Session 01 — The Pushes

First session of the Caligo campaign. The party meets in the back room above a soap maker's shop in the canton of Wickward and accepts a smuggling job from the resistance: escort a half-elf mother and her magic-touched daughter through the outer ring to a safehouse in Heron. They make it. Something far worse follows them in.

Date played: 2026-05-04 System: D&D 5e Duration: ~2h 47m Story: Session 01 — Story

At a Glance

The party is established as a resistance cell operating across cantons of the outer ring.
They are hired by Thresh, a tiefling courier, to escort Maret and her daughter Sable — a girl with uncontrollable wild magic — from Wickward to a safehouse run by Orvin in Heron.
En route, they pass a man dying in a stockade for "failure to report suspicious activity in the home." EMBR nearly frees him. Valdren stops him.
Beyond the outermost wall, two Ash Walkers ambush the party in the wastelands between cantons. The party kills both. Sable, panicking, accidentally casts Fireball — her wild magic finally unloading at full force in front of the people protecting her.
They reach Orvin's repair shop in Heron and deliver Maret and Sable safely.
Jorath performs a divination ritual asking after their future. The stars answer: "Poor little innocents get caught in the shadow of the raven."
The session ends as Inquisition carriages thunder into Heron, setting up a canton quarantine. Silver ravens flash in the lamp light. Valdren recognizes them — the same uniforms as the night his family was taken.

Decisions Made

Accept the smuggling job. Thresh asks for the favor as a personal one; the party agrees without question.
Stay tight around Maret and Sable. Valdren proposes the marching order: EMBR and himself as front/back, Rookk and Jorath flanking, Vivienne and the cargo (Argentus carrying both) in the middle.
Vivienne casts Disguise Self. Burns a spell slot to change her face for the journey, on the rationale that recognition by a patrol could compromise the resistance through her family name. She demonstrates the spell for Sable as a kindness — watch what this can do.
Do not free the man in the stockade. EMBR almost rips the lock off. Valdren physically intervenes. The party walks past. Maret blinds Sable from seeing him.
Skip the gate at Heron. Rather than face the alert garrison, Jorath uses Goliath large-form + Enlarge to grow to roughly 28 feet tall and lift everyone over a stretch of disrepaired wall, one at a time.
Trust the stars. Jorath casts a divination ritual at Orvin's. The answer is grim. He shares it.

NPCs Encountered

Thresh — Tiefling resistance courier with filed-down horns. Lined up the job. Gone before the party left Wickward.
Edra — Proprietor of the soap maker's shop in Wickward. Provides cover for resistance meetings. Polite, observant, refills Rookk's ale without being asked.
Maret — Half-elf mother. Tired but composed. Terrified of what her daughter can do, and terrified of the world that wants her daughter dead for it.
Sable — Half-elf child. Innate wild-magic surge type. Calls it "the pushes." When excited or scared, things move, fires breathe, sparks fly off her skin. Latched onto Vivienne. Cast Fireball mid-combat by accident.
Orvin — Older gnome in Heron. Runs a repair shop as cover; actually builds magic-suppressing safehouses for the resistance. Old friend of Jorath.
The man in the stockade — Unnamed. Found in a Wickward square, lashed and dying in the rain. Placard reads failure to report suspicious activity in the home. The party walked past him.

Factions Encountered

The Resistance — The party's employer. Operating through couriers, safehouses, and a blood-magic tattoo that glows when two operatives shake hands.
The Inquisition — Mentioned throughout; arrives in force at session's end. Silver-raven coats. Canton quarantine protocol. Last seen rolling into Heron.
The Garrison — Standing wall guards. Lazy at Wickward (sheltering from rain), alert at Heron. Avoided rather than fought.

Locations

Wickward — Outer-ring canton; old; close to the outermost wall. Site of the soap maker's shop, the stockade square, and the gate the party slipped through.
The wastelands between cantons — Long-grass plains, dead trees, sewage grates and river outlets where things from outside crawl in. Where the Ash Walkers struck.
Heron — Another outer-ring canton, walls in disrepair. Orvin's repair shop and safehouse. As of session end, under Inquisition quarantine.

New Worldbuilding

The God-King. Rimalath, the immortal elf-king whose "divine continuance" justifies the regime. Statues in every square. Prayers in every school. Said to have made the walls.
Three rings. Outermost is farmland and pocked wall, where the kaiju strike. Middle is the dense city. Innermost is the capital with dark spires and lamp light.
Beyond the walls is dead. The official line. Officially: no civilization, no mercy, only the ruined and the kaiju. Privately, nobody who's looked believes the line is whole.
Magic is banned. To use magic is to defy the God-King. To defy him is to betray every soul behind his walls. Enforcement is the Inquisition's job, and they are thorough.
The Ruined. Ancient creatures moving through fog and wasteland with patience that "feels almost like intention." Repelled, repelled again — never stopped.
Ash Walkers. Smaller predators. Reptilian. Camouflaged. Move at blazing speed. Tongues with hooked barbs that grapple. They worm in through sewage grates and river outlets. Government warning signs about them are posted near the outermost wall.
The Resistance's blood-magic mark. Invisible tattoo. Glows faintly when two marked palms meet. The handshake is the password.
Canton quarantine. Used by the Inquisition to seal entire cantons. Once a canton goes through it, it is no longer officially a canton. The party does not yet know what that means.

Combat Highlight

The fight on the road. Two Ash Walkers — one ambushing from the hedges to the north, a second slithering up from the south. The fight runs roughly:

EMBR rages, grows to large size, charges over Vivienne and Rookk, and hammer-slams the northern Ash Walker through a hedge in the first turn.
Vivienne stays with Sable. Persuasion check, talks her through it. That's a lovely blanket. Where did you get that? Sable's eyes track the war hammer drip. Sable's hands shake. Sparks lift off her skin like a flare in the night sky.
Jorath is grappled by the southern Ash Walker's tongue and dragged toward a tree.
Rookk holds position south, defending Maret and Sable.
Sable fails her save. Her wild magic detonates as a fireball — accidentally, into the night.
Valdren walks — does not run — up to the northern Ash Walker, kisses the head of his war pick, bangs hammer to shield, and crits the killing blow into its skull. EMBR screams in his face for stealing the kill. The crit doesn't undo it.
The southern Ash Walker is taken down shortly after. Its stomach, when cut open later, holds human hair.

Continuity State

<details> <summary>Continuity State (for next session)</summary>

Active Quests

[ ] Survive the Heron quarantine. Inquisition carriages arrived as session ended. Whole canton is being sealed. Orvin's safehouse is inside.
[ ] Decipher the omen. Poor little innocents get caught in the shadow of the raven. Jorath's divination, Orvin's table.

Key NPCs

Maret — Safe at Orvin's, eating soup, exhausted, hopeful in a guarded way.
Sable — Safe at Orvin's, in awe of Vivienne, has not yet realized she cast Fireball.
Orvin — Friendly, careful, currently sheltering Maret and Sable in the back room of his shop.
Thresh — Back in Wickward as far as the party knows.
Edra — Back in Wickward.

Open Plot Threads

The man in the stockade. Was he still alive when the Inquisition arrived?
Why is the Inquisition quarantining Heron, the same night the party delivered a magic-using child there?
The silver-raven coats: the same uniform that took Valdren's family. Why are they here now?
What does it mean that a canton "is no longer officially a canton" after quarantine?
Sable does not know she cast Fireball. Eventually she will.

Party Resources

Vivienne's Disguise Self has worn off (one-hour duration; the journey was longer).
Argentus is alive and uninjured. Maret and Sable rode him the whole way.
The party is inside Orvin's home as the Inquisition sets up barriers around Heron.

</details>

On This Page