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deck16 · 9 months ago

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Act 1 | Act 2 | Act 3 | Act 4 | Act 5 | Act 6 | Act 7 | Act 8 | Act 9 | Act 10 | Act 11 | Epilogue | DM's Retrospective

This is the final instalment of the campaign journal of Adventures in Lyria.

Adventures in Lyria Epilogue

The heroes had done it. In the final act they reached level 20 and saved the world. Now, how did things pan out for everyone?

These are pasted from my DM notes, with some editing for clarity. I've arranged them roughly by Act where these people and places were first seen.

From Act 1

Calpurnia and Felix heeded the call from the heroes to help fight the Shadowfell. Afterwards, they returned to Hypercardea to further study spell-stones. Felix is well on his way to achieving Archmage rank.

Letocetum Bullies. The juvenile delinquents that bullied Felix had their sense of smug superiority over Lyrians entrenched when Myra prevented an magically-enlarged Felix from gaining his revenge. So motivated, they willingly joined the lycan revolt and were turned to were-rats. They enjoyed the early war, invading southern Cantian cities, until most of their group died in a bloody vanguard action against Strabo's Second Legion. Those that survived returned to northern Cantia humbled and scarred by war.

Drake's Bathhouse. Drake Zemith, bathhouse owner, managed to survive the war and avoid being turned by hiding in the kobold-dug canals he commissioned. With many of his debts forgotten or forgiven during the war, he was able to re-open, and enjoys more patronage in a modern-day Cantia where anti-Lyrian sentiment is less prominent.

From Act 2

Zilt's Hollow is doing well. The swamp was a safe-haven during the war, and the Hollow harboured some refugees during it. The clerics afflicted by druidic-necromancy thinned out lingering undead in the swamp, and eventually turned into trees which now grow near the entrance to the Hollow, supplying fruits with nourishing and restorative powers. Zilt remains in charge, with Taklak, Nisk, Clang and Dib still there. There's concern that a rival kobold settlement -- one led by a dragon -- may move to claim the Hollow's kobold population. Hux is also on the loose; no-one knows if he was cured of Lycanthropy.

Varus the Paladin, hater of kobold hugs, worked for a while to help his cursed comrades. Perhaps he returned to their now-tree forms, too late, with a cure in hand?

Maxim and Philomena -- the halfling nomads -- had their silvered weapon smuggling operation discovered by a shrewd Quaestor. The chaos of war allowed them to escape to the mainland.

From Act 3

Vincent Pearson was the judge who ruled to free Lukil's father. He was also the cleric who advocated for Garo during the affairs in Port CS. Pearson returned to Cortona prior to the Shadowfell Invasion. He fought valiantly to keep undead from the holy bridge-chateau, and was turned into a Death Knight, which the party slew when acquiring a Solstice Stone.

Simerion's Corpse. Safely hidden away by Lukil, and kept secret, Simerion's corpse was never discovered by Cazna. This meant the powerful necromancer was never raised. His bones are still buried in a warded clay receptacle under a Letocetum garden.

From Act 4

The Rapid Rivers Mine. The mithril mine, now safe from half-demonic hybrids, made massive amounts of profit for the Guild Society. A small fraction of this wealth trickled down in to the locals, who worked as miners and security.

Veronica Veneno's marriage to Lucius Valerius was delayed during Trystan's campaigning and the subsequent Shadowfell incursion. There are rumours that she lost considerable advantage over the family once Trystan elevated them by his election, and the whole thing might be in jeopardy.

Karl Burr's position in the Guild Society increased due to his successes with the Rapid Rivers mine. He's managing bigger things now, more stressed out than ever.

The Yudibugs. These creatures were sustained by an artefact in an deceased dragon's lair. After Cyrus drained the magic from it to empower himself, the creatures slowly died out. Ceezar, the troglodyte that was in Zelri's party, managed to enter the cave after the creatures were sufficiently weakened. He claimed the vast treasure, moving his tribe in, keeping the whole thing secret from Zelri and company.

Lukil and her father, Leda. No-one knows what became of them! Perhaps they returned to the Black Mountains province?

From Act 5

Fort Nelisa, the place where Kytah died, is still abandoned. Without the threat of lycanthropes, there's little pressure to re-establish it.

From Act 6

Tarospur, Flutter's old boss, is still working at his job as a Justice Clerk. Sometimes he tells his underlings about the filing system Flutter devised, lamenting that no-one could organise paperwork quite as well as Flutter. And a chill runs down his spine as he thinks of the mass freezing he strongly speculates Flutter did, but he's too professional to tell that story.

Phooka is still selling cheap potions.

Lady Aurelia Xilo continued to run her eclectic school for chaotic sorcerers. But she spent increasing amounts of time exploring strange corners of the Feywild, and distant reaches of the Astral Sea, looking to recover a paradise lost to her.

Crepuscia continued to work with Lady Xilo, helping her disciples track down powerful magic.

From Act 7

Gavelsmack the kenku barrister is still working hard, trying to make ends meet as the single parent of a large family.

Vaticin became something of a celebrity with his device that could teleport people to the moon. But subsequent expeditions did not go so smoothly. Being a winter eladrin, his guilt caused him to suspend the program and become reclusive. He's still not accepting visitors.

Cyrus's Play kept on going, with local actors, and shows no sign of stopping any time soon. Cici Rega has penned an additional act that explains how the heroes saved Cantia.

Too Much helped with the Shadowfell, along with his master. Both returned to Helicalis safely.

Velthreek is, as far as anyone knows, still meditating in his pocket dimension, cursed to feel agony if he stops concentrating.

Ziffy Davia continued to run her temple in the Helicalis, healing any and all who needed it.

From Act 8

Salvius and the Twentieth Legion. General Marcus Salvius and his son Davith formed a Legion from the unseelie fey creatures of the smaller, forested isle of Cantia and were instrumental in locking most of Strabo's forces in a defensive position while events played out in Port CS. After that was all over, Salvius and son returned to the island and, by the will the unseelie fey there, became de-facto rulers of the island. Salvius hopes to reunite with his lost love who is still petrified as a tree. Kettlebas is still part of the house retinue.

From Act 9

Port CS continues to do well. Daetris Meliscient is still in charge. Leonass Tunn returned to Lyria. The bas relief was completed honouring the heroes that saved the coup by Strabo. Strabo's museum is all but forgotten about.

Bilgewyrm, the unfortunate kobold that set fiends loose aboard a ship in Port CS, was so troubled by the experience that he joined the local Church of Mithra, figuring it would be the best place to avoid devils. He works doing odd-jobs and grounds-keeping.

Algo, after a brief but intense experience with a band of heroes, found the experience eye-opening enough that the mundane problems of a wandering kobold now seemed trivial. With this new outlook, he's doing well as a travelling bard. He doesn't know if he'll keep wandering, or return to Cantia or Port CS as home.

Clever Clover continued adventuring, his part in the Port CS affairs just one of many stories that he could eventually tell.

Barry Baker is still baking in Port CS. The Sticky Cyrus would, over generations, spread to become a common treat in seafaring port towns.

At Lake Nemi, the water-spirits Iphianassa and Syrinx are now romantic partners. One is a fresh-water naiad, the other a salt-water nereid, but they can co-exist in the brackish water near the underwater temple. The pelicans still roost on Cassia's home there, but that home is empty now.

Surkiv took the young dragonborn back to his homeland. War with Strabo's legions was over, but trouble stirred to the north. Something has riled up the legendary black dragonborn tribe to the north, which is something that's not happened in living memory.

Cirenwe Spellwatch was kidnapped by Laila and taken to Laconia. Her rescue efforts were disrupted by the chaos of the Shadowfell Invasion. She's still in Laconia, but she doesn't mind. She actually quite likes it there -- there's all sorts of discoveries for one specialised in fiendish things.

Aemilius Lepidus, Strabo's second-in-command, died fighting alongside his commander. Despite being on the wrong side, few view him with disdain, but rather respect his fidelity standing by his commander. All the same, it's not a good look for the family, and his name and role in history would soon only be remembered by the most die-hard historian.

Wyns Rand only ever wanted to sell a few permanent teleportation circles to make enough to retire. He accepted employment by Strabo, wound up fighting the heroes, and died because of it. He has no next-of-kin.

Ellyjobell Timbers helped fight against the Shadowfell. As a first-hand witness to Strabo's coup and the Shadowfell incursion, she performs across Lyria telling the tale with illusions.

Caacrinolaas the imp still works for Arcadion. There's no quitting that job.

Katarina Strabo, well regarded from her leadership role against the Shadowfell, uses that prestige and those contacts to reform the churches of the Theocratic states.

Cassia answered the heroes' call to help with the Shadowfell. She later returned to Alexandros' homeland, but she is considering restarting her druidic order now Katarina's reforms might mean druidism is no longer illegal in Lyria.

Adan Heskin helped in efforts against the spreading Shadowfell. What happened to him after that is unknown.

Post-war Cantia. Thanks to the Umbralenses, most lycans were cured rather than killed. Both north and south Cantia are recovering. The north is doing well with Queen Media Bellicent as the new ruler. Many are surprised by her success, astonished by the silver tongue she must have to keep disparate factions in line.

From Act 10

Lorokeem is still underneath Silvercap Mountain, plotting one-mage revenge against the orcs of the Black Mountains, with all the patience of a wizard with the ability to clone himself.

The Actors playing the heroes in the play about Strabo's demise were recruited to tell the tale of the Shadowfell, which adds onto the existing saga. The play is popular.

Zertnia Ati works with Katarina in rebuilding and reforming the churches of the Theocratic States. Her nose for corruption and misdealings is a great asset.

Master Tarquin, after helping with the Shadowfell, returned to teaching at Tiger's Nest. He is proud that he defended the Prophecy, but content that the heroes beat him, wondering if fate would've turned out worse if he had won.

Aeneas Zarken, Ezekial's father, was adamant he was bait to lure his son into the Undercroft. He tried to lead the villagers of Nyctimene out of the Shadowfell only hours before his son would enter the Undercroft to save him. With his son unable to help, he died in the Shadowfell; he and his fellow villagers were likely some of the many ghouls and ghasts that roamed the Shadowfell as it swept across the Material Plane.

Cassander tried to stop Aeneas from leaving the Undercroft, and refused to go himself. He therefore survived when it merged with the material plane. From there, he helped with the Shadowfell. Afterwards, he gathered Kobaloi and some refugee tieflings and took them to Nyctimene. The small village is even smaller with this new population, but it's growing.

From Act 11

Celle Rymbor is still making artefacts in the Underdark beneath Arcadia. Asurath isn't well-known down there, and that's the way she likes it.

Burt Cobb was never seen again. Not even by Garo.

The Imperial Cult continues to operate across Lyria and beyond. They've been afforded some breathing room now that the Theocratic States are reeling from the Shadowfell incursion.

The Players

Some players have already been mentioned. As for the rest...

Trystan served as Consul several more times before taking less prominent -- yet still important -- role in politics and the Imperial College.

Alexandros and his drake Ion returned home, before likely setting off on another adventure involving dragons.

Cyrus continued his relationship with Xanaphia. Both now work for Lady Xilo.

Flutter and Garo (much to my surprise as DM) became married! They live in Silvercap Mountain, though Garo would help with with Katarina to reform the churches of the Theocratic States. Flutter continues to study magic with the help of Sunflare.

Ezekial married Ziffy Davia. Together they'd have a child -- Ziffinea "Fin" Zarken -- who is a PC in a Pathfinder Second Edition campaign set 30 years from the end of this campaign!

If you've gotten here and want to read more, I suggest you check out my DM's Retrospective.

#dungeons and dragons #tabletop role playing game #adventures in lyria

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deck16 · 9 months ago

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This is a continuation of the campaign journal of Adventures in Lyria. The first entry is here and you can see all entries here.

Act 11: Shadowfell and Sword

The heroes must work with allies to put a stop to the Shadowfell Incursion. In doing so, they enter an infernal pocket dimension to save a comrade's soul.

During this part of the story, the party was Cyrus (first seen Act 1), and Garo. Aden Heskin (first seen Act 9) and Myra (first seen Act 5), joined in some adventures.

Zeke and Flutter were dead. Players of these characters would play prominent NPCs. Zeke's player took control of Laila, a cambion first seen in Act 9. Flutter's player took control of Tumbleclick (first seen Act 7). Both, from memory, were arcane tricksters.

Don't pay heed to the cars parked out the front...

Cortona in Darkness

What was left of the party stood outside the Cathedral of St Cuthbert as the Shadowfell expanded and merged with more and more of the Material Plane.

Also present were an allied mix of Cuthbertine crusaders and Tiger's Nest monks, come to stop Zeke. Obviously, too late. They were led by Zertnia (first seen Act 10). She was furious that Zeke had so blatantly caused the prophecy to come true. She only stayed her hand because civilians were in imminent danger.

Katarina and Xanaphia, who were in the area, headed straight to the cathedral as soon as the shadowy orb was seen emerging from it.

Laila and Tumbleclick were also here. We reasoned that Laila could've easily teleported in with cambion powers, perhaps sensing something wrong with Zeke. Tumbleclick must've had a bit more of a contrived reason to be here -- I forget exactly -- but here he was!

Here's what happened next:

Katarina took charge, requesting that the assembled Crusader and monks help evacuate the city. She asked the heroes to defend the streets in front of the cathedral to buy time. The heroes had to keep ahead of the growing Shadowfell as they fought against Shadowfell undead emerging from it.

Garo briefly saw Burt Cobb (first seen Act 9). Burt lamented that the prophecy had come true. He gave Garo a piece of Asurath, one of the pieces Arnus had taken (seen in Act 9), and told him that reforging the sword was important, and that he should seek the sword's creator. Burt was then taken away by angelic figures!

As refugees poured out of the city, the heroes provided aid and comfort, doing what they could to get everyone out.

Calling Allies

In a temporary base of operations, Katarina was organising anyone who could fight back against the Shadowfell.

Katarina gave the heroes dozens of scrolls of sending and told them to seek aid from as many allies as they could. They gathered an impressive set:

Marcus Salvius (first seen Act 3) and his Feywild army (see Act 8).

Soldiers from Port Cissylvania (see Act 9).

Media Bellicent (see Act 9) and forces from Cantia.

Alexandros, player character (first seen Act 9).

Calpurnia and Felix (first seen Act 1). And any Imperial College aid they could muster.

Soldiers from Magnus Stabo's army (see Act 9), some of whom owed the heroes, and many of whom sought to redeem themselves.

Zilt, another player character (first seen Act 1). And allies from Zilt's Hollow (see Act 2).

Tumbleclick's thieves guild members.

Lorokeem (see Act 10).

Various figures from the Feywild, including Ziffy Davia, Vaticin, and Phooka (see Act 7).

Ellyjobell Timbers the illusionist (see Act 9).

Zelri, the drow wizard from the Underdark (see Act 4).

Cassia the druid (see Act 9).

Celle Brimbor, the creator of Asurath (see Act 9).

This impressive array of figures was assembled quite quickly once enough high-level magic-users with access to teleportation magic became involved.

Cassander (see Act 10) managed to show up. He was in the Shadowfell, but as it merged with the Material Plane he managed to cross over and follow the train of refugees. Sadly, Zeke's father Aeneas did not survive; killed by undead in the Shadowfell.

This nascent alliance was full of once-old enemies. Katarina managed to keep them working together. She also had words for Garo:

"You always dealt with uncertainty better than I did. You always seemed immune to doubt, picking a direction and steadfastly moving forward. At first I thought you possessed a sort-of arrogance or bravado, but when you refused father's offer… I knew it was principle…" she trails off, staring off into the distance. She regains her composure and looks you in the eye. "You have changed, though, Garo. Look about at who is here with us. The Garo I first met would be arresting a third of these allies, and escorting another third back to their homelands. What changed?" "When this is all over… if we survive… I have a proposal for you." She quickly corrects herself. "A business proposal." "Let's build our churches back better. Let's face our fears in the open, rather than secreting them away in the Shadowfell, or hiding them away in cliff-side monasteries, or by labelling whole practices and people as forbidden."

Garo agreed.

At this point in the campaign, Cyrus's player swapped to play Alexandros (first seen Act 9). (Alexandros would remain in-play from here to the end.)

The Chateau de Chenonceau is a real place. Someone made a battle-map for it. I was glad to find a place to use it! I think it fits the late Gothic / early Renaissance feel of Cortona and its surroundings.

Chateau de Chenonceau

Days passed. The growing alliance moved further and further away from Cortona as the Shadowfell grew. They continued to help refugees, battle undead, and make plans for what was to come next.

One item was needed from a nearby location. A dormitory for priests combined with a bridge, Chateau de Chenonceau was a bit of a strange building, but it contained a Solstice Stone. This stone shone bright sunlight, which would keep Shadowfell beings at bay, and would be crucial to getting back to the heart of Cortona.

The priests and clerics of the Chateau had tried to fight off the creatures of the Shadowfell but were ultimately overwhelmed. The heroes, therefore, had to battle through the occupied structure. They accomplished a secondary goal of evacuating some trapped civilians before moving to fight the now-undead head cleric of the place, Vincent Pearson (first seen Act 3) and taking the Solstice Stone from him.

Unfortunately, the heroes' assault had been relayed back to Cortona, and Charun himself attempted to stop the heroes! A hectic roof-top battle ensued.

The heroes fight atop the Chateau. (This is not the usual 5-foot scale.) Some heroes distract Charun while others mount Ion, preparing to escape. The players did no know how badly they hurt Charun!

At this point a new figure joined to help the party! He looked like Lorokeem, but this was actually Flutter! Flutter had, unbeknownst to the party, worked with Lorokeem to share his cloning facility (see Act 10). Flutter came back in one of Lorokeem's spare bodies: now a aarakocra rather than a kenku.

(This had been raised by Flutter's player shortly after finding the cloning lab. It was not a post-hoc rationalisation.)

The party was confused at first, but with the help of this "stranger" they managed to drive away Charun and escape. Once they realised who this was, the party was joyful to reunite with their presumed-dead friend.

(Flutter's player would resume playing Flutter at this time. Tumbleclick would join the allied forces.)

After getting up to speed, Flutter put out a curious request. He sought the tail of Charun. Severed in the past (see Act 10) it was now a taxidermied museum piece in the collection of the late Magnus Strabo (first mentioned Act 7) somewhere in Lyria. Efforts were made by allied forces to get it.

Entering Asurath

The allied forces continued to retreat as the Shadowfell expanded. They headed for a fort to regroup.

Cassander, who was knowledgeable about Asurath, had a plan. Reforge Asurath with the pieces now in the party's possession. Enter into the sword to retrieves Zeke's soul (he was using the sword as he died, his soul would be in it), thus allowing a true resurrection to bring Zeke back to life. Only Zeke's bloodline, using Asurath, could actually imprison Charun's soul. Killing Charun otherwise risked him being reincarnated by powerful cultists in his home lair (this is why he had been imprisoned in the Shadowfell in the first place).

The situation was growing desperate. The allied forces were exhausted, unable to keep fighting back the Shadowfell. It was agreed that Cassander's plan was the best they had.

Asurath had its own pocket dimension. Going "inside" it was fairly literal. Time flowed differently there: a week inside was maybe an hour outside. This meant the heroes had some time to find and release Zeke's soul.

Celle Rymbor had been found and brought to the allied forces. She reforged Asurath, and at Garo's request, added in the malformed remains of the Cudgel of St Cuthbert.

With the tuning fork given to Zeke by Laila, the party could plane shift into Asurath. There were some heartfelt goodbyes:

Katarina returned her engagement ring to Garo. It contained an expensive black diamond which could be used for resurrection magic. "Take this. This time, not because I want to get rid of it. This time, I want to get it back."

Ziffy tearfully wished the party well, giving them some powerful healing items. While the heroes were gone, she was to prepare to cast the resurrection spell that would return Zeke to life.

The heroes were also given a way back: a tuning fork for the Material Plane. They were high enough level now to cast plane shift themselves.

My personal inspiration for the sky was from Hellfire Peninsula. But this is pretty good too.

Travelling Through Asurath

The party were now in Asurath.

You stand on a land of jagged stone peaks that curl and bend in unnatural ways. Above these, chunks of rock float, as if the tall spires were crumbling slowly skyward. Speaking of the sky, it's alive with light. It's a night sky, with stars, but not a familiar one. Vibrant tendrils of coloured energies are draped across your view. As are giant orbs, like a moon but many times larger, a massive red one taking up much of the sky. The whole scene spins above you as if the ground you stand on is tumbling; it's fast enough to be noticeable but slow enough not to be dizzying. Like the Feywild, light comes in from many sources, rather than a singular sun, giving the scene a perpetual soft-lit look. Looking out to the horizon, you see that it curves away, falling into the spectacular void. Tumbling rocks, large and small, inhabit this space, but they grow sparse farther away from land. In one direction, across a gulf of this rock-strewn nothingness, the ground begins again. You get the impression you're standing on a giant, flat structure, probably some miles thick, with a curious shape when considered top-down. In another direction, far off above distant land, you see thick ashen clouds. Almost broiling, they flicker with internal red lightning. And perhaps most strangely of all? A two-storey house, of grey brick, sits a few minutes' walk away, perched toward the peninsula of this land's end. It wouldn't be out of place in Cortona or Lyria.

They found Claudius Ensis (first seen Act 9) in the house. He explained to the heroes that Arcadion had been using him to try to trick Zeke in to entering the sword, but when Zeke died of his own accord, Arcadion lost interest in Cladius and he managed to escape to here.

Claudius theorised the house was something of a hunting lodge. Zeke's ancestors would visit here to go and hunt souls of fiends they had already captured, as sort-of training exercise.

This is the house Zeke had been visiting in dreams and visions.

Claudius wanted out. He wanted the sword destroyed. The party needed a guide, so they offered to travel together.

Asurath's pocket dimension was a big place. If you click the image at the very top of this post, you can see the map for it, but you won't see details. The image immediately above is a section from the "blade", to give you an idea. To create the map, I used WonderDraft to trace over the image of the sword the player had given me way back circa Act 3.

The party were at the hilt-end, and Arcadion was at the tip; the travel from one to the other was about a week long. Flying was not an option: gravity got weird that far off the surface, and storms could be an issue too.

So the party started walking. And they pushed through many obstacles:

The Plains of Ash. The winds in the Plains of Ash whispered the party's defeat, and could whipped up into exhausting ash storms. During one bad electrical storm, the party hid in a tiny hut, but there was not enough room for Alexandros' dragon Ion. The party watched poor Ion flayed to death by lightning; Flutter especially did not enjoy this sight. (Don't worry. Ion can be resummoned.)

The Plateaus. The higher rocky plateaus were devoid of ash, but exposed to the cosmic skies above, which pelted down radiation.

The Hilt. Both the plains and plateaus were on the hilt. The hilt was populated exclusively by demons, as Arcadion and his devils controlled the blade: the heroes fought mariliths, wastriliths, and vrocks.

The Fortress. Giant cliffs formed a barrier between the hilt and the blade. There was only one place to ascend this: a fortress manned by devils, designed to keep the demons out. The heroes tackled the devil forces arrayed at the fortress in a mighty battle, the highlight of which was Flutter reverse gravity raising a troop of khazra (a homebrew lesser demon inspired by Diablo) and dropping them on a bone devil.

Lower Blade. In the Storm Plains, endless rain supernaturally sapped cheer and caused psychic damage. The heroes struggled to keep morale up. Occasional beams of light breaking through the clouds provided healing energy, but only those who were fast could bathe in them for long. The Dark Road was a place that sowed doubt and discord, but Garo's paladin aura kept the worst of that at bay.

Aisling's Tea Party. Zeke had captured the ghost of a young child in his blade (see Act 9), and just off the Dark Road the party found her. She was playing tea-time with a group of merregon. When the party wished to leave, Aisling attacked. The party had to defeat her and her devils.

Fake Nyctimene. The party found Zeke's spirit in the forests that grew along the western edge of Asurath. A fake Nyctimene (see Act 10) had been set up to pacify Zeke. The party had to convince him to come with them, jolting him out of his stupor with logical pleas and emotional appeals. They succeed, and Zeke rejoined the party. (And Laila left. I can't remember exactly when or why.)

Blade Tip. A large walled city existed at the tip, but it was under attack by celestial forces. These forces attempted to deny the party entry for their own safety, but the party found a way in, and managed to navigate through the city without clashing with too many devil or celestial forces.

At the very point of the blade was Arcadion's fortress. But the pit fiend was not interested in fighting, and allowed the heroes to bargain with him.

Arcadion wanted to be freed. The heroes wanted Ezekial released from his contract. After some posturing and negotiation a deal was arrived at: Asurath would be destroyed, thus freeing all contained souls, if Ezekial's contract (see Act 9) was terminated. A new contract was signed stipulating this.

Return to the Fort

The heroes returned to the fort. Only an hour or two had passed but was was enough for the fort to be in danger. Katarina was waiting for them, and she ushered them deeper into the fort, explaining that the most of the forces had been teleported out, and a core group of crusaders and other forces were fighting to hold onto the fort until the heroes returned.

In the time the heroes were away, a selection of powerful equipment had been readied for them. Charun's severed tail among them.

The PCs were level 20 now, and some of this stuff was dangerously overpowered. But that would turn out to be perfect for their last push. Asurath, in particular, was incredibly potent.

The heroes first had to push to the gates of the fort, where the Solstice Stone had been sent as a final last-ditch protection. They got to the gate and obtained the Solstice Stone. As they activated it, its light revealed a truly massive army of undead surrounding the fort.

At this moment, however, they heard the chanting of soldiers. Trystan (first seen Act 9) had been elected Consul and given emergency powers due to the Shadowfell Incursion. He brought Lyrian armies to assist. The soldiers -- equipped with magically-enchanted, silvered swords -- charged the undead.

World-ending calamity, fighting otherworldly undead entities... and it's raining?! What luck we have, Quintus! Join the Legions, they said.

This respite gave the heroes enough time to speak one last time with Katarina. She gave them directions to a secret underground entrance to the Cathedral. She urged the party that Charun's soul must be trapped in the sword -- Asurath must deliver the killing blow.

With the Solstice Stone holding back the undead, the heroes headed out to their final confrontation.

Battling Charun

Though the heroes entered via a secret way, the underground was still well-guarded. The heroes had to beat ghasts, greater shadows, and various other undead.

They also had to defeat a ghostly, badly burnt Cazna (first seen Act 5). Undead, now serving Charun, she was very keen to get revenge on the heroes (see Act 8). She and her shadow-minions caused the heroes great trouble by constantly escaping through walls as they performed hit-and-run attacks.

Charun was waiting for them in the cathedral upstairs. They exchanged words, but no accord was to be had. Charun had been destroying civilisations for a long while, all for his love of the "gold serpent".

Unfathomable eons ago, she and I ruled this world. We flew from one corner to the other, indulging in its beauties and sights, devouring its creatures. Slumbering for centuries at a time. Siring many of our kind. Then, the first of your kind came along. Not humans but another dirt-born race like you. She sensed you were poisoning our paradise. I killed them all; but she said your poison had left its mark. It could never be undone. She became obsessed with an idea. The poison will eventually spread and kill our paradise, and before it does, she will find what she needs to create another. For us both. Until then? We cannot cure the poison. We work to slow the spread.

The ensuing battle was long. The party knew they had to wear him down (this is the in-universe explanation of depleting his legendary resistances).

Pretend he doesn't have a full tail in this image!

Key moments of the battle:

Charun was powerful in the shadows. He could snuff non-magical light easily, so much of the battle involved creating light he couldn't easily dispel.

Shadow minions were constantly entering the battle, so the party couldn't merely concentrate on Charun.

Garo's level 20 feature Avenging Angel was a considerable pain for Charun. It was a low-risk way to burn through those legendary resistances. It was also very handy on his minions.

A dwarven-made fire-cracker purchased from a festival back in Act 9 came in clutch. Its light managed to temporarily blind the dragon at a crucial moment.

Alexandros flew high up in the rafters on his drake, raining down damage on Charun and his minions from above.

The party managed to play tactically. This was a dangerous battle, for sure, but they actually came closer to death when battling Cazna on the way up!

Charun's Defeat

Eventually, Charun lay defeated, unconscious and dying on the cathedral floor.

At this point, Aurelia Xilo (first mentioned Act 3) arrived with Cyrus (first seen Act 1) and Xanaphia (first seen Act 1). Aurelia explained her relationship with Charun.

He and I go back a long, long time. Millennia upon millennia. When your kind first started to appear, it afflicted me. Gold dragons are sensitive to psychic energy, and to dreams. With your kinds, the timbre of the astral sea changed, and I did not appreciate it. He destroyed early civilisations to ease my pain. But it was futile. Once released, it could not be re-captured. We tried for a time. We had different strategies. But when I realised it could not be done, I began searching for a way back. Through the Feywild, where time flows irregularly. I wanted to find a path to our paradise, in a time before history. Or failing that, re-create it, with primitive memories in the astral. At my urging he slumbered between his campaigns. His way was... too bloody. There is always a moment when your kind go to far, and you create something that will be your undoing. I simply expedite the inevitable, and save suffering in doing so.

Aurelia knew what the party were planning, and requested that she put Charun into a deep sleep so he would not suffer. The party were suspicious, but agreed, not wanting to fight a second dragon. Thankfully, Aurelia was not lying, and she merely put Charun to sleep.

This is when Flutter cast wish. The strain of the spell destroyed his precious arcane focus and weakened his body. His wish? That nothing would stop the next spell from taking effect. (Meaning: Charun would fail his next saving throw.)

Flutter's player gave an evocative description of the debilitating effects of the wish spell. His sentimentally-precious orb shattered, his body withered...

Flutter then cast the minimus variant of imprisonment, using Charun's tail in place of the normal material component. Charun was placed, slumbering, inside Katarina's engagement ring diamond.

There was only one thing left to do. The party asked Cyrus to destroy Asurath. The blade was shattered into pieces. Its contained souls became free: including Claudius, Arcadion, and Aisling. Myra also popped out -- alive and intact -- having separated from the party during their trek through the pocket dimension.

With Charun's defeat, the Shadowfell ceased to merge with the Material Plane. The heroes had saved the world! Katarina and the allied forces would soon arrive on the scene, leading to some happy reunions.

An epilogue will appear in a future post...

#dungeons and dragons #tabletop role playing game #rpg #adventures in lyria

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deck16 · 10 months ago

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This is a continuation of the campaign journal of Adventures in Lyria. The first entry is here and you can see all entries here.

Act 10: Prophecy

After a quick dungeon-delve for Flutter, the heroes meet with Zeke's cousin Laila. They get embroiled in prophecy and bring about a world-ending catastrophe.

During this part of the story, the party was Ezekial "Zeke" (first seen Act 3), Flutter (first seen Act 6), Garo, and Trystan (first seen Act 9). Aden Heskin (first seen Act 9) joined in some adventures.

Beneath Silvercap Mountain

With Magnus Strabo defeated, the party had time to assist Flutter with an issue. Turns out there was a dungeon beneath his new home on Silvercap Mountain! The dungeon was now accessible after excavation cleared a cave-in blocking the entrance.

This was something of a "mega-dungeon" I'd made with DungeonDraft. It's a 94x94 map. Locked doors and other obstacles meant the players explored the place in "sections" and had to do a bit of back-tracking and puzzle-solving to slowly open the whole place up. Foundry, of course, makes this very explore-able in a real sense as line-of-sight and darkness come into play.

They party slowly pieced together the mystery of the dungeon. It was the refuge of an aarakocran wizard and religious leader called Lorokeem. Lorokeem built this refuge ahead of time, and when invading orcs rampaged through his homeland, he was able to evacuate himself and his staff to this site. The wizard returned to their homeland to enact revenge, but sadly never returned. Without his power to sustain the magical contraptions lighting the dungeon, his staff slowly expired in the darkness.

Spooky, shadow-y ghosts of darkness-maddened aarakocra haunted the dungeon.

This slow death in darkness was enough to cause the dead to not rest well, and the heroes had to deal with a number of ghosts. There were also magical defences to overcome and broken magical power systems to re-ignite. They did well in solving the dungeon's mystery and its puzzles.

Talk about quiet quitting.

One room could conjure a portal back to the aarakocran homeland, and when the heroes re-connected power, they inadvertently turned this portal on. Fanatical orc warriors poured through, but Trystan and Flutter combined wall of force and sickening radiance to kill them without much risk (this kind of tactic is often called "The Microwave"). Poor Flutter found the death-screams of the orcs rather traumatising.

The final challenge was Archmage Lorokeem himself. He knew his expedition was very dangerous, so he prepared a number of clones. Unfortunately, a pair of failures ruined his work. Firstly, the prototype clone-vat he made had a faulty latch that prevented the occupant from easily escaping. (Flutter noticed this flaw on examining Lorokeem's design notes.) Secondly, in the time since Lorokeem had been away, the keg containing clone-vitalising liquid had been contaminated by a mind-altering fungus. This meant the clones -- when awakened -- would be irrational and highly aggressive.

You can see the mushroom-weeds in the neighbouring farm had, over the centuries, eaten through the wall and contaminated the keg of vat-liquid.

So when Lorokeem died in his revenge-attack on the orcs, his soul did indeed return to a clone, but unfortunately it was the clone in his faulty prototype. His servants were not permitted in his quarters, so they were unaware of his fate. The life-sustaining vat-liquid prevented him from dying and centuries passed. Over time, the golem left to maintain the clones added fungal-contaminated fluid to the vats. Lorokeen was now trapped and dosed up on mushrooms, and remained that way for centuries.

The heroes let him out, and had to battle him, but thankfully they realised the issue. Calm emotions stopped the raging Lorokeem. This was a good move: killing Lorokeem would have meant fighting him multiple times as each clone emerged, equally enraged.

Lorokeem, once returned to lucidity, thanked the heroes. He and Flutter became good friends. Lorokeem continued his work in Silvercap, plotting with the patience of one with many lifetimes of clones, planning to return to get revenge on the orcs (or descendants thereof) who destroyed his homeland.

Act de Triumph

Calpurnia (first seen Act 1) teleported to Silvercap Mountain, sent to collect the party for a Triumph in their honour in the nation's capitol Lyria. They accepted, and were honoured in a parade, met the nation's two Consuls, and watched a play based on their adventures.

The real heroes watched actors playing them perform a dramatisation of their deeds. They even talked with their theatrical counterparts after the show.

I thought I would paste from my notes about the content of the play. If you're not interested, skip to the next chapter.

A number of acts precede the main show. There's singing, dancing, equestrian and military displays; a variety of things to entertain the crowds. As the sun sets, the coliseum floor is cleared. The main show is to begin.

Mirrored lights focus beams on a figure in the centre of the area. He is dressed as a traditional Cantian warrior, and he is quickly revealed to be Pheland Phylund. He sings a foreboding aria about needing to punish Lyria for splitting his country in two and slaying so many of his country-folk.

As he sings, others in traditional Cantian attire gather around him, as if drawn by his message, and join in on his chorus. His aria concludes as a Cantian extra asks him how Lyria can be defeated. With a sinister refrain, he sings:

What bests Lyrian hand and sword? Let's look to ways of old to give us hope, Their shields sundered, their throats clawed, By ravening packs of lycanthropes! Let lady Selune cease monthly rotation, And face our cause as we face our foe. Our new forms will be Lyria's damnation, First Cantia, from there? To anywhere and everywhere we go!

A large, full moon appears hanging in the sky above the coliseum. At this, the figures listening to Pheland don head-gear to suggest transformation into were-beasts: rats, wolves and bears. The lights shut off and the scene ends.

Next the lights are shone on a figure near the edge of the coliseum floor. An armoured figure: he fights off an endless stream of were-beasts from the previous scene. He sings in a bassy voice, and his words quickly reveal him to be Garo. His aria is almost rhythmic and chant-like, and the phrase "punish the wicked" is repeated time and again.

A flamboyant tiefling bumbles into the light, chased by were-beasts, and quickly he and Garo are fighting against a common foe. This is Ezekial, and he is played as a light-hearted character bordering on comic relief, singing in counter-tenor. He and Garo sing about their odd predicament forcing a tiefling and a crusader to work together. Soon they are both singing to "punish the wicked".

Anachronistically, Trystan arrives, claiming to also be displaced by the were-beast attack. He is another tenor, and stylishly whips his foes.

Next Cyrus appears in the circle of light, teleporting in. He's played by a half-elf wearing a long blonde wig and he sings as a tenor. He tells the pair he knows what is causing the moon, and that he can stop it, and that he was sent to help. Cyrus blasts the enemy extras with prestidigitation-created rainbow sparks, representing more powerful magic.

Flutter appears last. Played by an extremely acrobatic actor wearing a bird-mask, he doesn't fight the lycanthrope extras but rather leaps over and around them. When the trio of combatants question his presence the actor simply plays on a whistle-like instrument to represent Flutter "speaking". This will be this character's means of communicating, but the actor does it well, and little notes convey emotion and thought well. Flutter also fights with prestidigitation blasts of sparks, but tends to rely on his acrobatic skills more.

The group have been slowly batting across the coliseum's ground. By now they near the middle, where Pheland Phylund appears when lights are shone on him. After some pithy remarks by the heroes, and cliché remarks by Phelund, they stage a mock battle, which the heroes win. As Cyrus and Flutter shoot sparks at the moon to cause it to disappear, Garo, Trystan and Zeke surround and defeat Pheland.

The were-beast extras slowly stand, as if recovering from the fight, and remove their head-wear. They thank the heroes for saving them.

Suddenly, the lights come up on a new figure: Magnus Strabo -- a bass -- and a number of extras dressed as soldiers and centurions. Katarina is also present. The music stops as Magnus surveys the scene. He points to the heroes, and declares them as enemies for working with the Cantians. The lights fade as the scene ends.

The play continues for two more acts. The second act is the court-room scene, and is packed with back-and-forth libretto.

Anachronistically, Cyrus is still present, and does participate in the back-and-forth. Zeke sings a mournful recollection of the Nova-Laconian revolt and Strabo's role in it, but no specific mention of his ancestors are included. Strabo and Garo argue clash about Katarina; it is painted as Garo not feeling true love. Katarina gives a forlorn aside where she laments being used as a pawn for political power.

The act finale comes as Trystan baits Strabo into admitting that the laws are absolute with regards to Garo working with Cantians: Strabo replies that "lawbreakers must be punished". Those words are turned against him as his Tetrarchy affiliations are revealed. The court chants his words back at him, and he stands, enraged. He orders his soldiers to attack as the lights fade.

The final act features the heroes battling through a few contrived scenes. Each hero contributes a solution to a contrived and historically-inaccurate obstacle. But Flutter does, in a moment of powerful music, lift an off-stage boat that appears rising outside the coliseum walls before plummeting back down with a crash. The performance ends with a choreographed fight scene. Katarina fights alongside her father but is convinced by the heroes -- and ultimately Garo -- to switch sides. Garo delivers the final blow to Strabo, and gives a final line about Cantia finally being safe.

Lyria Layaway

After the celebration, the party remained in Lyria for a while.

The party dined with Trystan's family, who were of high noble birth. His parents encouraged him to run for Consul. There were simmering tensions in the family between Trystan and his brothers. (I had planned this to be a story arc, but as the campaign continued there would not be enough room for it.)

Zeke was still affected by dreams and visions. Claudius Ensis (first seen Act 9), who Zeke had killed, was appearing as a vision that would offer advice. In one of his dreams, Zeke managed to throw Claudius to Arcadion (first mentioned Act 9).

Additionally, Zeke was newly experiencing some strange reaction when touching certain people in power (including Calpurnia), noticing symbols on their arms.

Using their status as heroes, the party visited a library to learn more about a certain prophecy that Zeke, and his weapon, was a part of. Laila (first seen Act 9) had teased about such topics. The party learned a good deal.

Alas, Zeke's contract (see Act 9) caused some problems. An Imperial College wizard named Jaropple Newblost was studying inactive retrievers. The contract caused them to lurch to life and seek Zeke out, creating a massive panic on the streets. The party defeated them. But the truth of Zeke's contract came out, and he was exiled from the city: a mild punishment in recognition of his previous deeds.

This rendition is a little more future-tech than fiendish, but hey.

To Nyctimene

Zeke's exile was little immediate concern for the party. The plan was to head into Zeke's homeland of Nova Laconia to visit Zeke's father and piece together these mentions of prophecy. This destination was a few days' travel away.

The party had acquired mounts for easier travel. Flutter rode on a giant pink salamander from the Feywild.

The heroes found that Nova Laconia was crawling with St Cuthbert crusaders, who were on the lookout for forbidden Tetrarchy practices amongst the tiefling population. Their attitude was mixed: some behaved well, but others were overbearing occupiers.

The party also encountered a band of tiefling bandits. Far lower level than the party, these poor bandits were lofted by Flutter's reverse gravity and eviscerated by Trystan using animate objects on a pouch full of coins. The few survivors were left to flee.

Laila (first seen Act 9) had arranged to meet Zeke in the Nova Laconia countryside. They found her with two mentally-dominated Cuthbertine crusaders. Garo convinced her to let them free. Laila agreed to guide the party to Zeke's home village of Nyctimene. As they travelled, she plied Zeke, suggesting he used his weapon and the prophecy to help her and his ancestral people.

Nyctimene was deserted. Though probably not quite this overgrown -- it had only been abandoned a few days!

Nyctimene

Laila could not follow the party all the way to Nyctimene, as some kind of ward prevented her entry.

The village itself was empty, save for one teenage boy called Kobaloi. As fellow villagers, Zeke and Kobaloi recognised one another. Kobaloi recounted how, a few days' past, Cuthbertine crusaders rounded up everyone and took them away. Some then stayed to perform a ritual before leaving.

That ritual, it soon transpired, had placed a powerful celestial guardian to watch over Nyctimene. It descended from the sky with some couatl allies, demanding that the heroes leave. They did leave, but not before trapping the angel in a forcecage.

I used the stat block for Ashen Rider for this creature. Apparently this is a cross-over from Magic the Gathering. Mighty as it was (even without a mount) it was little match for forcecage.

Skala

Curious as to where Zeke's father (Aeneas) and the other villagers were taken, the party used scrying. They saw him imprisoned in a cell in the nearby town of Skala, inside the town hall which had been commandeered by crusaders. He shared the cell with another tiefling villager named Cassander.

During the scrying, the party learnt some things:

Cassander had been badly treated during an interrogation, but the Cuthbertine crusaders witnessed this and saved him, and were now keeping an eye on him so it didn't happen again.

Cassander chided Aeneas for having Zeke, given the prophecy. Aeneas' defence was that he planned to have more than one child, but Zeke's mother Zenobia died before that could happen.

Cassander also chided Aeneas for stealing Asurath from Magnus Strabo's collection. This was another "enabler" for the prophecy.

Finally, Cassander chided Aeneas for sending Zeke out into the world with such ill preparation. Aeneas seemed to disagree, saying Zeke was resourceful, and that ignorance of the prophecy would keep him safest.

The party travelled to Skala, and attempted to free Cassander, Aeneas, and any other villagers. They used a combination of stealth, trickery, magic, and violence to bypass the crusaders and get into the cells beneath the town hall.

It worked, but some of the party -- including Zeke -- were captured. Zeke met Zertnia, a monk from the reclusive Tiger's Monk Monastery. She was in charge of the crusaders here. However, the crusaders were not willing to tolerate her cruel interrogation tactics, and so demanded to oversee her interrogate Zeke.

Though both parties were cagey in what they revealed, it became clear that Zeke was considered the prime subject of an important prophecy. Zertnia hinted that he would cause great strife, and asked if he would willingly offer up his life. She could not take it, though -- not with the crusaders watching.

In the end, the rest of the party managed to free Zeke and escape, but not before Aeneas and Cassander were teleported away to a new, unknown, holding location. Some of Zeke's possessions, including his contract, were missing from his things, suggesting that they had been taken off-site.

During this, Zeke was confronted by a vision of Claudius. Claudius seemed genuinely distraught that he had been thrown to Arcadion. He begged to be saved, even hinting at the use of a magical tuning fork the party had found previously.

Tiger's Nest Tea-time Then Tussle

The prophecy and Zertnia both pointed the party to the Tiger's Nest Monastery. So they undertook a journey of a few days to get there.

The Monastery was set into a cliff-face. The final leg of the journey involved ascending a lot of stairs. Mounts were left behind in a small village stable in the foothills. (These mounts would never be collected again during this campaign, but abandoning them in a nice village stable was probably a better treatment than most TTRPG mounts get.)

The monks were waiting. The head monk, known as The Master, actually sought to have tea with the heroes. He was very forthcoming, and a number of things were discussed:

The prophecy text was kept here, and the monks were sworn to defend it, though they hoped any combat would involve as little death as possible.

A wise monk, from many generations ago, wrote the prophecies. His name was Malavisch.

The monks believed that Zeke was indeed mentioned in the prophecy. The Master believed that attempting to kill Zeke would backfire, so instead he implored Zeke to surrender, and be kept in a safe Shadowfell prison.

Zeke's fellow villagers had been taken to this Shadowfell prison, known as The Undercroft.

Zeke's contract had been sent to Tiger's Nest. The Master had shared its contents with other churches, including the Cuthbertine Crusaders. The Master warned the party that Crusaders would be searching for them, including coming to Tiger's Nest. Time was not on the party's side!

The party did not back down. They fought the monks, battling through the cliff-side monastery against monks, animated statues, and elementals.

Tiger's Nest Monastery is a battle-map which I used that is based on a real place.

The party battled into the chamber where the prophecy was kept, defeating The Master and his best students. The large chamber was carved deep inside the cliff, and was utterly dark, leading to moments where party members lost sight of one another. Flutter, for a second time, blind-fired lighting bolts into darkness barely missing his comrades.

The Test and The Prophecy

Defeated, The Master respectfully left as per the tea-time agreement. After he left, another monk entered the chamber. This was Malavisch, or at least a programmed illusion of him.

He told the heroes that he had foreseen them being here, at this time and place, and set up a series of illusions to speak with them. While he interacted faithfully with some heroes, others he seemed to ignore or say incorrect things to, suggesting that this group of heroes was not quite those who he had predicted. Zeke and Garo seemed to be the ones he interacted with correctly.

Malavisch was friendly to the heroes, and answered some questions. He also quietly implored Garo, in the celestial language, to be prepared to stop Zeke.

"You stay with him, Crusader. Not just because you've seen each other through things so far. But because you are one of very, very few who would kill a brother who made the wrong choice. You will know it when you see it; if you see it."

To get the prophecy, the heroes needed to pass a test. The test involved choosing one of two options in a hypothetical morality conundrum. (Based on this.) Each answer caused a golem corresponding to a certain virtue to step forward, and if any golem reached the center it would attack the party.

This is from the fight preceding the test, but here you can see most of the golems, currently inert, in their starting positions.

The heroes engaged with the test perfectly. They balanced their answers such that no golem reached the center. They were thus given access to the chamber that contained the prophecy and also Zeke's contract and other things. They took these, but left various other holy texts behind.

Crusaders, led by Zertnia, were storming the Monastery as the players went to leave. However, Katarina (first seen Act 9) and Xanaphia (first seen Act 1) were waiting outside the chamber with an escape plan ready to go. They had scrolls of enlarge/reduce, enough to shrink the party to fly on Xanaphia's back as she transformed into a giant raven.

They were pursued by griffon-riding Crusaders, but Flutter used a spell (I forget which) that allowed the party to race ahead. Once they were out of range of anti-teleportation magic surrounding the monastery, Katarina used word of recall to take the party to safety.

It turned out that both Katarina and Xanaphia had received oddly-worded letters instructing them to meet up and fly to the monastery high-point. The heroes surmised that this was Malavisch's doing; presumably in the past having left precise instructions to deliver certain letters at certain times.

The Undercroft

Katarina teleported the heroes to a quiet and private shrine in the heart of Cortona, capital city of the Theocratic States. Not too far from here was a crossing to the Shadowfell. It existed beneath the Cuthbertine Crusader's main church and led to The Undercroft, where Zeke's family were imprisoned.

After some time resting, Katarina summoned a heroes' feast for the party. They ate up, knowing the Shadowfell was a dangerous, spirit-sapping place.

En-route to the church, Garo met Burt Cobb (first seen Act 9). Garo had come to realise Burt was not an ordinary man, but had some divine element about him. Amongst the topics discussed, Burt gave Garo a similar warning to the one Malavisch gave.

In disguise, the party entered the church and bluffed their way into the cellars beneath, finding the cross-over point to the Shadowfell in an open tomb.

The Shadowfell mirrors the real world, so the party needed to ascend back into the bleak reflection of the church.

This is where they met Charun.

Charun the Senectifier

Chained up in the church was an ancient black dragon. Restrained by mighty mithral chains, and sapped by the Shadowfell's influence, the creature had little to say and less ability to act.

Zeke, however, noticed a piece of Asurath affixed to the creature's chains; one of the pieces dropped by Arnus Cuthbert atop Arcadion's Ladder (see Act 9). He wanted it, to further empower his sword, and when quizzing the dragon about it he was told it would be his if he could take it.

Take it he did. Using Asurath to smash the piece. The sword absorbed the piece, which was a crucial part of the chains' enchantments. The chains fell from the dragon and it attacked!

(Freeing an ancient dragon was something I did not expect as a GM.)

Most of the party fled from the church, imploring Zeke to do the same. Zeke and Flutter were slow to depart. The dragon's breath squarely struck Flutter, whose frail body was was reduced to ash by the dragon's necrotic breath. After witnessing his friend die due to his impulsive decision, Zeke soon suffered the same fate, though his body at least was not reduced to mere ash.

The surviving members of the party watched as Charun burst from the church and flew into the sky. The church was engulfed in an orb of shadow, yet beyond they could see the blue sky of the Material Plane. Charun, rendered fully a shadow dragon from his imprisonment, was merging the Shadowfell with the Material Plane.

The merged area grew over time; if left unchecked it would threaten Cortona, then the surrounding countryside, then all of the Material Plane. The Shadowfell's inhospitality to life, and its undead denizens, would potentially wipe out to the mortal races.

The party had some work to do...

Legend Lore on Charun

The heroes used legend lore to learn more about Charun. I don't remember exactly when this happened, but I suspect it was after they released Charun because I vaguely remember a fragment of his chain used to aid the spell.

As has been the case previously when using legend lore, the players played out figures in a pivotal historic scene. In this case, it was how Charun was captured.

About twenty years ago, Lyria sent forces to capture Charun, because they knew of his war-mongering nature. After battling through his clans of subservient dragonborn, these forces arrayed outside a cave where Charun was known to be lurking.

These forces were led by a younger Magnus Strabo. Assisting him was a younger Calpurnia Askew (first seen Act 1) and Claudius Ensis (first seen Act 9). There were also scores of Lyrian legionnaires (represented as homebrew units using swarm rules) and siege engines. They fought against Charun. All of these units were controlled by various players.

The battle went poorly for Charun. Perhaps a little too aggressive, he was peppered with javelins from the legionaries. Forced to the ground, Magnus Strabo critically struck him, which we imagined as a severing blow part-way along his tail (which became canon, and will matter in the future). Charun was captured and would be taken to Cortona and sealed in The Undercroft.

#dungeons and dragons #tabletop role playing game #adventures in lyria

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deck16 · 11 months ago

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The War Within -- One Month of Play

I recently completed a month in The War Within, the newest expansion for World of Warcraft.

My thoughts and experiences below. This is not an objective review. I talk about the expansion, but also my takes on modern WoW.

This is the final scene of the story. Two old characters reflect on all that's happened, and foreshadow more to come. It's low-key for an ending; I liked it.

Play and Pay Philosophy

The one-month play-time was very purposeful.

Basically, I wanted to experience the War Within and its story while paying a minimal amount to Blizzard. I have no interest in end-game content.

I went through the story. I did a lot of side-quests. I dipped my toes into dungeons, delves, and battlegrounds.

I'm in two thoughts about the cost. On one had, the cost of expansion and one month subscription is high, compared to other games, even other MMOs. On the other hand, the cost-per-hour is quite competitive with many other leisure activities.

When big patches come out, or maybe when the final big patch for this expansion comes out, I might pay to experience what's been added.

I play mostly with a friend. In this article, I will call this friend "Angel Summoner". The reasoning for that will be made clear.

Angel Summoner (left) and me. Enjoying the pretty scenery.

The Usual Stuff

Just quickly, mentioning stuff WoW pretty much always does well:

The zones are gorgeous.

The music is great. (Draenor's OST is still my favourite, though.)

The art design is vibrant and stylish, not graphic-card-melting fidelity.

"Jaina?" "What is it, Champion? You've found a way to stop Xal'atath?" "Can I have a mana biscuit and a portal to Stormwind?"

Story

The plot was mediocre and shallow. Mind you, I don't expect much from an MMO.

Overall I was more interested in the smaller stories. There's a touching quest chain about helping a character face his imminent death, passing on his legacy and helping him with his final wishes. He develops dementia as the quest carries on. It's both simple and touching. It's a fantasy twist on something very real. I'll remember that simple quest far longer than any of the more action-packed ones.

You do a lot of heart-warming heroics in War Within, and I don't mind it. Lots of saving people and communities, often who are misunderstood rather than evil. This may well be the best way to take WoW's story after its really rough ride through recent expansions. Certainly yet another faction war would be utterly farcical.

Speaking of farcical, I am glad War Within's villain is relatively low-key. WoW's parade of world-ending threats was getting very silly. Recent expansions have toned things down. I can believe a world where there are crises in some places all of the time, or in all places some of the time, but not all places all of the time!

"Andiun?" "Quiet, Champion. Khadgar speaks!" "But... Andiun?" "WHAT?" "Can I get a Blessing of Kings?"

Characters

The main cast of characters managed to rise out of the mediocre main story and hold some interest. They're simple characters painted in broad themes undergoing trope-y arcs but that works in an MMO story.

The villain Xal'atath is quite cliche: she's the femme version of a mustache-twirling villain, part temptress and part schemer with a cold heart and a wry smirk. She's my favourite character of War Within.

This is Xal'atath. She never wears shoes.

I love WoW's attention to certain little details, even if I miss 98% of them. I was saying to Angel Summoner: "What happened to the cake-selling NPC by the bank? According to the story, she should be down here somewhere!" I was joking, of course. I purposefully picked the least consequential NPC I could think of.

But lo, we found her. The game called my bluff. That made me smile.

Flight and Precision Bombing

Flight is pretty cool in War Within. It takes all the best stuff from Dragonflight, but expands it to other mounts (and druid forms) while also letting it be unlocked right from the start.

I had a lot of fun zooming around in my druid flight form! The speed is exhilarating, and the speed/altitude mechanics are involved enough that flight is something active, not something you get up for to get a sandwich.

"Up in the air, sky high, zoom-zoom-a-zoom-a-zoom-zoom." The views can be spectacular.

But easy, efficient flight has its downsides.

Firstly, I did feel a little sad I was zooming over the scenery at Mach 5 rather than stopping to look at it. But this is a fairly minor complaint: I'm sure people playing for more than a month will eventually see the sights even if only during brief pauses between hypersonic jaunts.

A bigger downside is how it can trivialise quests. Angel Summoner and I would fly in at Mach 5 and crash into the quest objective (crashing isn't harmful). We'd nab the quest then launch skyward away, barely twenty seconds down and another quest complete.

In both complaints, flight comes at the cost of experiencing a journey. Either scenic and cross-country, or tactical across enemy-infested terrain.

You might say, "so don't fly as much, slow yourself down". Yes, that's not an unfair point. There's a deeper discussion to be had about game-imposed and self-imposed limits.

I'm not saying that flight should be removed or locked away for later-game. Because that wouldn't be fun either. I'm just saying there's pros and cons to flight.

Angel Summoner and BMX Bandit

I played much of War Within with a friend. This friend had good gear from the previous expansion. And due to overzealous harvesting he managed to be a couple of levels above me.

A bit of previous-expansion gear and a few levels shouldn't make a difference, right?

Wrong. I felt like the BMX Bandit; totally overshadowed by Angel Summoner.

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I may as well not be playing. I was essentially watching a Let's Play with the inconvenience of having to follow my character along in his footsteps from quest-giver to quest-giver.

This was after a number of concessions, mind you! Angel Summoner picked a tanking (not DPS) spec, and purposefully used weaker gear.

This problem lessened as I reached level cap and got better gear. Eventually we were on equal-enough footing, but two-thirds of the game had been played by that point.

(Questing when we were both closer in power was the most fun. "Round 'em up!" we'd chant; I'd dash about flinging Moonbeam and bring everyone nearby into the cluster of death around Angel Summoner. We'd routinely finish "kill X things" quests in one pull.)

WoW is meant to be an MMO. MMOs are things you play with friends. And to be fair, WoW has made improvements with cross-server play, cross-faction play, and level-scaling party sync.

Why could they not get this right? I'm not asking for totally even and equal power, but I would've liked for the gaping chasm of difference to be reduced somewhat.

"They're a fish-finding duo, d-d-d-d-duo-oh yeah!" You can even see the disparity in fishing rod! 😅

Questing

Questing is enjoyable for story and scenic reasons. Skill-wise, it's pretty dull.

In a group, questing is liable to be too easy, but at least you can challenge yourself by fighting a crowd of foes.

Solo -- which is how I suspect most people do it -- is a strange thing. In most solo action games, you encounter different threats and different challenges: you have to use your array of skills differently to advance.

Contrast with WoW solo questing: you beat a bad guy, then repeat. Sometimes you run into a spot of bother and must use your more powerful limited-use abilities. Beyond their cosmetics and some milquetoast pyrotechnic abilities, enemies vary little.

This is pretty much the same gameplay as vanilla. How have we seen no substantial improvements in the intervening time? We know WoW can do interesting PvE ... grab one of Battle for Azeroth's PvE battlegrounds, slap that in a zone, and let the players work together to push back routinely-encroaching nerubians by fighting direct or by doing supporting quests.

Deep in spider territory.

Dungeons and Delves

Delves are cool mini-dungeons you can do on your own or with a group. They're fairly short, satisfyingly challenging, and have varied and interesting mechanics going on. I like 'em a lot. The ability to go solo or with any number of friends is one of those places WoW is taking down barriers to playing with friends.

Dungeons can now be played solo or with less than the full five-man group; in either case you get bot team-mates. They're not bad: effort has been made to make them unique individuals, and you can have cute little interactions with them. They seem to be super-powered -- the limiting factor to me pulling huge amount of enemies onto them was that I'd die, not them, even with the tank-bot being very proactive. But I've not tried the higher difficulties, to be fair.

My bot buddies during one of the delves. Orcs rubbing shoulders with dwarves shows that times are changing!

Much of War Within can be played solo, and I have mixed thoughts about that. Part of me thinks its sad to play an MMO solo; it defeats the "MM" part. But then I consider that WoW largely abandoned the first "M" years ago. WoW is decreasingly a game about being out there, in the world, mixing with the population of your server. And I appreciated being able to see dungeons and such without being rude to other players.

Waiting for a boss to spawn...

PvPeeved

I'm never going to be competitive in the more intimate player-vs-player modes like Arena. But the bigger, looser Battlegrounds are something I've enjoyed in the past.

WoW has flirted with making gear less relevant (mattering only a few percent). So I was sad to see, after freshly reaching max level in War Within, that I was not 5% or 10% weaker than Battleground players; but more like 50% or even 70% weaker.

Worse, my understanding is that if I catch up with PvP gear now, the ceiling will only get raised in the near future.

I despise the thought of grinding to be competitive. It's like joining a tennis club and having to play the first ten games in leaden shoes. There is not any player-positive justification for this.

This is an easy problem to solve, as I mentioned above. Other MMOs have figured it out. Give identical gear, or an identical range of gear to select from. If you must have things to unlock, make them cosmetic only or side-grades. If you must have upgrades, make them minor; people are still going to want them.

In WoW, it must come down to money. Do grind-happy PvPers subscribe longer than grind-adverse casuals like me?

Co-op past and present. Angel Summoner has Skullflame shield, like me! I remember getting mine in vanilla-era WoW, from some random bug or cultist in Silithus, while trying to get to max level. I didn't even get it: a co-op party-member did. They couldn't use shields and so handed it to me.

The Mash

I don't think it's controversial to say that to do well in modern-era WoW, you've got to hammer a lot of keys.

I hate it.

Firstly, much of the mashing is for stupid things. You need to react to character-internal states that have a percentage chance of appearing when doing certain things. That kind of thing is not fun, is not interesting, and it has zero to do with what's actually going on around you in combat.

This is one of many examples. It isn't specified in the text, but there's a window of opportunity to use this. How's this for a less obnoxious version: extend the time-limit to end of combat, and if you get it again while you already have it you keep your existing instance but the newly-incoming instance auto-casts Regrowth on you. Only a tiny bit more powerful while being oh-so-less irritating.

Secondly, it's just not healthy to do. Hardcore WoW players suffer for the button-mashing they do many hours a day, many days a week. I'm talking about RSI and that sort of thing.

Related: it's not good accessibility. The sad reality is that you often can't bring disabled players up to the level of able-bodied people in action-oriented games. But to have pointless systems and even more pointless rules is to just treat them with disdain.

(Press and hold casting is so limited -- and apparently bad -- that it's a slap in the face more than a useful solution.)

As a programmer by career, I managed to use tools like WeakAuras and GSE to lighten the mental and physical irritation of WoW mash-fetish. The fact I can write a fairly simple algorithm that optimally uses many of my character's skills shows how shallow the system is. Imagine if a few dozen lines of code could make you a competitive chess or Street Fighter player?

The hacking mini-game in War Within is so insipidly easy it's a joke. It makes me miss the turtle one.

Conclusion

Mixed feelings!

I felt I got my money's worth. The story and characters were decent enough and I enjoyed taking my druid out for a spin and playing co-op.

But so many of WoW's long-term follies reminded me of why I haven't been a long-term subscriber for years.

#review #world of warcraft #gaming #pc #mmo #rpg

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deck16 · 11 months ago

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TTRPG Campaign Idea: "Pathdivers"

Story Hook: Helldivers 2 as a TTRPG.

Gameplay: Bombastic heavy combat, but with a trauma/morale mechanic.

Setting: An existing setting like Helldivers, StarCraft, Warhammer 40K, or Starship Troopers. Or a generic setting inspired by such.

TTRPG System: Starfinder 2e. Or any other sci-fi system that's more grandiose than gritty.

Duration: About 5 sessions.

"Congratulations, trooper. As you're one of the best, we've selected you to be part of an elite team for a crucial mission behind enemy lines. This will be an extended days-long mission where you will locate your target and take it out."

That, of course, is a gross misrepresentation. Super Earth's resources in this part of the galaxy are critically low, and this is more of a desperate, last-ditch suicide mission involving hastily-gathered resources.

This short TTRPG campaign will involve bombastic over-the-top combat where the heroes must find, then bust into, some secure base. To lower the shields, scan the databanks, trigger the reactor -- whatever. There'll be fire-support from Super Destroyers, but it will be limited.

But more dangerous than all the automatons and bugs are the heroes' own minds. These "heroes" are not top-tier Pathdivers, but rather traumatised "scraps" that would otherwise have remained in cryo-storage as last-pick material. They've a medley of mental health problems: trauma, fear, grief, apathy, rage... even (gasp) doubts about Super Earth's war policy!

A mental health mini-game, augmented by role-play, will keep track of this. There are no wrong answers to staying sane: be a hoo-rah patriot, a stone-cold killer, a numb pragmatist, or develop gallows humour. Whatever gets you to that extraction shuttle.

#ttrpg #ttrpg campaign idea #Starfinder

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deck16 · 1 year ago

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I ran the first chapter of a homebrew Guild Wars 2-themed campaign in Pathfinder Second Edition. This post talks about how it went.

Overview

The time: 1325 AE, around the time that Guild Wars 2's Personal Story begins.

The place: The Stronghold of Ebonhawke and surrounding areas.

The starting premise: The heroes are adolescents living in a long-term refugee camp inside Ebonhawke, consisting mainly of those displaced by the Ogre Revolt. The heroes will start with small quests to help out the camp, and in doing so, discover and face greater threats to Ebonhawke.

I tried to keep close to the Guild Wars lore, but I'm certain I will have made some mistakes.

The first chapter dealt with these major themes:

The difficult road to peace. Animosity between charr and humans, featuring Separatist and Renegade forces. The heroes confronted hatreds both violent and more subtle.

Complex moral choices. When is it right to do harm for a greater good?

Found family.

The first chapter ran over approximately 30 sessions over the course of about 6 real-world months. Characters went from level 1 to 4 in that time.

We played using Foundry. The screenshots in this post depict actual Foundry scenes, albeit with post-hoc recreations of character positioning.

The Player Characters

I won't name names because I don't want to over-share characters that aren't mine. I will instead refer to them in this post by class. The party was:

Male charr fighter

Male charr kineticist (fire)

Nonbinary sylvari druid (art source)

Female human cleric

Female human psychic

(See more about the Guild Wars races here).

I made custom rules for these ancestries:

Humans were PF2e humans, with a few extra Guild Wars options added.

Sylvari were lightly-modified PF2e ghoran, with a few extra Guild Wars options added.

Charr I created as an ancestry from scratch.

No asura or norn. No-one chose those races, so I didn't need to make custom ancestries for them.

No custom rules were made for classes. Some were natural fits: kineticist as elementalist, psychic as mesmer, fighter as warrior. Cleric and druid did not fit the game's classes so well (unless you include the Guild Wars 1 monk), but in my opinion they fit the game's genre just fine.

All PCs were refugees living in the camp. Non-sylvari characters were aged around 13-16 years. The humans were twins, who emerged from the Ebonhawke asura gate with no memory of their past.

They started out as a group of friends, and that developed as they adventured together.

Player Character Arcs

Fighter

Fighter was the group's self-appointed leader. He called them "The Great Warband". He was brashly over-confident, optimistic, cheerful, and naive. This personality would be worn down by harsh realities of the world.

Of most impact, he wanted to be able to join Psychic and Cleric in a human-only public speaking competition, going so far as to appeal to the human government. This would lead to double tragedy: his request was officially denied by a harsh panel of Ministers, despite an emotional appeal. Worse, Separatist thugs would ambush the party and beat Fighter badly for daring to make the appeal, causing him to lose an eye (on the player's suggestion!) and some amount of his childish innocence and optimism.

Supported by the twins, fighter makes his case to Lord Faren and a number of human ministers.

Kineticist

Kineticist was stoic and sensible. Devoted to Mara, the camp, and his friends, he worried over intra-group tensions. He kept his fire-magic a secret from non-party onlookers, lest he be mistaken for Flame Legion.

Moral but pragmatic, he was tested when he had to perform dark deeds for the greater good, the prime example being when he was forced to kill a Flame Legion charr cub who was moments away from activating a dangerous flame effigy.

Kineticist moves to kill a charr cub before she can light a flame effigy.

Psychic

Psychic was head-strong and confident; and a skilled talker. She was independent, always wanting to tackle problems directly rather than seek aid. She resented the deference other members of the party had to adults, thinking her comrades were as capable as any adult.

While far from being evil, she was the party member with the least compunction when it came to doing harm. To her, the ends justified the means. She fiercely protected her sister Cleric. Sometimes this would put her in trouble the rest of the party would have to help her out of. Other times this led her to cruel acts, such as killing a non-combatant Separatist child who sneered with delight at the party being in danger.

Cleric

Cleric was kind and hopeful, but also a realist. She accepted that dark deeds sometimes were needed, but did everything possible to avoid them. A devotee of Dwayna, she sought to help those in need.

Non-confrontational and empathetic, she clashed least with other party members. Pragmatic and phlegmatic, she was affected least by the dark moments of this first chapter, as she was always motivated to do measurable good no matter how small that seemed in the grander scheme.

Sometimes I would use maps that were more "mood-setters" than actual battle-maps. Here's Gwen's courtyard. Druid's animal companion Thunder was a Krytan Drakehound that originally belonged to Gwen. Gwen was happy enough to give the animal away to a better owner.

Druid was non-violent and carefree, even to the point of taking a mostly-support role in combat. Though technically younger than the others, Druid believed themselves wiser, and sought to guide the party. Mainly, they wanted the party to be less hot-headed and less risk-taking. The advice wasn't always welcomed: to some characters at some times it felt more scolding than sage advice. Late in the chapter, Druid decided to shed some of their more idealistic ideas for a harder stance, the ramifications of this as-yet mostly unseen.

Story Arcs

Several story arcs were interwoven together chronologically. I am going to present these by theme, to be less confusing.

Some elements of the story are not fully explained; I am only including things the players are aware of! No spoilers here for the next chapter!

In an early adventure, the heroes were sent to gather scrap metal from a charr war machine. They needed to fend off Gwen's gang who were hoping to do much the same.

Chores

A charr called Mara Trenchleap was the group's defacto parent figure. Leader of the refugee camp in Ebonhawke, she assigned duties to the PCs.

Early adventures dealt with doing chores to help the camp. Collecting devourer eggs. Chasing away pesky skritt. Helping members of the camp. Fairly innocent stuff.

Many of the chores would lead into the story arcs below.

Later they would help Mara prepare for an attack on an Inquest lab (explained below). They would help her find old comrades, and help secure weapons and equipment.

A skritt called Rikkitiktikka shows the party to her then-abandoned scratch. Don't worry: the heroes would go on to rescue the lost skritt from an Inquest lab, find them meaningful employment with the charr legions, and collapse a cavern that links the scratch to an area populated by dangerous Destroyers.

Gwen Thackery-Stubbs

Gwen Thackery-Stubbs was an NPC and daughter of a noble. She was about the same age as the party. Skilled with her father's pistol, she led a small gang of children. She and her gang would often rival the PCs during early sessions.

The party kept things from escalating, so this rivalry did not escalate beyond non-lethal fights. In fact, Gwen would later seek the party's help as her father was investigated by Ebon Guard for smuggling weapons. The party helped destroy some evidence, but it was not enough to keep her father free.

Ultimately, her father was arrested, and Gwen chose to live with the PCs in the refugee camp. Now devoid of money, her old gang had little interest in her, which cemented her allegiance with the PCs and especially Psychic who she looked up to. She even joined them as an NPC party member (at the player's insistence) in the final dungeon, where she did well as a gunslinger.

Later in the chapter, the heroes assaulted the main Separatist HQ in Ebonhawke. The Separatists were away, leaving younger delinquents from Gwen's old gang to guard the place. Despite being badly outnumbered, the party prevailed thanks to the advancements they had made since first tussling with these gang-members. It was mostly a fiery slaughter at the hands of Kineticist.

Separatists

The party interfered with some Separatist plans, especially those to smuggle weapons. Mostly this involved infiltrating various Separatist hideouts within and without Ebonhawke. The PCs also stopped crazed Separatist gunman, and managed to sabotage a Separatist public rally for support.

The party parleyed with Flame Legion. No good; it ended in a fiery fight. Despite outnumbering these Flame Legion five-to-two (there are two non-combatant cubs pictured), these were adult charr and so more mighty than the adolescent PCs.

Flame Legion

Curiously, a Flame Legion shaman was acting this far afield from Flame Legion territory. This shaman had displaced a group of skritt by causing volcanic activity and fire creatures to appear in their cave system.

The party destroyed a large Searing crystal held by the shaman. They killed the arrogant and dangerous Shaman and his Bladestorm comrade in a close battle. In a less-dangerous but darker battle, they killed one of the shaman's cubs as she tried to activate a flame effigy; leaving the shaman's mate to flee with the remaining cubs.

By collapsing the cave system in a bottleneck, the party sealed off the dangerous fiery areas of cavern, allowing the skritt to safely move back in.

The party confronted an icebrood Son of Svanir out on a frozen lake. Knowing this was far too dangerous to fight, they disrupted the ice beneath it, causing it to sink into the chill waters.

The Sentinels and the Inquest

The party would discover that the Sentinels were working with the Inquest to study the Brand. Inquest researcher Materialist Zirri was operating from Sentinel's Perch and used a private asura gate to travel to various Inquest labs.

The party took a job to investigate why one of those labs was not contactable. This lab was in the Far Shiverpeaks, and was unpowered. The party dealt with escaped troll specimens, restored power to the base, reprogrammed golems, and even dealt with some icebrood outside the facility. They rescued surviving Inquest researchers and freed a number of skritt.

During this, the PCs learnt more about Zirri and her research. It quickly dawned upon them she was Inquest -- a fact she had not mentioned. Moreover they discovered evidence and journals that the lab was experimenting on live branded specimens, including from Mara's old 'band: Trench Warband. They told Mara about this.

Mara's history was presented as a little combat, where players took the roles of Hastati, Mara, charr troops, and even branded monsters and the brand itself!

Trench Warband

Part-way through the chapter, Mara told the PCs about her history.

During the Ogre Revolt, she was a part of Trench Warband. Some of her warband were on patrol on the far side of the newly-created Brand. Her Legionnaire -- Hastati Stormtrench -- set out to rescue them, and ordered Mara to collect weapons and the rest of her 'band mates as reinforcements. When she did so, she detoured to help humans stop branded from entering Ebonhawke, knowing that the Branded could spread like a disease from creature to creature. This delay left the Legionnaire without reinforcements, leading to loss of life in the rescue mission.

During all this, Mara's leg was injured and was amputated to prevent her from becoming Branded. While she could still walk with a prosthetic, her reduced mobility saw her removed from the warband.

The PCs met Stormtrench in passing. They became wary of him due to his Inquest allies. They became highly suspicious of him when they met him outside the caverns of the Flame Legion shaman (see above), seemly waiting for some liaison with the shaman. Hastati became irritated when he believed the PCs had fragments of the Searing crystal (which they did), and demanded them. He and his soldiers chased them through the cave, but the PCs managed to lose him.

In Nolan's recreation of Regent Valley, the heroes worked with Mist-exploring asura to force a dangerous aatxe back through its portal deeper into the Mists.

Nolan Mullenix

Nolan Mullenix was a nobleman from Divinty's Reach, and a philanthropist who donated to Mara's camp. To express her thanks, Mara had the PCs do chores for him.

Nolan took a particular interest in the twins, due to their strange origin and their magic talents.

Early on, this included a journey to the ruins of Rin, where the party saw the ghosts of Ascalon. They also ventured into an old Ascalonian tomb.

Later on, they entered Nolan's "sanctuary" in the Mists, which he had modelled to look like pre-searing Ascalon. He tasked them with clearing out some Mist-entities from a corner of his sanctuary. In doing so, the PCs met a group of asura Mist-explorers and after a brief confused combat about who were the real Mist creatures, they teamed up to banish a nasty aatxe and some its shadow-minions.

Later, the party participated in a two-person-team magic duel, as well as a public speaking competition. Fighter lost his eye in challenging the human-only nature of this competition (see "Player Character Arcs" above). The twins won the Ebonhawke regionals, going to the finals in Divinity's Reach. Much of their preparation they did in the peaceful environs of Nolan's Mist Sanctuary, with his permission.

Nolan was friendly to everyone, including the PCs. But they were wary of him, largely because of his power. Not only could he carve out areas of the Mists for his own use, but on a number of occasions the PCs witnessed him using powerful mesmer abilities.

Vistawhiff

Castella Vistawhiff was an Ash Legion spy who was initially encountered when she was investigating Gwen's father on suspicion of arming Separatists.

Vistawhiff would take a liking to Fighter, as Fighter would volunteer any information when asked. Their relationship spoiled when Vistawhiff requested help from Fighter, but Fighter would not abandon the twins during their public speaking performance during the Ebonhawke regionals.

The Necromancer

Early on, the PCs found evidence of a necromancer named Kofi Duskwynn working as a mercenary in the Ebonhawke area. They eventually discovered she was working both sides -- Separatists and Renegades -- taking money and corpses from each to assail the other with necromantic minions.

The PCs explored a dungeon where she had operated from, and witnessed her deal with Separatist forces on a few occasions.

She worked with the Separatists on a new plan. Using a number of special amulets, they planned to create Risen within the charr camp inside Ebonhawke. This would leave the Ebon Guard little choice but to shut the camp down.

The PCs caught wind of this plan, but it would not come to fruition as Kofi abducted Separatist children. Equally furious and scared, the Separatists abducted charr cubs to offer in exchange. They marched on Kofi's lair, hoping to trade, but prepared to fight. The PCs were close behind on all of this, following the Separatists to across into Shiverpeak Foothills to Kofi's lair.

Kofi had not just abducted Separatist children. She had taken Renegade children too. Both Separatist and Renegade forces met outside her dungeon and fought. This was Kofi's plan: the dead would become her army, which she would grow with conquest, all to please Zhaitan who she was sure would conquer all of Tyria sooner or later.

The PCs dove into the fracas to save the charr cubs. From there, they entered Kofi's lair, encountering more squabbling Separatist and Renegades, rescuing more children, and ultimately killing the Necromancer.

In the final battle against the necromancer, Dorothea sneaked ahead with invisibility, allowing her to get the drop on the necromancer when combat broke out.

Chapter End

The story ended with the party split, though this was as-per their choice.

The twins, along with Fighter and NPC Gwen, went to the public speaking competition finals in Divinity's Reach, and won. The prize was a large stipend which could be used for their education.

During their competition, they witnessed Hastati Stormtrench lead a century of charr soldiers through the streets, escorted by Seraph. Announcers calmed the crowd, saying they were heading to the Ebonhawke gate to apprehend "the renegade Trench warband". Though concerned, none of the PCs left the competition.

Meanwhile, Mara was preparing to attack the Inquest lab with some of comrades. She hoped to free her Branded comrades by killing them. Kineticist and Druid were helping make sure the camp would operate as normal without its usual leader.

Vistawhiff had told Legion authorities about Mara's plans, as relayed to her by Fighter. Stormtrench mobilised to strike first, and Mara's plans were halted by his unexpected presence. Mara confronted Stormtrench. Druid tried to help Kineticist escape the scene, but Kineticist would not abandon Mara. Druid's interference led to Druid being skewered by some strange phantasm-like charr conjured by Stormtrench. (Druid would later be stabilised by a charr soldier.)

Kineticist offered himself and the Searing crystals to Stormtrench in order for Mara to not be executed. Little did Stormtrench know that one crystal was left behind, in a hiding place behind the hiding place.

Time Skip

Some time will pass before Chapter Two begins. Probably many months or even some years. What have the players said their characters might do during this time?

Fighter turns vigilante, carving "S" or "R" onto any Separatist or Renegade he can find. He specialises in finding those that try to flee from Ascalon.

Kineticist was spared from execution. Hastati sent him and Mara as prisoners to different work camps. Kineticist was unable to seek Mara, but will have some contact with any who might come to his work camp.

Psychic and Cleric both use their competition prize to study. Psychic studies under Nolan. Cleric seeks a more political angle, and manages to find a position working as Count Anise's assistant.

Druid wandered Tyria, trying to comprehend all that happened.

The Setting

I've always liked Guild Wars as games. I know the setting fairly well. Both of these things made it a good choice for use as an established setting.

It's also a setting that is expansive, yet with plenty of regional detail. It has a living history but with a fairly slow burn, and not a break-neck cavalcade of different world-ending threats. This gives me, as GM, a lot of work with.

A dungeon opened into a secluded valley where moa foraged at a river bank. This valley was purely scenic.

Exploration

One thing I love about Guild Wars 2 as a game is the sense of exploration it fosters. (Check my retrospective if you want to hear me harp on about that.) It was something I wanted to capture in this campaign.

I put vistas into some of the adventures. Literally, I slapped the icon on certain maps. It was fun as a cheeky reference, but it also spoke to the exploration aspect of Guild Wars 2, which I really wanted to capture.

Capturing a sense of place and space is hard in a TTRPG. This was something I tried to do. I went to the effort of getting still shots for many minor scenes. Some screenshots, some not. I curated some of the more iconic music themes from the game. I think it paid off.

A simple cross-the-bridge-in-the-storm scene proved very dramatic. Excellent mileage for something I quickly whipped up with PF2e actions like Crawl, Balance, Grab an Edge; along with Hazard rules giving some random nasty effects to the swaying bridge. The party enjoy a Vista after completing the crossing.

Expository Shortcuts

My players had a mix of Guild Wars 2 experience, from near-zero to quite extensive. This actually worked well both ways.

Working in a well-known setting allowed me, as a GM, to take expository shortcuts. In a typical homebrew world, every person, place, or thing is an unknown to the players, at least initially, and GMs have to work to establish those backgrounds. In a known setting, there's so much to work with that comes "pre-installed" with meaning.

The players learning they were in an Inquest lab meant nothing to the players unfamiliar with the lore. But to those who were, it opened up a whole new bevy of thoughts and concerns. All without me having to lift a finger.

The other fun aspect is that the players that know can explain the lore to the players who don't know in-game and in-character.

This simple mood-setting scene was used a few times. It's a screenshot from Guild Wars 1, in pre-searing Ascalon, and despite dated graphics it still conjures a certain peace. As a scene, it was used for travel, to allow a bit of light role-play between scenes. Later, I'd use this scene after Fighter's brutal beating at the hand of Separatists. He narrated taking the party out of Ebonhawke to the sight of his mother's grave, where he gave a heartfelt speech.

Arcane Influence

There were two major influences for this campaign. The first obviously being Guild Wars 2. The second being Arcane. Arcane's influence was mainly in the story structure: an initial chapter where the characters are adolescents, a time skip, then a continuation of story with them as adults. The first chapter has been the adolescent arc.

Duration

I didn't intend for this first chapter to take as long as it did. As mentioned, it ran over approximately 30 sessions over the course of about 6 real-world months. I think my initial idea was to do half that.

Was it a problem? Not really. While I would prefer my estimations to match reality it was never really the case that the campaign was dragging its feet or meandering without direction.

Part of the of the problem may have been down to my desire to run sessions even when there's known to be low player presence. I made more than one "side quest" adventure for just two or three players. While that makes for a less tight campaign, I think routine and reliability-of-play are imperative for a healthy TTRPG group.

The biggest problem was that PCs went from level 1 to 4 over this chapter. I didn't want to go much higher with them as still adolescents. That's a long time to languish in lower levels, especially for the casters, and that's a mistake I apologise for.

Levels

I am developing a philosophy with PF2e that somewhat mirrors one I settled on way back in 3.5 edition Dungeons and Dragons. Adult humanoid NPCs are, on average, about level 4.

(Yes, this even works with non-combat NPCs. In D&D 3.5e that could be handled with NPC classes. In PF2e, non-combat levels are the way to go.)

I think I kept this sense of scale well. At first the heroes could only contend with other juvenile foes, like Gwen's gang of delinquents (in fact, her gun was quite the frightening novelty in such battles). Later, the heroes could tussle with adults, but they would have to outnumber any that had decent combat training. The PCs might be able to take on some of the weaker "weekend warrior" Separatists, but they could not contend with properly-trained Separatist or charr adults without outnumbering them.

I think it's important to do this sort of thing so the players can intuit what's dangerous and what's not. It seemed to work: they knew serious threats like Sons of Svanir, ettins, and ogres just by seeing them, and either fled or approached with extreme caution.

It's also great for a sense of progression. When, nearer the chapter end, the heroes were able to trounce Gwen's old gang it was clear how far they'd come even with only two levels.

Monsters are a bit of a mixed bag. I wanted a bit of variety, so I did allow some monsters that I thought would be ordinarily too powerful, but just made them weaker versions: that devourer is a juvenile, that spectre is faded, that elemental is lukewarm. I think that's forgivable.

In an especially dark moment, Separatist forces return a charr cub hostage to Renegade forces, along with an armed and timed explosive hidden on her body! This drove home to the heroes how duplicitous the Separatists could be... whether driven by desperation, racial hatreds, or both.

Darkness

Guild Wars 2 is, mostly, a hopeful setting (it's in the theme tune!). As explained above, this campaign was fairly dark.

Partly this was the Arcane influence. The time-skip needed to happen with some uncertainty and looming troubles. Player characters needed to be challenged and maybe even broken. Mentor NPCs needed to meet bad ends.

Overall I do not feel I was wrong to use a darker tone, but I do feel a bit bad about it. It was just a bit overpowering. I don't think there needed to be less darkness. I think there needed to be more lightness: more clear wins, more happy NPCs, more nice moments. A softer mix that could provide a harsher contrast.

Conclusion

Overall, I am glad I ran this campaign. It was a fun TTRPG romp. And there were some memorable moments and powerful RP scenes along the way.

I am always glad when a campaign of mine reaches a chapter-point. To me, it's that same relief as when you see that little "Saving..." notification after a brutally difficult stretch of video game. The progress is "locked in".

I don't like to see campaigns fizzle out, with stories and character arcs left forever hanging. A chapter-point brings enough finale to a story to mitigate this fizzle-factor.

But that doesn't mean I'm content to leave the story there. I hope one day to return for Chapter Two!

#rpg #ttrpg #pathfinder #guild wars 2 #gaming

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deck16 · 1 year ago

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youtube

I just spent about thirty minutes pushing crates around in VR in Boneworks. It was equal parts fun and frustrating. Here's where I finally managed to figure it out, plus a short bit from the next area.

I think I'm lucky when it comes to VR. To me it feels very immersive, but not nausea-inducing. My rational brain tells me I can't fall and die, my reptile brain tells me I can, and the middle-ground I get adds tension without unbearable stress.

And it's still a physics-based puzzler, with all the wackiness that can come from that. I was dragging a crate backwards when fell through a gap. The gap was too small for the crate, though, and so there I hung, dangling (and laughing), until I dared let go.

#gaming #PC #VR #Youtube

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deck16 · 1 year ago

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youtube

I was watching this scene from Westworld, and it struck me that Dr Ford's ideas could apply to our MMO games as much as Westworld's robot-powered one.

See the original scene here.

I draw a comparison between World of Warcraft and Guild Wars 2. But really I could've done this video many ways. For example, I could've compared modern theme-park WoW to older open/explorable vanilla WoW.

Don't read into this video too much. It's a 2-minute video I made for fun. As Dr Ford would say, it's a lie that hints at a deeper truth.

#gaming #pc #mmo #world of warcraft #guild wars 2 #Youtube

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deck16 · 2 years ago

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This is a continuation of the campaign journal of Adventures in Lyria. The first entry is here and you can see all entries here.

Act 9: Port Cissylvania

The heroes head to a sleepy fishing town, and bring an inglorious end to General Magnus Strabo.

It was at this point I moved the game from Roll20 to Foundry. You can read more about my thoughts on this here.

Before Port Cissylvania

Garo and Zeke were all that was left in the adventuring party after the events on Silvercap Mountain. They took a well-deserved rest, leaving clean-up duties to General Salvius (first seen in Act 2).

When they woke, the General informed them that the Umbralenses (developed in Act 7) did indeed cure lycanthropy. The enemy forces were being cured.

But there was fresh trouble: a ship had come ashore on the nearby coast. The heroes were sent to investigate.

Meeting Alexandros and Surkiv

The players of Cyrus and Flutter had new characters. Taking Cyrus' place was Alexandros the half-elven drakewarden ranger. Flutter's spot was now filled by Surkiv the dragonborn path-of-the-beast barbarian. These two had been captured while defending the homelands of the boreal dragonborn, fighting against invading forces led by Magnus Strabo (mentioned in Act 7). Surkiv was native to those lands, and Alexandros was a sort-of warrior pilgrim from a distant island of dragon-worshippers.

Both of these new characters were prisoners on the very ship that Garo and Zeke have been sent to investigate. The ship had been abandoned when Alexandros' drake companion, Ion, loosened his muzzle and used his breath weapon to tear a hole in the hull.

The two prisoners were freed, and the group investigated the boat. Documents onboard suggested that the contents of the boat were items stolen by Strabo in the invasion that were being taken to his private collection. Dragonborn weapons, cultural items, dragonborn eggs, and even Alexandros, Ion, and Surkiv themselves! The heroes had a dim view of a man who would steal eggs!

Some of Strabo's men appeared on the scene: veteran soldiers from the Second Legion. These men had been sent to collect things from the wreckage. After a tense stand-off, combat ensued, the soldiers were defeated, and some even killed. Somewhat controversially, Garo dipped into the party's precious supply of diamonds to revivify them.

The Forest Hag

General Salvius urged the party to carry on to mainland Cantia. Strabo was landing there (as noticed in Act 8). His reputation suggested he would punish the local population for their recent uprising, and since the False Moon was now gone, they would have no ability to fight back.

After travelling across the channel, the party met a kobold bard called Algo, who belonged to a new player to the group. Algo had been displaced by the war, and was just trying to survive; he tagged along with the party, grateful of their protection.

The group were preyed upon by a forest hag. Feigning to be under attack by wolves, she appeared in the form of Media Bellicent, the last of a royal line of Cantia, ousted by the lycanthrope rebels. Truthfully, though, the hag's home had been taken over by the real Media Bellicent and her were-bear bodyguard. The hag tried to trick the heroes into fighting the were-bear but failed; she was killed.

The heroes learned that the hag had been working with the lycanthrope rebels, and was keeping other members of the Bellicent family captive in her basement. These poor children had perished and now haunted the basement. The heroes put these ghosts to peace by dispatching the spirits and burying the remains. Zeke, however, used his sword Asurath to "claim" the soul of the young girl Alula Bellicent; he could now summon her at will. (She was not especially powerful as a combatant but was potentially useful as a scout or distraction. During later dream-visitations to his sword's "interior", he'd find her living happily with his paternal ancestors.)

Media encouraged the party to help her defend the people of Cantia. She had a number of plans how they could help. But Garo was convinced the party could do better elsewhere. He wanted to investigate Strabo's legally-dubious personal collection, believing that it would be easier to tarnish the man's reputation and have him removed from his position than it would be to fight him and his soldiers. It would be unlikely that his replacement would be as harsh and merciless.

Media wished them luck. The party returned the Bellicent family torc (first found in in Act Two) to her. As she was of the Bellicent bloodline, she could use its full powers. Media made arrangements for the party to fly on to their next destination on the backs of griffons.

During this flight, Garo would reveal his past. His blood-line was thought to trace back to that of the god St Cuthbert. This was quite a prize, and Magnus Strabo had arranged for his daughter Katarina to marry him. It was to be an important political marriage. But Garo was not exactly into women, and he turned her down rather than live a lie. This made him something of a pariah. He threw himself into his crusader duties and tried to keep out of the public eye.

(This came as a surprise to me as DM. But it was so good, I absolutely ran with it.)

Port Cissylvania

The documents pointed the heroes to a sleepy fishing town called Port Cissylvania (Port CS). They would spend a long time here, doing various things. As I did with Act 7, I'm going to document things by “quest-chain” rather than chronologically. In reality, these stories were interleaved.

This is the map I used for Port CS. It's actually a map of Carrickfergus. If you search for maps of the place, you'll find lots of drawn art for it from different time periods.

Roster Changes

Some players would change characters during this Act.

Clever Clover the tabaxi rogue would replace Algo. Then Clever Clover would depart late in this act as the player left the game. (This was a player new to TTRPGs, and this was a tough game to join in part-way through. There was no drama in this exit!)

Trystan Valerius, a human, would replace Alexandros. Trystan was a bard at some point and a bladesinger wizard at another as his player experimented with different classes.

Myra's player returned from a hiatus to play Aden Heskin the half-elven warlock.

Flutter would make a return late in this chapter, displacing Surkiv.

And, of course, not all players were present for every adventure.

Barry the Baker

As the party arrived at Port CS, they were met by a familiar figure: Barry. Barry had joined the lycan forces on Cantia as footsoldier, though he was not a lycanthrope himself. The heroes spared him in Act 5 at Fort Nelisa, and Cyrus had given him gold so he could start up a civilian life.

Turns out, he'd done exactly that! He was now the owner of a bakery in Port CS, and his signature pastry was called the "Sticky Cyrus".

Ship Fiends

The party were approached by Karl Burr (first seen Act 4) and Felix Spurius (first seen Act 1). A Lyrian Guild Society ship -- the Absolute Advantage -- anchored offshore had been overrun by fiends. The evacuating crew had alerted Karl Burr, the local Guild representative. Karl in turn alerted Felix, as the ship was transporting a magical stone tablet and a kobold called Taklak (first seen Act 2) for him. Karl wanted the situation dealt with quietly -- without the authorities asking questions. Felix wanted Taklak and the tablet saved. The heroes leapt in a longboat and rowed across.

On the way over, an imp teleported on the party's longboat! The creature was delivering a parchment to Zeke -- a contract. This, of course, made the party quite curious, but no actions were taken. Zeke would surreptitiously sign the contract while on the Absolute Advantage, while no-one was looking.

This represented the contract in-game, made with Foundry's tools.

On-board the ship, the heroes had several run-in with devils: spiked and barbed devils, a duplicitous incubus/succubus pair, and two powerful bone devils. Surkiv brought the arrogant bone devil leader down to size with incredible grappling and pinning moves, holding the fiend down while his comrades dealt with other fiends.

The party would find a cowering kobold called Bilgewurm, one of the Absolute Advantage's crew. This poor kobold was the reason for the fiends: he had activated Felix's stone tablet (similar to the spell tablet in Act 2), summoning a fiend. This fiend forced Bilgewurm to keep activating the stone, but luckily Bilgewurm managed to escape with invisibility. Unable to swim, the poor kobold just had to hide and hope for the best.

At some point, the topic of Zeke's contract would come up. It was discussed. Most of the party disapproved that Zeke had signed it, but did not take any action. Garo quite strongly disapproved.

Ultimately, the ship was cleared. Taklak, Bilgewurm, and the tablet were recovered. Garo was not happy that the tablet was going to be studied, rather than destroyed, but Felix assured him that the local Imperial College campus had a very secure anti-magic lock-up for such things.

College Fiends

Despite being a small fishing town, Port CS had a large Imperial College campus. The wizards there enjoyed the relative isolation. Trystan was an accomplished student there.

A cambion named Laila enacted a plan to steal from the college. She wanted the fiend-summoning stone from the Absolute Advantage. She also kidnapped the college's fiend expert, Archmage Spellwatch. She used Zeke's contract to allow succubi and incubi to access the vicinity of Port CS. From there, these cunning creatures infiltrated the college and charmed or impersonated the staff.

But there was a problem: the vault where the stone was kept was protected with anti-magic to suppress any magic items kept there. Charmed agents would be un-charmed in such a field, magical disguises would cease, and her succubi and incubi allies were not powerful enough to defeat the golems that guarded the vault. So, she decided to send a charmed Felix, and then later a charmed Trystan, to lie to the heroes and have them dispatch the golems.

Laila's plans didn't work, though. The heroes managed to undo the charm on both Felix and Trystan. They proceeded to free the staff and students from charms, rooting out the fiends in their midst. The heroes suffered a lot of weird magic thrown at them by charmed and confused students and staff. At one point, Flutter separated from the group and had to fend off multiple fiends alone long enough for help to arrive, making good use of the sunbeam spell.

I made a macro in Foundry to randomly select spells. I figured students at the college would not necessarily have prepared spells for combat, but rather would have prepared strange spells related to their studies.

A final confrontation happened in the basement of the college. Laila, it turned out, was Zeke's cousin (though a distant one)! She entreated Zeke to join her so they could remake their ancestral homeland of Laconia together!

Zeke refused, a battle ensued. Efforts were made to capture Laila, but she slipped free using fiendish powers of teleportation, taking Archmage Spellwatch with her. The fight with Laila's remaining minions was a hard one, but the party managed to win out.

Burt Cobb

While attending to other matters on the island, the party would sometimes run into an older human male called Burt Cobb. Burt was guiding a group of refugee orphans who had fled the war on Cantia. He taught them to fish and generally survive.

Cobb was a devout follower of Pelor, and spoke about religion to Garo.

Museum

The heroes pursued a lead regarding Strabo, and found he had contracted a local taxidermist to preserve some dragonborn corpses. She was kind enough to draw a sketch of the person Strabo sent to do the transaction.

Using scrying magic purchased from the local branch of the Lyrian Guild Society, the heroes saw this man was on the western coast of Cissylvania Isle, along with a number of dwarves.

In hot pursuit, the party arrived at Foxtail Grotto. This was a location of historic importance, as the last emperor of Lyria was held hostage here in his youth. Strabo had funded a museum to be built here.

Foxtail Grotto, once a bandit hideout. The story was inspired by something that apparently happened to Julius Caesar.

The museum area was being carved out underground by the dwarves. An illusionist, Ellyjobell Timbers, was creating an illusory hologram-like recreation of the historic events at Foxtail Grotto. Another mage, Wyns Rand, had been paid to create a permanent teleportation circle at the site.

Supervising all this was Claduis Ensis, the man from the sketch. And with him was Katarina Strabo -- Garo's spurned fiance!

A very tense moment ensues. The party are very suspicious of Claudius, and he of them. Katarina and Garo, of course, share an awkward meeting.

During this, Surkiv and Zeke explore the museum. They find exhibits that enrage them both. Survik finds souvenired "prizes" from his homeland, including dragonborn eggs. Zeke sees an exhibit about his ancestors' failed rebellion, and finds tiefling skulls, including one of his grandfather.

This animosity turns into a fight with Cladius, but Katarina and Garo calm the situation down. The party leave Foxtail Grotto.

Cassia

The visit to the museum had clued the heroes in on the likelihood of dragonborn children being raised somewhere on the island of Cissylvania. Claudius, apparently, was routinely visiting these children who were being cared for by a figured called "Cassia". The heroes managed to learn from the orphans in Burt Cobb's care that a suspicious figure matching Cladius' description would head into a particular forest on the island.

And so the heroes went to this forest. Two faerie dragons -- Sunflare and Corona -- tried to confuse and disorient the party but failed, and the party arrived at Cassia's home. No-one was home so the party intruded to search for (and find) a number of clues.

Cassia did eventually return home, with a number of dragonborn children in tow. She was very hospitable, explaining she was a reluctant carer for the children. Though she loved them, she did not approve that Claudius was training them to be spies against their own kind. But she felt powerless: as a druid and hence part of the church-outlawed Tetrarchy, she was essentially a fugitive and owed her freedom to Strabo (and therefore Cladius).

Cassia's home was near Lake Nemi, a beautiful secluded body of water hiding a sunken temple. Inspired by a real place.

The Flooded Temple

Cassia mentioned that Strabo stored some items in the nearby flooded ruins of a temple. The heroes, eager to get some dirt on Strabo, set out. A naiad called Syrinx guided them, giving them water-breathing, and pleading with them to help her lost love Iphianassa.

The nereid Iphianassa was the guardian of the flooded temple, magically forced into the job by Cassia. In turn, Iphianassa had charmed a number of aquatic animals to guard the temple. The heroes prevailed, freeing Iphianassa from her duties, and allowing her to reunite with her love Syrinx. The party also found Strabo's stash, and apart from treasure and magical gear it contained a lot of contraband items from the Tetrarchy.

Betrayal and Capture

When the party returned, Cassia invited them to have a meal. This was a trap. The food was laced with a sedative-like poison. Moreover, Claudius had been called, and was able to make the distance in the time the heroes explored the sunken temple. Claudius led a small army of legionaries to Cassia's house and surrounded it. Cassia pleaded with the heroes to surrender, not wishing for them to die.

Poisoned and surrounded, the party had little ability to win. Some fled. Garo and Alexandros remained to be captured -- defiant not to leave.

Claudius accused Alexandros of war crimes, both further back assisting dragonborn against the legions, and more recently killing legionaries on the shipwrecked boat. By name-dropping the names of killed legionaries, Claduis tried to rile up the legionaries, but Garo countered with a speech on morality and justice, and no legionary volunteered to execute Alexandros. So Cladius did the deed himself, slitting Alexandros' throat and throwing his corpse off a nearby coastal cliff. The rest of the party watched on in horror from the tree-line.

(Alexandros' player was okay with this, as the player wanted to change from Alexandros to Trystan. Alexandros' corpse would be fished from the bottom of the cliff at an early, safe, opportunity by Zeke.)

Animal Form

The heroes would later return to Cassia's home, for reasons explained in the next section.

Cassia was devastated when her dragonborn "children" were taken away. As a powerful druid, her sadness bled into the forest around her home, turning it dark and unwelcoming. The party had to battle a malevolent fey entity called The Spirit of Lake Nemi to proceed through the forest.

The heroes arrived at Cassia's home. Corona and Sunflare sought to keep the heroes away from Cassia, and used a one-charge wand of mass polymorph to turn the heroes into small animals. Undeterred, the party worked together in their new forms to conquer the obstacles and animal guardians in Cassia's home.

I had made several stat blocks for the occasion. Stewart the cat, Bertie the snake, Cherry the crow, and Vincent the (relatively) giant crab. These were past pets of Cassia's that the faerie dragons had known. The players had to work together as these animals to navigate the "dungeon" of Cassia's home and battle some of the animals inside.

The heroes would confront the faerie dragons and break Corona's concentration to undo the polymorph. From there, they made a dark discovery: Cassia, alone in her bedroom, was dying! She had tried to take her life with a herbal poison. The heroes, working fast, cured her.

Cassia and the heroes were both victims of Magnus Strabo. The heroes convinced Cassia to help them (see more below).

Strabo's Arrival

Things were heating up in Port CS. Garo was taken prisoner for killing Strabo's legionaries. But Garo had sent for help prior, and it arrived. Not a charging brigade of mounted crusaders, but rather, a Pelorite priest named Vincent Pearson.

Meanwhile, Surkiv had decided to leave. Paying to be smuggled out by sea with the unbroken eggs from the museum, he left in the early morning.

Three large transport ships loom out of the mist. Your little boat's pilot mutters to himself as he wrenches the rudder to keep clear. Taking care to stay under the canvas, you watch the middle vessel sail past. Standing near the ship's fore is a Lyrian officer. You've seen him before, leading the forces which attacked your homeland. Stocky, balding, but still severe in his uniform. His cold gaze is directed forward, but as you pass he turns to glace at your ship. You can swear he is looking right at you, despite the distance.

Magnus Strabo had arrived at Port CS with a large number of his Second Legion troops. The heroes' investigations and interferences had given cause for the general to come sort matters out first-hand.

It was impossible to keep this from the public eye, and the eye of Port CS officials. Legal accusations were being flung both ways, essentially boiling down to Garo versus Strabo. A court date was arranged. Pearson arranged for Garo's freedom, confident that Garo was not the type to run.

Felix, who had once represented the heroes in court before (see Act 3), could not guarantee his presence. Instead he managed to get Trystan Valerius, an accomplished student at the Port CS Imperial College, to be Garo's legal representative. So began a rush for evidence and witnesses (including Cassia, as mentioned above).

Trystan and Garo had a tense meeting with Strabo in the general's war camp just outside of Port CS. It was mostly a psychological clash, each side trying to goad and rattle the other, with neither succeeding. Strabo made his disdain clear: Garo's meddling had endangered the Lyrian Republic by distracting him from his war against the lycanthrope rebels. He also expressed his dislike for the dragonborn, and wondered why Garo should champion their cause.

Some of Strabo's men had contracted lycanthropy in the battle against the rebels, and he used these men in a suicide attack on the heroes. The heroes defeated the werewolves, and spared their lives, managing to cure them with one of the Umbralenses. They were so grateful they became witnesses on the heroes' side.

Court Case

The date of the case arrived. It was a big event, the town's small temple to Minerva was packed. The local priestess acted as judge. Both sides were given access to a quota of zone of truth spell usages.

Garo takes the stand as Trystan's witness.

Strabo was represented by Aemilius Lepidus, one of his top captains. Lepuidus tried to defuse claims that Strabo was involved in an illegal war against the dragonborn by producing official orders from the Lyrian Senate. He also cited laws around prisoners of war, intelligence gathering, and other such activities.

Lepidus's next tactic was to paint a picture of Garo being an obsessed individual, hounding Strabo over minor things. He called upon Karatina Strabo, and asked questions about their failed engagement and subsequent fall from prestige. Lepidus insinuated that Garo's obsession was fuelled by a desire to see revenge upon the Strabo name.

Cladius then testified, quoting Garo's determination to bring Strabo to justice, painting those comments as obsession and fixation devoid of presumption of innocence. Cladius alleged that Garo wanted to besmirch Strabo's reputation by any means to force a legal clash.

Lepidus called Ezekial to testify invoking the zone of truth. As a known ally of Garo, Zeke's tiefling heritage and family history were used to suggest that his feelings are motivated by revenge.

Finally, Garo was called to the stand, zone of truth invoked again. Garo was forced to admit he was given no official orders to pursue Strabo, and that he had done so on his own accord. It was insinuated that this was a trivial folly, at worst a minor matter, hardly worthy of a crusader's time; all this fortifying the case that Garo was motivated by revenge.

Trystan counter-examined each of these witnesses, and when it was his turn to call, brought in a number of witnesses and submitted considerable evidence. Trystan's strategy was to paint Strabo was clearly involved with some Tetrarchy materials and affairs, which apart from being illegal were highly damaging to his reputation. If Strabo was to leave the court with a mild penalty, his battered reputation would at least mean he was stripped of rank.

(As a DM, I have notes about Lepidus' actions, and only memories about Trystans. Hopefully that explains the disparity in details.)

It was a fierce contest, but as Trystan got going, his strategy gave him bonuses in the dice-rolling mini-game that represented the court's opinion. Magnus Strabo's case fell apart as he himself took the stand under a zone of truth.

Strabo, furious as opinion turned against him, launched into a tirade that only worsened this.

"You crusaders hunt demons and undead and pat yourselves on the back for a job well done. Good for you. But do you have any idea what real war is? Have you battled the sharp teeth of a dragonborn, or the hulking mass of an orc? Have you seen hordes of them, serried arrays howling for your blood? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. I am the thin steel line that keeps these threats from the doorsteps of your churches and homes. As Naso once said, 'let them hate us as long as they fear us.'"

He gave Katarina Strabo a meaningful look. She cast a spell (word of recall) and she disappeared along with her father and his legal team.

Strabo's Coup

Moments after this disappearance, horns began to sound. Garo looked to the priestess acting as judge. She confirmed: Strabo was now an enemy of the state to be captured. The heroes sprung into action. Stepping outside, they saw that Strabo's men were launching an assault on the town!

First concern: one of Strabo's naval destroyers had flung a burning trebuchet shot at the temple! Zeke, with Flutter's help, managed to fling a fireball to deflect the shot enough to miss the building, giving enough time for everyone to get outside.

Legionaries assaulted the temple grounds, and the heroes fought to hold them back long enough for everyone at the court case to get away.

Elsewhere, the town was under strong attack. The heroes made a plan, and tackled each of the front-lines, moving as a group from one location to the next.

First they went to the harbour. Venturing to the end of the pier, Flutter used reverse gravity on the naval destroyer. It rose in the air, turning about listlessly. Flutter mercifully waited for the crew to swim away, then released the spell, causing the vessel to crash down and break. Strabo's forces lost their artillery.

Next they went to the town square. Port CS had a small garrison of elite troops, and a number of border guard, and these forces were -- for the moment -- holding back Strabo's troops in the choke-holds of the city streets. The heroes dove into the fray, helping even the odds, and allowing the local troops time to retreat and regroup. Meanwhile, Trystan summoned a magnificent mansion in the middle of the town square into which many of the town's civilians could seek shelter.

After a quick detour to help Felix, and the party headed to the town's small castle. Strabo had entered into the keep through a hole earlier punched in the outer wall by the destroyer. Local troops tried to re-take their keep, clashing with Strabo's at the front gate. That distraction allowed the heroes to mostly (but not entirely) enter without opposition.

They arrived at the Aediles' chamber. Strabo was sitting in one of the chairs normally occupied by the ruling Aediles. One of the Aediles was hurt and unconscious on the chamber floor. With Strabo was Katarina, Wyns Rand, Lepidus, and a number of soldiers.

Strabo offered a truce. He would claim that the town was set upon by lycanthropy, killing anyone in a position to disagree. In return, the heroes would stand down.

Strabo: "Come in. Let them in. There's been enough violence today. Clearly I've won. I'm not a heartless man. Why don't we hammer out an agreement? We'll go along with my story. That this town had been infiltrated by lycanthropes. I get the two Aediles, Salvius and son, and the judge at the temple here. You can go by boat or teleporter, after staying as my guest for a while to ensure you don't cause further trouble. Oh, and I want that sword. I won it fair and square. Katarina: "Garo. I made him promise to let you live. Father's right, there's been enough death today."

Of course, the heroes did not agree.

Combat broke out. The hectic fight saw some cross-interference, but largely the battle consisted of a few smaller battles or duels. Clever Clover duelled with, and defeated, Aemilius Lepidus; who died ever the loyal right-hand man to Strabo. Katarina mostly flung supporting spells, not wishing to commit to more deadly combat.

Garo shines with a powerful holy spell as the rest of the party battle around the chamber.

Flutter and Trystan had to first deal with Wyns Rand, who used his favourite tactic of casting greater invisibility and throwing high-level spells with impunity. They eventually managed to corner him, frying him with a lightning bolt. The pair also held back reinforcements from the castle, flooding the main entrance with nasty magic and dealing with those soldiers who entered via other ways.

There was a moment where Flutter used a scroll of mass polymorph to turn many of the foes into creatures. Flutter's mind must have been remembering the underwater temple, because he chose to turn them into something he'd seen there: horse-sized giant pistol shrimp. This threw the room into chaos for a while but had limited long-term effect between Katarina's dispel magic and the fact that the shrimps reverted after enough damage was dealt to them.

It was a glorious fight. Strabo's "gimmick" wasn't that he was a raw powerhouse of a boss. Rather, his wide range of abilities was meant to reflect a highly strategic thinker and master swordsman. I couldn't have done all those Recharges without Foundry to help! (All of those "strikes" could replace any of his four attacks. I know it was wrong of me to put them in the Actions area, but hey, until now no-one but me has seen this NPC sheet.)

Zeke and Garo fought Strabo. Claudius joined into this localised fight, springing from his hidden location. This was a tough battle, especially against Strabo whose attacks were debilitating.

"Was that your father who was stupid enough to seek me out on the plains of Skala? He thought a general a soft target. Even decades on I will show you just as I showed him, I can carry myself in a fight."

In the end, Ezekial managed to strike a killing blow on Claudius, knocking him out a second-story window in the process, avenging Alexandros' death. Strabo was struck down by Garo; there were thoughts to heal him but Katarina pleaded that he be allowed to die.

What officers remained in Strabo's army did not have the dedication to carry on this fight without their leader, and stood down.

The heroes had saved Port Cissylvania. Strabo's attack only cemented his nature as a villain that the court case already had exposed. The heroes were lauded, and would have a monument built to them in the town square.

Four bas reliefs are carved, each into a face of a square fountain-base in the town's main street. The designs are artful, and depict a scene's events more than any sort of realistic perspective or proportions. The work is richly detailed and features a consistent and clear style. The first image depicts the interior of the Temple of Minerva when it was used to hold Magnus Strabo's trial. Central to the scene are Trystan and Strabo. Trystan extends a hand with pointed index finger, while Strabo glowers back, resting his hand on the pommel of his sword. Around each main figure are their supporting posse, and the artist has included Ezekial, Garo, Flutter, Vincent Pearson, Katarina Strabo, and Aemilius Lepidus. A concerned judge and crowd fill out the image. The second image depicts a crowded town street. On the image's left, Second Legion soldiers clash with Evocati and Limitanei. Ezekial and Flutter support the defenders by blasting Second Legion soldiers with magic. On the image's right, an opulent tower is shown, and Trystan guides fleeing civilians inside. Garo helps carried an injured civilian toward the tower. The third image contains an image of a boat suspended above the water. Sailors fall from the boat. The artist has drawn the tilting boat firing a flaming catapult projectile to the right of the image, where Ezekial Zarken is shown blasting it with magic. To the image's left, Flutter raises his feathered arms toward the levitating boat. The final image depicts the Aedile's chambers within Fort CS. In the centre, Ezekial duels with Magnus Strabo. Garo stands behind Ezekial, glowing with holy light, weapon raised. Katarina stands mirroring this position, posture and illumination behind her father. On the image's right, Trystan whips Aemilius Lepidus, who raises a shield in defence. On the image's left, Flutter holds a Second Legion centurion and several soldiers at away from the slumped form of Aedile Daetris Meliscient with blasts of magic. Hidden away in the corner, under one of the chamber's thrones, is a pistol shrimp.

Fisherman's Festival

The upcoming Fisherman's Festival in Port CS was given extra importance this year as the town celebrated not being destroyed by Strabo. The heroes, of course, were the main celebrities.

There were some pieces to pick up before the heroes could celebrate...

The heroes would examine Cladius' body. He had a curious hidden magical tattoo, and other strange magics about him.

Alexandros, whose body had been recovered prior, was restored to life by Garo's holy magic.

Ezekial's dreams now included Claudius Ensis battling with his ancestors. Zeke theorised that the soul of Claudius was also "inside" the sword now, fitting with its behaviours in the past. This was troubling.

Cassia, who had been held in a cell due to her Tetrarchy links, had been tormented by Claudius after Strabo's forces had taken the keep. In an effort to extract information, Claudius had tortured and killed the faerie dragon Corona. Cassia left Sunflare with Flutter (becoming his familiar), and she and Alexandros took the dragonborn children and ventured by boat to catch up with Surkiv.

Strabo's funeral pyre.

Strabo's funeral was held, and many made the trip to be present, including those harmed by him such as the now-Queen Bellicent. The queen's torc had helped her hold her people together against Strabo's invasion and the aftermath of the war. Katarina spoke as his body was cremated, mentioning his impressive military career, his patriotism, but also his darker side: in battling monsters, he became as relentless as one.

This chapter comes to a close with the heroes enjoying the festival games and dancing. Ziffy (first seen Act 7) arrived from the Feywild to spend some time with Zeke. We see Flutter and Garo slowly turning around the dance floor, with the short kenku standing on the crusader's armoured boots.

The Battle Atop Arcadion's Ladder

I'll squeeze one last thing in that happened during the wrap-up period. The heroes used legend lore to learn more about Ezekial's sword Asurath.

The heroes saw an epic battle from times long past. Mortals had risen up against the fiendish tyrant Arcadion; an alliance of tieflings, elves, Cuthbertine crusaders, and others. A band of mighty heroes ascended a mountain-side staircase to battle Arcadion at the peak as a battle raged below.

(The players took the roles of these level 20 heroes. They were given pre-made characters, but could pick prepared spells as they battled. They also had secret orders, which would come into play later.)

The mighty heroes were led by the tiefling Ezekial Charillos. With him was a winter eladrin called Zephyra, a previous student of Lady Xilo with powers similar to Cyrus (first seen Act 1); a Cuthbertine crusader who looked a lot like Burt Cobb; and a druid whose name has been lost to time.

At the start of this scene, the heroes witnessed the sword Asurath being gifted to Ezekial by the drow blacksmith Celle Brimbor. The necromancer Cazna (first seen Act 5) was present an ally: her undead army kept the fiend reinforcements off the heroes' back so they could confront Arcadion without distraction.

It's at that moment that a drow pushes through Cazna's little army. She rushes up to Ezekial, a sheathed sword in hand. "I got here… in time…" she puffs. "It's here. It's ready. Asurath." She presents it to Ezekial. "A blade forged from three sources. Carburised ironwood from the Outrunner's oldest grove, near-impervious but still growing. The zinc-heavy metal of their own soul-snaring blades, to keep them from rebirth. And wrought iron from the Shadowfell, to render those trapped within despondent and calm. You must land the killing blow on Arcadion with this."

Arcadion summons a barrier, thinking he has trapped Ezekial. But the plucky tiefling replies "I'm not trapped in here with you. You're trapped in here with me!"

Eventually the heroes defeat Arcadion, and seal him within the sword Asurath.

But then those secret orders kick in. Arnus demands Ezekial hand over Asurath, claiming it is too dangerous and must be cleansed by holy magic. Zephyra, seeking to disrupt Asurath, plays the role of "referee" to this argument and tricks the pair into taking the sword, shattering it to pieces with her chaotic magic. Arnus scrambles to pick up two of the pieces before magically teleporting away. (This became in-game history, and will come into play in later acts!)

#dungeons and dragons #tabletop role playing game #adventures in lyria

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