Café de Nuit

739: Dr. Van Richten, perhaps feeling his encroaching age, decides to strike hard at the heart of evil. He puts together a “stalwart band of champions” to assault the Grim Fastness, gain entry to the Black Vault, and destroy the accursed magic items stored within. Although more than half of the party is killed, they do manage to escape with many of the Black Vault’s treasures, which are later destroyed or otherwise forever hidden away. Again, Van Richten expects retaliation, which never comes. [Speculation based on FoD pg. 14]

Speedwagon wrote: Mon Jun 15, 2026 9:24 am The closest I could find, by searching "Black Vault" in the John W. Mangrum Annotated Timeline document, is the following:

739: Dr. Van Richten, perhaps feeling his encroaching age, decides to strike hard at the heart of evil. He puts together a “stalwart band of champions” to assault the Grim Fastness, gain entry to the Black Vault, and destroy the accursed magic items stored within. Although more than half of the party is killed, they do manage to escape with many of the Black Vault’s treasures, which are later destroyed or otherwise forever hidden away. Again, Van Richten expects retaliation, which never comes. [Speculation based on FoD pg. 14]

Hopefully this helps!

The Dark wrote: Mon Jun 15, 2026 3:39 pm Unless it appears somewhere else that I'm forgetting, the only appearance of the Black Vault is Forged of Darkness, which only has it as "a few years ago" in an (undated) journal entry of van Richten's.

739 probably works as well as any date, since it's three years before he retires (per Vistani) and he's in Darkon in 739 for the case of the Gibbering Golem. Possibly the raid on the Black Vault was put together with the friends who rescued him after Bollenbach kidnapped van Richten and took him to Lamordia? Not necessarily an off-the-cuff thing, but a "while we're in the area, why don't we poke into this?" sort of thing.