The story of Matar: Black began with a new group of adventurers, finding their way to Naviga for their own, various reasons. To make their way to the annual Festival of the White Flame, their attention was drawn to a contest being held in the town square of the city.
This contest was sponsored by the councilor of Naviga, Dieter, as well as the founder of the Order of Heroes in the city of Tenso, Endran. While Endran backed the contest to put out feelers for a new branch of his Order, which trains new heroes of Matar, Dieter put his money forward in order to help improve, build up, and synergize the community he recently found himself overseeing. The reward for the contest being an all-expenses paid trip to the festival.
Dieter’s steward Fehr gathered the names of the prospective contestants from the Knight-Captain and assigned them to their own groups. The group met one another for the first time and introduced themselves as the following: Celeste of Amanta, Aksell, Vespello of Haven, Arturo of Amanta, Akalar of Inferna, Vinio of Viriden, Alicia of Falen, and Gabriel of Triven. They were also grouped with a young, firebrand dwarf known as Leo. Once the group had spent some time getting to know one another, they received their community requests from Fehr.
The first request the group chose was to help the head chef of the Deep-Sea House, a fine seafood restaurant on the docks of Naviga. The chef, Taven, explained to the group that should they find his courier carrying an important shipment of wine and escort him safely back, they would be rewarded with 5 of the 20 tokens they needed to win the contest.
The group journeyed outside the city gates and into the clearing. The courier, Ben, had set up camp. Once the party was settled, combat-ready, in the cart bearing the wine, they raced back to the city. On the way, a group of highwaymen on horseback broke through the tree line and made chase. Though they nearly made off with a couple of cases of wine, the party managed to kill most of the highwaymen and keep all the wine safe. Once the shipment was returned to Taven fully intact, they received not only 5 White Flame Tokens, but an extra one for keeping 100% of the shipment pristine. With their first set of tokens secure, the group set off for the last request they had.
For the last request of the first part of the contest, the group had to help Liz, the young owner of the meadery Honey and Spice, clear out strange creatures lurking in his cellar. Once in the cellar, the party found strangely large rats, one even walking on hind legs. After the rats were dispatched, food with human bites and a strange crystal were discovered. Following the path of the rats, through a crumbled part of the wall, and down a tunnel, the group found a former adventurer down on his luck. The hero introduced himself as Charles, and he did not seem convinced they could help him. Despite this, Alicia convinced the washed-up hero to meet them in the town square to meet Dieter and Fehr for work.
After receiving the three tokens they were promised by Liz, the group met up with Charles outside. They managed to catch up with Dieter as he and his team were packing up the contest booths. Once the matter had been explained, Dieter seemed more than happy to help Charles find a space in his city’s Knight Order. Though Fehr had retired for the evening, Dieter offered the group a request of his own for 7 tokens, to escort archaeology equipment to a dig site at Selina’s Blight, a short boat trip away.
Once accepted, the party made their way to the nearby inn, noticing a strange raven watching them atop the roof…