Nat 20 & Unwind — Vault of the Black Star (The Lost Missions Debrief)

The first simulation is complete. The team emerges from the Vault of the Black Star — shaken, half-intact, and missing more than a few memories. In this debrief, the cast steps out of the Syndicate’s simulation to unpack what just happened.

We break down how the mission played out, what went wrong in the Still Cold, and which mechanics tested the limits of sanity. From corrupted memory checks to zero-gravity combat, this Unwind episode explores how Vault of the Black Star blurred the line between player and experiment.

Expect laughter, theorycrafting, and post-mission confessions as the crew compares notes on The Archivist Below and what the simulation might be trying to teach them.

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Nat 20 & Unwind is an after-session production of the Scalebound Syndicate. By scale and secret, we endure.

Crit Happens: The Lost Missions — Episode 1: Vault of the Black Star

Welcome to The Lost Missions — a classified simulation within the Syndicate archives. Agents volunteer for these experimental reruns, testing old contracts and discarded session blueprints buried deep in the Oathbinder’s Ledger.

The first reconstruction, Vault of the Black Star, drops the team into the frozen abyss of the Still Cold. Their mission: recover a crystalline key fragment from a long-sealed prison once used to contain The Archivist Below, an entity that devours memory and identity.

But this isn’t a real deployment — or so the Overseers claim. Each simulation rewinds fragments of past missions to test new tactics, altered outcomes, and impossible odds. Every variable is recorded. Every death analyzed. Every success erased.

The question is no longer if they survive, but what the simulation remembers when it’s over.

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The Syndicate agents press onward through the choking heat of the Ashen Belt, their mission heavy on every step. After days of travel through ash-choked passes and rivers of molten glass, the silhouette of Pyreheart Stronghold looms — a fortress carved into living magma, where banners of the Dominion flutter beside the silent sigils of the Hollow Host.

The party’s approach is anything but simple. Scaling the fortress’s jagged exterior, they brave volcanic gusts, cascading embers, and the echoing hymns of unseen sentinels. Beneath them, the molten caldera hums like a heartbeat — the Accord waits above, its signatories sharpening both quills and knives.

Yet as they breach the outer wall, smoke is not the only thing that clouds their path. The agents face choices that cut deeper than steel: mercy or mission, truth or loyalty. In the halls of Pyreheart, even the righteous burn.

Creative Use Disclaimer: This podcast is a transformative work based on Dungeons & Dragons (5th Edition) under the Open Game License. All characters, settings, and story elements are original creations set within the homebrew world of Virelios.