Many moons have come and gone since Grold was relevant. His cult began to disperse, at one point having several dozens of followers. He lost his grip on Karen and Clem, Grold’s favorite henchmen and lovers. In fact, only Fren, Grold’s long time lover, remained loyal to the cause and to Grold. Fren and Grold found themselves in the swamps again, eating Snakeroot.
When Grold began distilling the ground Snakeroot, the experience became too intense for Fren. As Grold was becoming more and more obsessed with drug, Fren left Grold and the swamps; eventually finding her way back to the Razortooth Goblins.
Alone now, Grold became obsessed with mixing new components to his hallucination-inducing Snakeroot concoctions. Through his experiments, Grold created a super drug capable of days-long euphoria coupled with intermittent hallucinations and bouts of extreme depression and rage.
Grold never left the swamps for years, but word of his powerful drug got out through random encounters with strangers traveling through the swamps in search of treasure and fortune. A curious Tiefling, Garak Havlock, heard of these drugs and saw an opportunity. Surely the denizens of the city would go crazy for this type of experience.
Garak Havlock traveled for 8 days to find the hermit goblin. Once he found Grold, Garak asked him how he could make this wonder drug. Grold was reluctant to reveal his secrets, but promised to teach him, should he become a member of the Branch Duh-Groldians.
Reluctantly, Garak became the lone member of the cult. Garak served Grold as if he were the slave master and Garak the slave. Using his cunning skills to dart into nearby villages to steal new ingredients and other supplies, Grold would continue to refine his recipe. Eventually, rather than teach Garak the recipe to the drug, the two began operating as team. They refined the drug so that the high and hallucinations would last even longer with fewer bouts of depression and rage.
They became so efficient at creating the drug, they were producing excessive amounts and needed a way to offload what they couldn’t consume. The Branch Duh-Groldians brought their designer drug to Garak’s city and began selling to other street urchins.
At this point, Grold was likely the oldest living goblin in the world. His age began to skew his already tainted view of the world. Now in the city, Grold, with the help of Garak, began once again cultivating his long-dead Branch Duh-Groldians and growing its numbers.
The group began experimenting with new recipes and going on even more daring adventures to steal rare items and exclusive ingredients. Just as before, the group lived in the sewers of the city. Brewing amphetamines, hallucinogenics, and barbiturates.
Before long this activity caught the ire of the powerful elite, whose grip on the underground drug market was loosening. They began conducting raids of the sewers to disperse the cult and smother the drug market. The upheaval was immense. With nearly all Branch Duh-Groldians either dead or imprisoned, Grold and Garak fled deeper and deeper into the sewers. Eventually they stumbled upon a massive ceremonial chamber. All the while, the two continued to eat their designer hallucinogenic drug, as this was their favorite high.
They felt safe in the chamber, away from the authorities. They began exploring the chamber and studying the markings. On the floor was circle of acute angles and gemstones. Garak, always driven by greed, attempted to steal these gemstones. At the same time, Grold started to read the incantations written on the walls.
Before long, the center of the room began a glowing. A shower of stars and light rained down from the ceiling, right where Garak was standing trying to pry out a blood red ruby. Through the blueish hue of the column of light, Garak saw another tiefling. As he studied her, he realized it was his long estranged twin sister. Garak reached out to touch her, but was pulled into a void, a black hole like anomaly. Garak found himself staring at Fortune, his twin sister, surrounded by nothing floating in a completely black, lightless void.
The two attempted to speak, but neither could hear one another. More troubling, however, they couldn’t even hear themselves. Garak reached out for Fortune, who began to turn into the same blueish shower of stars and lights just as the column of light from before, except this column was infinite reaching as high as Garak could perceive and as low. Before he realized what was happening, he found himself in a new chamber, surrounded by people he knew, but didn’t know at the same time. He was wearing new clothes and carrying new gear. Grold was gone, replaced by Pim, Ollie, Wutang, and Valarion. Oddly, Garak knew these people, but also didn’t know these people.
