Sessions 85 to 88 (April-May 2020)

Note to readers: This is a session re-cap of an ongoing D&D 5th edition campaign set in a loosely adapted version of N. Robin Crossby's Hârn. Previous session re-caps can be found on this blog, and an early journal of sessions 1 through 54, beginning in February 2015, is archived here. 

In-world dates: 20-21 Ilvin 720 TR [second week of winter]
Daylight hours: 9
Moon: third quarter (one week until the new moon)

The Players

Cade, a water genasi druid and awakener of creatures

Cleric, a secretive celestial magic-user

Dracul, a haunted dragonborn warrior

Galindo, a well-connected halfling spy

Gil'Doren, a vainglorious elf evoker

Events

You are at Pesino, an Earthmaster site on the western borders of the Sindarin kingdom of Evael. A massive ziggurat rises in the midst of a vast clearing in the forest, giant-sized stairs marching up its southern face to a sheltered gallery at its summit. A massive set of double doors is set against the wall at the far end: the only visible entrance to the structure. Leaving your auxiliaries concealed in the woods, you make your way up the stairs and into the gallery. 

On the floor before the doors you find an elongated shape wrapped in black silk. Tugging it open reveals a note and a long black metal stick, about 24 inches in length. At one end of the stick are two prongs, each about six inches in length. Spaced along the shaft are six studs or buttons, each of a different colour: orange, blue, green, yellow, red, and black. The note reads:

Black opens the doors.

Red brings you within.

Flame lights your path.

Blue admits you to The Dwelling.

Find me there.

                     --Malevix

Knowing that Dracul's malevolent father, a dragonborn vampire, awaits you within sets you on edge. Examining the door, you notice an oval depression on the wall to the right, with two circular holes near its centre. The two-pronged keystick fits perfectly. Pressing the black stud causes the doors to slide open silently to reveal a square chamber approximately fifty feet across. It is empty and unlit. On an inside wall near the doors, another pair of holes allows you to insert the keystick again. This time, the red stud causes the doors to slide shut and the chamber to begin to plummet downward at an alarming speed. As your stomachs climb into your throats, you begin to fear some disaster, but in time the speed of descent slows and the chamber comes to a gentle stop. The doors open to reveal that you are in a vast subterranean shaft whose walls you cannot see with your limited darkvision. A walkway of metal surrounds on all sides the column through which the chamber descended, and at intervals bridges or catwalks of the same material stretch out into the darkness.  One of these catwalks is illuminated by a series of burning braziers set at regular intervals along its length. Judging by the number of fires you can see, this catwalk clearly extends hundreds of feet away from you.

Exploring the space, you discover that this vast shaft is over 300 feet in diameter; it is an incalculable distance from the surface and descends an unknowable distance below. Each of the darkened catwalks ends in another massive set of double doors.  The keystick opens none, however, and each attempt provokes a damaging shock to afflict the user.

Finally you proceed down the illuminated catwalk and, at the doors, press the blue stud to gain entrance. You find yourself in a large circular chamber comprised of two levels: an upper gallery and an open lower space connected via a flight of stairs hugging the wall. Lamps have been lit within. In the chamber below, you see Malevix, a hulking dragonborn warrior, seated on one of several oddly shaped divans scattered about the room. He looks up at you calmly. A number of other figures are interspersed about the chamber, unmoving. They have the appearance of Sindarin rangers.

Malevix speaks.*

I have been misunderstood. Dracul, I had hoped you would follow me out of filial duty, out of the loyalty you owe your father. You did not, although you accepted the gift of the Slaying Sword. Where is it now? Are you too timid to use it? No matter. But now I must try to convince you and your allies that you were wrong to reject me. 

I am not the monster you think me to be. I am not trying to destroy Hârn; I am trying to save it. 

The Earthmasters held many secrets. They not only knew how to traverse, in an instant, vast distances in space; they could travel in time as well.

I learned the secret of one of their devices and traveled into the future. The horrors I saw there shook me to the core and it was only thanks to my undeath that I was able to survive the experience and return to my own time.

I saw that in the future humans would eradicate all the other sentient races on Hârn, along with many other forms of life. I saw the waters poisoned and the forests stripped and burned. The land became a desert. I saw the humans create machines of war so powerful that thousands, even millions, of lives could be destroyed in a single moment. When they had almost killed each other off and made this world unlivable, they built great vessels that allowed them to traverse vast gulfs of emptiness to reach other, distant worlds, where they repeated the same pattern of destruction, destroying in turn all of the sentient races that tried to stop them.

I decided that I must be the one to prevent this from coming to pass. With the longevity afforded me by undeath, I was able to travel back and forth in time to search for the roots of this terrifying future. I found them at last in the present.  In order to prevent this future, a mage in Cherafir must die. 

This is why I have joined forces with the Giants and the Drow. They seek merely to raid, to wreck, and to rule. Let them carry out their petty plans for this island; I care nothing for that. But I need their power. With them I can take Cherafir and break through the magical wards that keep me from getting to the mage myself through guile and stealth. Thus can I save this world.

But there is another way. You are welcomed in Cherafir; you have the trust of their leaders. You can enter the city, put an end to this mage, and prevent the future that I have seen from coming to be. If you do this, I will abandon my alliance with your enemies and foil their plans of conquest. Many will live that otherwise will die. Do this for them.

KILL THE MAGE WENTIUA -- AND I WILL END THIS WAR.

Taken aback by Malevix's intensity and apparent sincerity, you debate what to do; but Dracul has heard enough. Slipping down the staircase, he plunges his sword into the nearest elf ranger, in actuality a thrall of his vampiric father. A battle ensues: a dozen vampire thralls swarm toward the party, allowing Malevix to make an exit through a door at the far end of the chamber. You see a cloaked figure join him as the door closes behind the pair.

Hissing and clawing, the bloodthirsty creatures descend upon you but one by one you cut them down. 

Examining the rent and mangled bodies afterward, you surmise that these were the rangers sent by Queen Aranath to investigate the site a while ago. You identify the leader, Captain Sotar, and realize that she yet "lives", though just. Keeping her bound, you ponder how you might save her from oblivion or, alternatively, endless undeath and servitude.  

Returning to the gallery at the peak of the ziggurat, you summon your auxiliaries and rest. At dawn, you bestir yourselves and are surprised to see an unusually bright star on the southern horizon. As you look, it brightens: it is coming closer! Inexplicably, you feel no fear but rather an immense peacefulness. On the threshold of the gallery the radiance resolves into a human-like figure: a woman clad in a white robe. She approaches Cleric and introduces herself as Astreas, asking how she may help. Kneeling and removing his robes and mask for the first time since joining the party, Cleric explains the plight of Captain Sotar.** Astreas smiles and nods. "I will grant you the power to remove this curse from her, but be warned: wielding this power is not without cost. You will bear the burden of it for a long time." Cleric agrees. She holds out her hand and a shard of light passes from it to Cleric's. As she turns to leave, Cade steps forward. "I would willingly share this burden with my companion," he offers. Astreas asks if he is certain. Cade is. She nods, and waves her hand. Dracul and Gil'Doren offer to help as well. 

As Astreas's glowing form recedes into the dawn sky, Cleric approaches Sotar and casts Wish. Within seconds the hateful, hissing vampire thrall is transformed into a weak and haggard, but very alive, elf. The past days, she says, seem like a dark dream to her. Her Sindarin comrades rejoice at her return to the living and thank you profusely for your help. Cleric enjoins them to preserve the secret of his involvement.

Now you must decide what to do about Malevix. Seeking further information, you call upon Baba Yaga via the tokens she left in your possession. To your surprise, the mysterious traveller appears almost immediately in her fabled hut. You question her about the vampire's claims of time travel and the future of Hârn. Though she declines to provide details about what the future holds, she explains that there in fact many possible futures: nothing is yet written in stone. Nevertheless, she says, there are currents in space-time that are difficult to fight against. More importantly, however, she tells you that many who travel in time are unable to comprehend what they see and experience; often it drives them mad. Malevix's unyielding certainty, obsession even, about this mage named Wentiua being the root cause of a bleak future strikes Baba Yaga as the sign of a mind that has succumbed to the strains of repeated temporal dislocations.

Thanking Baba Yaga for her time, you then use your scrying crytal to contact the mage Andronikos in Cherafir. You ask about Wentiua. He informs you that the only mage named Wentiua he knows of is a young woman, a talented researcher but a notoriously poor magic-user: she is barely capable of casting the simplest cantrips. She spends all her time researching some poorly understood pet project, and in truth is something of an embarrassment to her father, a mage himself and senior member of the local Shek Pvar chantry, and to her mother, a high priestess of the church of Larani.

Puzzling over these revelations, you decide to investigate the chamber through which Malevix fled. Descending once again to the circular Dwelling, you use your keystick to open the door: yet another "moving chamber" lies behind. It takes you yet deeper into the earth, depositing you at the end of a long corridor that leads to a great chamber containing a teleportation dais, a wooden shrine of recent manufacture, and an 18-foot tall, four-legged, cyclopean metal construct that looms, unmoving, over the centre of the room.

Investigation of papers scattered near the shrine suggests that at some point in the last few centuries, a religious cult had been practised here, focused on the automaton which is referred to as the Angel of Steel. According to the writings, it both protects the faithful from threats that emerge from the teleportation dais, and purges the cult of unbelievers by destroying them with rays from its eye. The cult appears to have ceased some time ago, and there's no indication of what became of its adherents.

Wary of the automaton, you nonetheless decide that your best course of action is to make for Cherafir immediately. Activating the teleportation dais, you enter the portal that appears and find yourself deep within Caer Cherafir, the imposing citadel that commands this port city. There, you are reunited with Galindo, who has been running counter-intelligence for the Melderyni for some time. Andronikos soon appears and introduces you to General Vathek, the man in charge of the city's defenses. He explains the strategic situation: although the stone walls are strong and the city is well supplied to withstand a siege, the defenders are too few. Packs of giants and gargun rampage through the countryside nearby, destroying farms and taking slaves. The ocean route is cut off: a storm giant and perhaps even some kind of tentacled sea monster has destroyed every ship that tries to leave or reach the harbour. The noose is tightening and reports suggest that the enemy forces may appear before the walls any day now.

While Dracul confers with the generals and Cade explores the city and the waters that surround it, Galindo and Gil'Doren seek out Wentiua. In the company of her father, Omthal, they confront the young mageling in her study, a cluttered space full of books and notes. Pleased to discover that you take an interest in her work, she goes on at length about her invention of a new language, one that will allow her to describe and model continuous change with a precision and universality that frees her from reliance on the esoteric and idiosyncratic modes of current arcane theorization. She calls it, the calculus.

Gil'Doren, as much affronted by her dismissal of arcane lore as he is concerned by the possibility that Malevix may be right, challenges Wentiua to reconsider her approach. After lengthy and profound debate, she concedes that she will go back to the drawing board and re-think her efforts to circumvent the magical in her modeling of reality. 

 

Happy at your success in the debate but uncertain of what this turn of events may signify, you gather to consider your next move. War approaches: what will you do?

 

 

* Note to readers: much of the information that appears here as a monologue was actually delivered in a back-and-forth with the players. The event had, nonetheless, some of the characteristics of the classic super-villain's monologue, as was remarked upon humorously at the time.

** Cleric had cast Planar Ally the night before.