thakul summons a giant hellish creature into the fray. It's the payoff to the entire mine arc — the soul-harvesting enchanter, the cult of Baracarab, and the prisoners' fate all decided in one brutal chamber.
The Road to Leadville
Blood Soaked Riverbank
Exhausted but victorious after destroying Thakuul and his minions, the party takes stock — now carrying a mysterious green crystal orb and a troubling letter. The letter warns of a large Orc campaign led by General Kroak, hunting a missing legendary artifact called the Menkulum. Pressing eastward toward Leadville, the Oligarium's industrial mining hub, the adventurers come upon a battlefield strewn with fallen Danheim soldiers — grim confirmation that the Oligarium–Danheim alliance has collapsed into open civil war. As the session closes, the group sets a trap for a massive dark-purple wyvern drawn to the blood-soaked riverbank.
The Factorum Moldavithran
After discovering the grim aftermath of the broken Danheim–Oligarium alliance along the river, the party investigates a massive scavenger feasting on the fallen — and the trap they set pays off in a brutal, cinematic wyvern battle. Drax's raging greataxe strikes, a clutch Guiding Bolt from Luna, and a spectacular natural-20 sneak attack bring the beast down, and the adventurers harvest their hard-won trophies. From there they travel to Leadville, the soot-covered industrial city, where a warm reunion awaits at the Griffin's Wing inn. The next morning they venture into the towering Factorum Moldavithran — the sacred Gothic forge-temple of the Instromotus — seeking enhancements for their weapons and armor.
From the Archive
Key Characters in Rovaksole
A character primer for the first Rovaksole campaign, A Shadowed Horizon. If you're jumping into Mile High Dragons and want to know who you're following — the party members, their backstories, and the figures who shape the world around them — this is the orientation. A useful companion to the Prologue for anyone starting the chronicle from the beginning.
Here the recovered pages end. More are written each moon.