Secret Background: The Cults of Seaward. A short take.

This Entire Post is off-limits to my players



























  The mapping of the Briars is ongoing and another party is about to check out the vault behind the eyes (the players are calling it 'Zero A'). There is another party in the east trying to figure out what is going on with the Bandit Lord Whitehill and his 'witch' wife and a player is doing a solo about looking into the 4 cults: the one that wears green-brown, the one that wears white and blue, the one that wears black and gray, and the one that wears red and white (whom they call the 'candy cane cultists').
Inside Skull Mountain the adventurers have already encountered various mephits and enchanted statues of Cryonax and Yan-C-Bin. One of the traps in the Temple Summons a rather large Ice Para-elemental.
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The cults are cults of the various Evil Princes of Para-elements, like Cryonax (cold/ice). The candy cane cultists are magma, green-brown is ooze, white and blue are ice, and black and gray are smoke. The magma and smoke cults are headquartered in the Demon Isles around the Demon's Eye volcano, the ooze cult in the fens in the southeast, and the ice in the graywall mountains around Skull Mountain.
The cults are just now struggling back to true influence through the influx of brigands, etc. from the South as Banath and High Morath creep ever closer to war and civil war during the Succession Crisis. They are searching diligently for the information they need to regain control of Skull Mountain's true powers but currently can't even access the Pilgrim's area.

Over the next few adventures the players should get a clearer idea of the cults and hints about the powers of the complex. And they might, just might, meet Vasilissa's 'grandmother'.