Brightstone Heroes

The Brightstone Heroes was a prominent group of adventurers in the years leading up to the Deity War. The members never referred to themselves by this title while adventuring together; the name was created later by the bards who told of their heroic deeds.

The Early Days
The first members of the group were Chizu, Justin Oakenleaf, Krom, Switch, and Midilono, who met in Stark and agreed to travel together to solve the mystery of a plague in the town of Duvik. As they prepared to enter the town's mines, where the plague originated, they were joined by Tol Sigurn, who had been shadowing them since Stark. Chizu and Krom departed after saving the town, but the rest of the group continued on in pursuit of a tribe of kobolds. During their pursuit they were joined by Leardon Sunflare and Prov Coren, whom they rescued from a roving band of orcs. Following the kobolds into the Rionwood, they found them being slaughtered by an orc to power a demonic ritual. While they stopped the ritual, something unknown got through and killed Switch when he became separated from the others.

A Prelude to Greatness
Eventually, the heroes were hired to save some miners who had been trapped in a collapse while digging a tunnel beneath the tower of the wizard Sionaas. Sionaas explained to the heroes that there was an ancient ruin beneath his tower housing an orb that would reveal the location of a fabulous treasure. Joined by the stout dwarf Balon Stonehelm, they dug the trapped miners out of the rubble and ventured inside. However, it was quickly determined that the ruins were actually an ancient temple of Lolth, and when they defeated the orb's guardian they realized that it was far more than what Sionaas had told them and fled with the orb under cover of darkness. While traveling across the plains, Midilono left to pursue other adventures, and Justin was slain by a weretiger. They took Justin's body to the city of Edras to have him raised, but as they did not have enough money they were instead given a task: to travel north to the town of Karst and save them from a band of orcs that was launching raids from a nearby abandoned keep. After ridding the keep of the orcs, trolls, and goblins that inhabited it, the mayor of Karst rewarded them with the deed to the keep and its mines. The heroes resolved to make Brightstone Keep their new home.

Full Circle
One of the first actions the heroes took was to hire a team of dwarves from Silverstone to rebuild the keep and restart the work in the mines. Soon after the reconstruction work began, an elven priestess named Zephyr Songbreeze arrived. She explained to the heroes that the orb they recovered from the temple beneath Sionaas's tower was actually one of the keys to Lolth's prison, and that due to their possession of it their presence was required at a summit in Silverstone. Prov declined, electing instead to stay and manage the keep, while the dwarf Zigil chose to travel along with them to see the world. En route to Silverstone, they were accosted by minions of the Skullfire Mages, which they swiftly crushed. Upon arriving in the city, they were immediately ushered into a closed doors meeting with representatives of all the major gods, who consulted them in detail about their experiences with Sionaas and the orb before dismissing them to discuss the situation. That same day, they discovered that the Skullfire Mages had a secret lair beneath the city, and were sent by the city guard to dispatch them. While doing so, they found a sarcophagi containing a mummified drow and two longswords, which they took with them in order to destroy, and a shield guardian, which they took control of. That night at the inn, however, a mysterious figure destroyed the shield guardian and stole the longswords after a failed attempt to kill the heroes. Deducing that this was the same assassin who had slain Switch weeks earlier, they tracked him to the south, towards Elton. Oh their way they found the flayed corpse of Krom, and arrived in the town just in time to see the assassin, magically disguised as Krom, stab Chizu in the back with one of the drow longswords. He then revealed his true identity, the demonic Mortal Hunter, and dared the heroes to find him in the nearby ruins. They did, and the Mortal Hunter was slain. After burying their friends and taking the blades back to Silverstone to have them magically destroyed in the temple of Corellon, the heroes returned to Brightstone to take a break from adventuring for a time and to continue improvements on their new home.

Sionaas Returns
A few months later, the barbarian Torgar arrived at Brightstone Keep with news: he was a longtime friend of Tol, and while they were having a drink together in Karst a wizard had shown up and taken him prisoner. Deducing from Torgar's description that this wizard was Sionaas, Zigil, Leardon, Justin, and Balon resolved to rescue Tol; Torgar went with them. They were also joined by one of the elves who had arrived with Zephyr, a wizard named Arenil.

Together, the six heroes traveled south to Sionaas's tower and, locating a secret passage within the temple below it, entered. After battling the undead that Sionaas had set to guard his tower, they eventually reached the top of the tower, where Sionaas was waiting for them. In the midst of the battle, Sionaas assumed his true form: a powerful steel dragon. After a mighty battle, Torgar finally beheaded the dragon and sent its body tumbling off the side of the tower.

After dispatching the Sionaas, the heroes found Tol chained up in the wizard's personal quarters, having been tortured but not seriously harmed. Leaving back through the ruined temple, they found a magical archway that Sionaas had been using to communicate with Lolth. Accidentally activating the device, Leardon was nearly killed by Lolth's gaze before they could shut it down. After bidding Torgar farewell, they returned together to Brightstone.