The players are seated. One has brought snacks, one has forgotten a character name, and one is already negotiating with the monster described as “a furnace-bell split by rows of teeth.” We are ready to run Moonvault.

This is the final quest in the Bells Beneath Blackglass series. You can review the campaign foundation, connect the campaign, prepare all four Sessions, or download the complete tutorial vault.

Quest 1: Enter Active Session Mode

Open The Foundry Without Fire and choose Run session.

Active Session Mode gives the Session a focused table workspace with:

  • Session notes for the rendered prep.
  • Board for tonight’s cards.
  • Party for the four PCs and current HP.
  • Exploration for turns, light, conditions, and marching order.
  • Maps for campaign maps and mapped locations.
  • Encounters for linked fights.
  • Quick tools for dice and random tables.

The main dashboard also shows the real session date, current in-world date, previous recap, prep tasks, and current summary. This is enough context to run without arranging twelve windows like a wizard filing taxes.

Active Session Mode for The Foundry Without Fire showing the session rail, current fantasy date, previous recap, prep tasks, and rendered notes
Active Session Mode brings the campaign's current context into one focused table workspace. Open the full-size view.

Read the strong start, then ask one character a question before the first roll:

The furnace opens its mouth and silently says your name. Iri lowers her bell-clapper sword. What promise have you kept even after it hurt you?

The answer gives the furnace leverage later. Preparation has now become ammunition, which is much more useful than decoration.

Quest 2: Track exploration time and light

Open Exploration, choose Enable for this session, and select the Shadowdark preset. The tracker lives on this Session; enabling it does not add global rules to every campaign.

Set the marching order:

  1. Mara Vell
  2. Brother Crow
  3. Orin Wick
  4. Sable Quill

Add resources with a name and remaining turns—Torch and Oil for this delve—and add timed conditions with a subject, name, and duration. The current demonstration state is turn 3 with torch time and oil recorded. Mara has Ringing ears for two remaining turns.

Choose Next turn whenever the party searches a dangerous area, crosses a meaningful section, or spends comparable dungeon time. One Shadowdark exploration turn advances 10 minutes and reduces timed resources and conditions; use the previous-turn control to correct an accidental click. When a random encounter occurs, choose Mark random encounter so the Session remembers it. Record treasure, XP, and award notes while they are still fresh enough to be true, then insert the exploration summary when the delve ends. These fields record your rulings; Moonvault does not award XP or spend inventory automatically.

Use Shadowdark Exploration Turn in the Session notes as the rhythm:

  • Who carries the light?
  • Which route does the party take?
  • What sign warns of danger?
  • Which clue appears before a check?
  • Does the Ninth Toll advance?
Moonvault exploration tracker showing turn three, torch and oil resources, marching order, and Mara's ringing-ears condition
The exploration tracker makes time, light, conditions, and marching order visible during dungeon play. Open the full-size view.

Quest 3: Use the map without revealing the vault

Open Maps → The Hollow Sun Crater → Map Room.

Choose Player preview when the group should see the known route. Gloammarket, Lantern Abbey, the causeway, ossuary, and foundry are player-visible. Confirm that Hollow Sun Vault is absent before sharing the screen; it remains a GM-only pin until the party aligns Toma’s map with the foundry lens.

Open a pin to jump to its linked Location. Return to Active Session Mode when the group leaves the map. Map Room is presentation and navigation; the Location page remains the campaign’s durable source of discoveries, dangers, NPCs, and treasure.

Quest 4: Run combat from the Encounter snapshot

Open Encounters → Bell Maw Pit.

The Encounter already contains the four PCs and one Bell Maw. If you are building your own, use the participant search to add existing PC and Monster pages first. Choose Roll initiative or enter values yourself, select the first participant as the current turn, then use Previous and Next to move through combat. The current simulated state is round 2:

  • Mara has 6/8 HP and Ringing ears for two rounds.
  • Orin has 5/5 HP.
  • Sable has 4/4 HP.
  • Brother Crow has 7/7 HP.
  • Bell Maw has 16/24 HP and is Chain pinned for one round.

Use each participant’s controls for battle-specific state:

  • Damage and healing
  • Temporary AC, HP, or initiative bonuses
  • Conditions and remaining rounds
  • Nicknames for duplicate monsters
  • Active, unconscious, defeated, or out status

The source Bell Maw page still has its clean 24 HP statblock. If this charming apparatus returns later, we do not have to reconstruct it from the smoking remains of session three.

Bell Maw Pit encounter tracker in round two with four PCs, Bell Maw HP, current turn, bonuses, and timed conditions
Encounter participants keep temporary combat truth on the fight instead of mutating reusable character and monster pages. Open the full-size view.

Remember the alternate victory. If the party feeds the Bell Maw a promise, end combat and record the exact words. If that promise is broken, advance The Ninth Toll by 2. A promise nobody writes down is merely an ambient threat with good branding.

Quest 5: Capture the consequences at table speed

Choose Capture moment during play. Select Decision, Clue, Loot, Ruling, NPC, Follow-up, or Note, write one readable fact, and save it. Moonvault appends the capture to the current Session instead of opening a second scratch file. A Follow-up can also become a prep task targeted to this Session.

Capture short facts such as:

  • Decision: the party promises Iri ownership of the foundry.
  • Clue: the third key is hidden inside the Lantern of Unspent Dawn.
  • Loot: second Bellmetal Key and three sticks of Saint Orra’s Wax.
  • Follow-up: decide whether Veyra joins the final descent.

Quick Capture is for truth at table speed. Clean prose can wait. The dragon will not pause while you select a semicolon. After play, edit the Session prose if a capture needs context; the short fact remains useful even if you never polish it.

Roll Blackglass Omens from Quick tools or from its Session Board card when travel or delay needs a consequence. Because the table is a normal Random Table page, its results can link directly to Locations, Monsters, and campaign state.

Quest 6: Finish the Session and feed the next one

At the end of play, choose Finish session. Write a compact summary with decisions, discoveries, losses, rewards, and new obligations.

For our simulated outcome:

The Dawnless Company promised Iri ownership of the foundry, pinned the Bell Maw with two chains, and removed the second key. Mara heard the Hollow Sun speak her childhood nickname. The party gained Saint Orra’s Wax and 120 gp in bronze, but the broken furnace promise advanced the Ninth Toll to 5.

After saving, Finish session becomes Edit summary, and the recap appears on the Session page and in Active Session Mode. Open the next Session’s Briefing and confirm that the summary, party state, linked final Encounter, prep tasks, and current date are ready.

Active Session Mode for The Foundry Without Fire showing a saved summary and the Edit summary action after play
The saved summary closes one game and becomes the previous recap for the next Session. Open the full-size view.

Quest 7: Run the final choice

Open A Dawn Worth Paying For. The campaign date is Lastlight 21. The Ninth Toll is at 5. Caldus stands over the star-pit with three bell platforms around him.

Run the prepared Encounter, but make the ending a choice rather than a damage threshold:

  • Restore dawn: one character voluntarily gives the Lantern a treasured memory.
  • Seal the vault: spend all three keys and accept a world of survivable twilight.
  • Crown a vessel: defeat Caldus and let another willing character take the Hollow Sun.

Every major page now contributes: Lore explains the price and records escalation, Items carry the keys, the Session Board exposes the live toll counter, Factions determine allies, NPC relationships change who arrives, the Calendar supplies the deadline, and the Session summary records what the table chose.

That is a complete campaign loop, not merely a complete folder.

Pack the whole adventure

Before you close the vault:

  • Advance exploration turns when time matters.
  • Keep temporary combat state on Encounter participants.
  • Use Board and Quick tools for table-speed access.
  • Capture decisions and clues in short form during play.
  • Finish every Session with a factual summary.
  • Open the next Briefing before writing more prep.
  • Let the final choice pay off links, clocks, factions, and promises established earlier.

You can download Bells Beneath Blackglass as a ready-to-open Moonvault vault and run it as written, steal its structure for another system, or replace the hungry bell with whatever your players are least qualified to adopt.

The ninth toll is waiting. Bring a torch and one memory you can afford to lose.