998 YK. The small city of Varna in the Eldeen Reaches was the border between civilization and the natural world. People from both the Eldeen Reaches and the nation of Aundair gathered together here. It was home to the largest House Vadalis enclave, and smaller enclaves belonging to each of the dragonmarked houses could also be found here.
TOVE SILVERHAND was a dwarf cleric of the Sovereign Host and a soldier in the service of House Kundarak. She operated an orphanage where she cared for children who had lost their families during the Last War. Though the war had ended, these children had no families or homes to return to. After another hard day of work, Tove visited the nearby tavern where she found others who had come to listen to the soothing music of the Listening Stone broadcasts.
They were CADENCE GHOST-WALKER, an aasimar barbarian and the noble daughter of a clan leader, who had lost her people during the war; and her friend LUUMI, an aasimar ranger haunted by a dark past, who was raised by snow leopards and fey creatures in the Icehorn Mountains. There was KALHENVASHIR, a kalashtar ranger and acolyte of the Path of Light, whose people had settled near the eastern edge of the Towering Woods to escape the war; and TABRIUS VON EINZBERN, a paladin and the heir of a noble Aundairian house, accompanied by one of his trusty retainers, Velvet. And there was KAEL, a githzerai wizard raised in the forest by a powerful mage, who was on a quest to free the soul of his beloved from a terrible fiend.
As the six adventurers listened to the broadcast, they each had a strange vision. They saw a great forest, even more vast than the Eldeen Reaches, that extended as far as the eye could see. The caretakers of these endless woods were advanced warforged that bore dragonmarks never before seen. This was a vision of the far future, and the warforged of this era beseeched the six heroes in the present day for their help.
The oldest among the warforged of the future, known as the Warforged Ancients, were built during the Last War, and their bodies of metal and wood were falling apart. The technology to repair them existed only in the past. The adventurers were asked to travel to the years of the Last War, when the sentient warforged were first created by the artificer AAREN D’CANNITH, and recover the original schema used by Aaren to create the warforged.
Kael the wizard had heard tales of Aaren d’Cannith. Though Aaren had created the warforged, he never wished for them to be used for war. He petitioned the nations not to purchase his creations to fight their battles, going against the wishes of his dragonmarked house. He was sentenced to a true excoriation, an archaic practice in which the dragonmark is flayed from the skin. Soon after his sentence, Aaren went into exile and vanished from historic records. Rumors said that he lived out his remaining years serving as a volunteer medic while wandering the battlefields.
The heroes in the tavern took up the mission from the warforged of the future. When their visions had passed, they each held an apple-like fruit in their hand. It was the fruit of the d’Lorien Tree, a living eldritch machine with the power to transport the heroes through time and space. Each of them ate the fruit, and together they were engulfed by a bright flash of light. The heroes now found themselves decades in the past, on a grim battlefield of the Last War.
The heroes arrived at the invasion of Karrnath by the armies of Aundair in the year 970 YK. They were wearing the uniforms of Aundairian soldiers, and they found themselves in an Aundairian military camp along with a regiment of regular soldiers and a battalion of mercenaries. The soldiers and mercenaries were having a heated argument that nearly came to blows, but Kalhenvashir diffused the situation. As thanks, the officer in charge gave him an orb of shielding made of mabaran obsidian, which wards against necrotic energy.
From the officer and soldiers, the heroes heard reports about a mysterious medic healing wounded soldiers from both armies on the battlefield. There were also reports of an experimental Karrnathi device called a mabaran resonator that reanimated death bodies into undead abominations. Tove volunteered herself and her companions for a mission to deactivate the resonator, with the hopes of finding Aaren on the battlefield. The resonator was located on one of two ridges surrounded by a no man’s land of trenches.
The heroes climbed to the top of the nearest ridge, which the Aundairian called Bloodless Ridge. It was the site of a recent battle between Karrnathi undead and Aundairian warforged. The base of the ridge was covered with empty dragonshard casings that were discarded from the magefire cannons used to bombard the hillside. As they climbed up the ridge, they saw the countless remains of warforged soldiers and undead skeletons that had destroyed one another.
From the hilltop, the heroes had a view of the surrounding terrain. The valley was riddled with an endless maze of trenches. On the far side of the valley stood Broken Hilt Ridge, gouged with craters from Aundairian artillery bombardments. The hum of a mournful dirge echoed from the distant hilltop where a tall spire could be faintly discerned.
From this vantage point, Luumi drew a map of the landscape. Using this map, the ranger Kalhenvashir led the party through the no man’s land, taking his companions by the safest paths and evading the many traps and dangers that lurked in the trenches.
Arriving at Broken Hilt Ridge, the heroes found the mabaran resonator, a tower of black iron covered with spikes and horns. The mournful music they had heard came from the resonator. It was surrounded by the remains of fallen warforged and skeletons strewn across the craggy hill, their limbs twitching and stirring disturbingly to the sound of the dirge.
When the heroes approached the resonator, the machine sprang to life and blared a loud, dissonant chime, causing the fallen skeletons and warforged to rise. These newly animated undead had darkly smoldering fists and green flames glowing in their eyes. They were mindless creatures that lashed out at the living. Kael the wizard studied the mabaran resonator while his companions kept the monsters at bay. Calling upon his arcane knowledge, he found a way to deactivate the resonator, even as his companions subdued the newly risen undead.
As the resonator shut down, a silence fell upon the ridge. But it was soon broken by the sound of a man shouting in the battlefield just below the ridge. The heroes rushed down the slope and found a man standing between a wounded warforged and a tall, hulking construct covered with many spikes, on which the bodies of dead soldiers had been skewered. This was a lesser cadaver collector, a prototype for the ghastly constructs that gathered corpses for Karrnath’s undead armies.
The small man in front of the macabre construct had gruesome scars, as though he had been burned or flayed, and he wore a belt full of arcane gadgets and devices. The heroes knew that this was Aaren d’Cannith. Aaren was risking his life to save the wounded warforged from the construct, which cared not whether it collected man or warforged, Karrns or their enemies. They were all the same to the cadaver collector, intent on gathering its grim harvest.
Cadence Ghost-Walker charged into battle, wielding her mighty axe with strength beyond reckoning. Together, she and her companions fought off the cadaver collector and destroyed it, saving Aaren and the warforged. They were startled to see that the warforged was a Karrnathi soldier, and it had an unusual head shaped like a dragonborn. Yet they were even more startled when Aaren recognized them and knew them from his past.
Aaren told the adventurers how they had come to him before his excoriation. They had given him his own spellshard, which contained his journal from the future, explaining that they were time travelers seeking the warforged schema. Aaren had revealed to them on the battlefield that the schema had manifested in his dragonmark. When Aaren lost his mark, the original schema was lost with it. Having been told of his fate by the heroes from the future, the artificer had labored in secret, and in time he built an astral docent, a sentient construct made of pure light to which he had copied the schema before his sentence was executed.
Now Aaren gave the heroes his spellshard, placing it in Luumi’s hand, and bade them fulfill their destiny. A bright light engulfed the heroes as the power of the d’Lorien Tree transported them into the past, to the Cyran city of Eston, where they found Aaren before his excoriation. They presented Aaren with his spellshard, proving that they came from the future. Aaren, startled by their revelation but believing the truth in their words, gave them the astral docent with the warforged schema as was promised by his future self.
Then the heroes were transported once more, back to the present day. They found themselves in the city of Varna, hearing the music of the Listening Stone in the tavern, as if no time had passed. But they knew, from a new vision bestowed unto them by the dragonmarked warforged, that the schema had been safely delivered to the future. The Warforged Ancients had been restored, and a great celebration was held to honor the brave chrononauts who had journeyed across the branches of times.