Menetnashte Expedition

Launched in 761 BC, the Menetnashte Expedition was a group of twenty-three professors, students and guards employed by the University of Dementlieu. Its mission: to travel from Port-a-Lucine to Har'Akir and research the recently-discovered tomb of Menetnashte and retrieve its artefacts, especially a giant emerald known as the Eye of Anubis.

Itinerary

The Expedition was meant to travel from Dementlieu, to Borca, to Barovia, to Hazlan. Once in Hazlan, it was meant to follow a Mistway to Pharazia, acquire camels in Phiraz, pass through the Sebuan desert and then into Har'Akir.

The Expedition was fortunate enough to gain the help of the Camolomescro in passing through the Mists to Phiraz. Unfortunate events in Phiraz garnered the wrath of Diamabel, making return through his demesne impossible, but a Mistway was 'fortunately' available to lead the Expedition back to the Core by way of Falkovnia.

Doublecross and Triplecross

Although the Expedition was supposedly funded by the University, it had actually been paid for by the Fraternity of Shadows as a consequence of Balfour De Casteelle's wager with John Lancaster Cavendish. Its leader, professor Pelletier, was himself an Esteemed Brother. Unknown to Pelletier (who feared death from old age and was obsessed with securing immortality through the Eye as necromancy was forbidden to him) the Expedition had been sent out to fail. The Umbra planned for the Expedition, which had been publically announced, to draw out opponents like Cavendish, allowing them to launch a secret operation. Only when the Expedition was unexpectedly successful in finding clues to attain the tomb did they dispatch Marcos Vedarrak to offer support -- and take over control after Pelletier was poisoned and later outright murdered.

Unknown even to the Umbra, they had themselves been set up. Desert guide and Cleric of Anubis Fassahd, who had told the University of the Eye and the tomb, had done so by order of Ankhtepot. The Ancient Dead Pharaoh had given the order in an effort to rid his domain of the presence of the Vestige Beherith, which was the true source of power in the Eye, as the wards on Menetnashte's tomb were finally starting to decay.

In addition, the majority of the guards and a travelling reported assigned to the Expedition, motivated variously by greed, extreme debt, and revenge against the Council of Brilliance and Dominic D'Honaire in particular, formed a qabal that sarcastically named itself the Conspiracy. Their own mission was to take control of the Expedition, neutralize their more scholarly counterparts, and make off with such treasure as could be easily fenced to gather a fortune. Conspiracy leader Samael Maleagant (real name: Iosef Dilisnya), it needs to be said, genuinely did not intend for any of the scholars to be harmed; in spite of being a longtime con artist and thief, he felt he was not a murderer. Events spiralled out of control when Pelletier started trying to kill Maleagant as he sensed some of his intentions, and Maleagant's half-brother Jervis (real name: Vladimir "Volodya" Dilisnya) first poisoned and later stabbed and decapitated him, instead. The Conspiracy abandoned their counterparts at a monastery near the exit of the Jackal's Ruse Mistway without camels or food and water and moved on to plunder the tomb. (In this, he greatly underestimated the Expedition's spellcasters, who could conjure mounts and nourishment, not to mention the group's determination and ability to see through a letter he left behind, claiming they had become dangerous to their stated mission due to various forms of supernatural influence.)

Ending the Jackal Wars

In spite of all the treachery that had been with them from the start of the mission, and in spite of roadblocks thrown in their path by John Lancaster Cavendish, the Expedition stubbornly plodded forward.

Facing Cavendish's undead slaves, cryptic warnings and attacks from what appeared to be an Anubite Guardian Cleric, a mad Hazlani Wizard abducting children for experiments, a Shadow Fey infestation that had stripped a whole town of its souls, the wrath of Diamabel and pursuit by his Confessors, not to mention internal tensions and bickering, the Expedition still managed to keep moving forward with the intent of securing the Tomb for the sake of science.

What changed the whole game was their gradually learning the true nature of the tomb and the legendary Eye of Anubis. After Diamabel closed the borders of Pharazia on them, the Expedition located a keep which turned out to be enveloped by the reality wrinkle of a fiend trapped inside, allowing them to traverse the closed border -- but forcing them to somehow tackle the fiend, whose bonds were breaking. Having managed to ritually destroy the insidious monster's phylactery, the group was forced to face another fiend, one whose dreams were eroding the barriers between the waking world and the realm of the Dreamspawn at the monastery near the exit of the Jackal's Ruse. Bad as it was to face fiends of such awesome power, it was worse to discover both had been bound after having served the Cult of Anuberith, a blasphemous hybrid of misled followers of Anubis and the veneration of the dread Vestige Beherith.

The Eye of Anubis, so the Expedition discovered (in part due to revelations from the Anubite guardian: Menetnashte, still bound to protect the Eye), was not a mystic gem empowered by the Lawful Neutral Anubis at all, but a prison for the Evil Beherith. If properly propitiated, the Vestige could empower new contractors as it had Menetnashte -- a corrupted acolyte of Anubis who went on to found a vast Empire.

The question weighing on the Expedition's minds therefore: what could the likes of Balfour De Casteelle, John Lancaster Cavendish or even Dominic D'Honaire then do with the damned thing...?

In the end, the Expedition agreed the Vestige had to be defeated, and now for good. The Eye had to be destroyed, Beherith killed.

Membership

Professors:

+Tomas Carter: Archaeology. Order of the Guardian agent. Male human Factotum.

+Sebastian Marchand-Renier: Linguistics. Non-wererat member of the Richemulot Reniers. Exiled due to his aunt Louise's desire to eliminate him in favor of his sister inheriting.

+Pelletier: History, arcane sciences. Motivated by a desire for immortality. Fraternity of Shadows agent.

+Andre Theroux: Theology. Motivated by a desire to raise his murdered wife and daughter from the dead. Fraternity of Shadows agent. Human, later Fey-touched Archivist / Cleric of the Oracle of the Waters.

Students:

+Tomas Eisenwald. Warforged Lamordian Paladin of Lothurr. Aspiring author and genuinely good and heroic person.

+Charles Martel. Dementlieuse human Rogue, later Bard. Secret agent for the Council of Brilliance.

+Liability Mourneswaith. Mordentish Caliban Wizard. A woman who sought security and discovered she had the courage and desire to fight evil.

+Otto Schultheiss. Human Lamordian Rogue. A family man and owner of a gun- and munitions-firm, seeking information about the background of his murdered foster son.

Medical Officer

+Kuzan of Sri Raji. A human Cleric of the Rajian pantheon. Over the course of the campaign, it was discovered he suffered a tulpa, a separate personality that worshipped Kali ... and that he had been born in Prime Material Har'Akir and was an 'acceptable' sacrifice for anyone wishing to contract Beherith...

Guards:

+Allikhain. Outlander human woman. Killed in an unfair duel by John Lancaster Cavendish in Ravnika, Barovia.

+Jervis (Vladimir Dilisnya). Male human Fighter / Blackguard of Ezra. A dangerous psychopath just barely controlled by Samael Maleagant and the main muscle of the Conspiracy.

+Ulsaon Lowbane. Female Outlander Half-Elf Rogue / Wizard. Briefly Liability Mourneswaith's apprentice. Killed in Phiraz by the fossil of a smilodon, animated by John Lancaster Cavendish.