GoCorral

This session was recorded and can be viewed on YouTube. I had the name tags messed up for the first part of the session in the video, but hopefully you can figure it out. We had everyone attending and played our usual way, Skype for voice and video and Roll20 for a virtual tabletop.

Axe Falls

Torin’s spell brought Danar back to life on his feet with Dragorogi in his hand. He threw himself at Darudanano. As he closed, Daru bit Danar, draining his blood. Danar’s sword hit home as well in an explosion of violence. The dragovinian’s magical protections struck back at Danar. With a duel of magical energy in the air Danar didn’t come away unscathed, but he won the exchange.

As Danar flew by Daru he handed a wooden stake to Tagenadi. Daru coughed up the blood he’d just stolen from Danar. He stumbled backwards and snatched a staff from a bag on Barejando’s belt. The members of the party with knowledge of powerful artifacts recognized the weapon as the Staff of Not. Daru held the Staff forward and time froze for Tagenadi, Danar, Gorwinua, Eathirilu, Hektor’s Solar, as well as Darudanano himself. Tagenadi stuttered, “Broth-” before the chronomancy stopped the words in his mouth.

With Eathirilu frozen in time, Jevaninada was freed. He shot towards Hektor who was still in his titan polymorph form. Hektor recoiled at the assault, but survived.

Blendegad continued to scream in his antimagic forcecage prison. He tried to cast a spell, but the magic failed under Gorwinua’s curse. The dragovinian priests tried their best as well, but their weak magic couldn’t pierce the party’s defenses.

Tagenadi, Eathirilu, Gorwinua, Danar, and Hektor’s Solar struggled against the static field of the Staff of Not. Their struggle vibrated into Darudanano causing blood to seep from his eyes and ears. Scales began to peel off his body as the strain of the artifact’s magic began to undo him.

Hektor cast a wish spell, trying to end the effect of the Staff of Not. Jevaninada lashed out at Hektor with the Diamond Sword of Xoria. The blow cut through an artery in Hektor’s neck. He fell to the ground dead.

Torin prayed to Athena to restore his allies’ health and vanquish his enemies. Divine light filled the throne room. Danar’s wounds stitched back together. Darudanano’s undead body couldn’t resist the power of an Olympian. As he turned to black ash Daru mouthed, “I’m sorry,” to Tagenadi. The Staff of Not clamored to the ground.

Danar’s fist glowed with green fire. The fire enlarged and leapt off his hand forming a large dragon claw. The claw rushed towards Jevaninada and slammed the king into the throne room wall. Danar followed up the crushing attack with a magically launched stake aimed at Jevaninada’s heart. The stake deflected off Jevaninada’s magical armor.

Eathirilu charged in behind Danar’s crushing claw and grabbed Jevaninada in his dinosaur maw. Tagenadi followed behind while shouting, “This is for Daru!” Most of the powerful force from Eathirilu’s attacks flowed through Jevaninada and into a large iron ring he wore around one of his fingers.

Gorwinua psychically spoke to Jevaninada in the voice of Blendegad, “You failed me, you damned mortal. Redeem yourself now. Sacrifice yourself to me!” While Gorwinua would’ve undoubtedly convinced the dragovinian priests in the room, her impression could not fool someone as familiar with the Reaper God as King Jevaninada. Gorwinua followed her trick up with a dispel magic to strip away more of Jevaninada’s magical protections.

The dragovinian nobles protected by walls of force in the corners of the room began to scream as they realized this was not a moment of triumph for their race, but a moment of its downfall. Danar repositioned his crushing claw between himself and Blendegad. Danar moved closer and launched another stake at Jevaninada. Hektor’s Solar healed Danar’s wounds.

Jevaninada clicked his heels together, allowing himself to move supernaturally fast. He zipped out of Eathirilu’s jaws and onto the dinosaur druid’s back. He raised the Diamond Sword and brought it down with the force of an executioner. Eathirilu shuddered as his vertebrae were assaulted, but he maintained his will to fight.

Tagenadi flew up beside Jevaninada. The undead knight whirled his kusari-gama around and trapped Jev in a cage of steel. Whichever direction the king moved in, he would be hit by Tagenadi’s weapon. Eathirilu threw Jev off his back and slashed at him with tooth and claw. A look of fear crossed the dragovinian king’s face. He wouldn’t be able to defeat all these foes on his own. Eathirilu continued to attack. The force of his attacks flowed into the iron ring on Jevaninada’s finger as before, but the ring had reached its limit. The energy flowed back into Jevaninada. He burned white hot and then his body was simply gone. His possessions clattered to the floor.

The Final Nail

Blendegad screeched and slammed his sword against the walls of his forcecage, but without magic he had no ability to break through.

The party took a moment to breath. Gorwinua used her psychic speech to taunt Blendegad, “Death or Tartarus?”
“Were this wall down, I would be asking you the same question!”

Hektor’s Solar revived Hektor. The group took up positions around Blendegad’s forcecage and prepared to attack him as one. Hektor started things off by disintegrating the wall of force. Tagenadi struck at Blendegad with white raven hammer. Eathirilu bit Blendegad and picked up the small vampire in his maw. After their initial attacks, Tagenadi and Danar charged at Blendegad. They sliced into the Reaper dealing him several wounds. On Danar’s last strike, Blendegad’s form turned into mist.

The party felt a divine presence at the entrance to the throne room. They whipped their heads around and saw Amalius in his angelic form. Amalius concentrated and started to speed his internal chronology up. Hektor shot an antimagic ray at Amalius. His divine intuition predicted where Hektor would fire and Amalius dodged. Gorwinua tried to take control of Amalius’s temporal acceleration. She strained herself and succeeded. She wrested control of the magic and exploded the energy in Amalius’s face.

After all of that, Amalius smiled and quickened a second temporal acceleration. As he dropped back into real time he stood next to Blendegad’s gaseous form holding an iron flask. Blendegad’s misty body was sucked into the iron flask and Amalius slapped a cork into the neck, trapping the Reaper God.

“No!” shouted Torin. He shot a dispel magic at the iron flask. His first shot missed, but Torin quickened a second one and succeeded. The magical prison failed and Blendegad’s mist emerged from the bottle again.

Danar stepped forward, hefted his sword, and cleaved the iron flask in two. He followed that attack by dispelling some of the active magical effects on Amalius. Gorwinua attempted to assault Amalius’s mind with a dissonant sound, but the divine psion resisted.

Eathirilu felt the mystic connection he had with Pan and all things natural growing stronger. The Touch of Nature in his forehead was ready. Eathirilu was confronted with a choice. Using the Touch of Nature would kill Blendegad. Additionally, Eathirilu could destroy all vampiric beings created by Blendegad and their descendants or he could turn them all back into their mortal forms. Eathirilu made the decision easily.

A beam of energy shot from Eathirilu’s forehead where his third eye had been. The beam hit Blendegad’s gaseous body and the Reaper’s corporeal form rematerialized. His body shone with natural energy as the Touch of Nature overwhelmed him. The energy shot forth from Blendegad and spread across the entire world, turning vampires and dragovinians back into mortals in every corner of creation.

The priests in the forcecage and the assembled nobles behind the walls of force became mortals once again. All their draconic and vampiric features disappeared as they returned to being merely human. Eathirilu felt the purifying power spread across Cimmeria.

Amalius had only arrived to capture the divine energy of Blendegad. With that energy now gone, he instantly departed without a trace. Gorwinua tried to halt his retreat, but it was too late.

The dragovinians were defeated and peace could now return to Cimmeria.

We took a break at this point before coming back to go through the first part of the epilogue of the campaign.

A Deep Breath

A few minutes later the rest of the Alliance members showed up, Astyanax, King Mero III of Mars’ Oasis, Alabaster of Mars’ Oasis, Gradorian, Junai, and Kig Yupington. While most were jubilant, King Mero III stared daggers at Tagenadi, obviously hoping that something unfortunate had befallen the undead warrior.

Eathirilu returned to his original elf form, a shape that he assumed rarely. He chuckled to himself and then he dropped to his knees. He whispered to himself, “You did it,” before turning to the others. “I’ll leave the rest to you then.” Eathirilu started walking towards the exit.
Hektor caught up with Eathirilu and said, “Aren’t you forgetting something? The world isn’t safe yet.”
“Barakah?”
“That’s right. We allowed Ammutseba back into the world. She’s going to unmake all of reality. We have to stop her by hunting down Barakah and killing it.”
Gorwinua stepped up. “We have complete faith in you, Hektor,” she said with a sly smile.
Eathirilu said, “My time for protecting this world is done, Hektor. I do have faith in you, all of you. You can take care of it.”
Hektor said, “Well, thanks.”
Eathirilu reached up and gripped the back of Hektor’s head, “I’ve never run with a better pack than you. You can do this Hektor. You are stronger than you know.”
Hektor shrugged off Eathirilu’s hand. “You’re a goddamn coward and you’re leaving your pack to die.”
Eathirilu turned towards the door.
“But Eathirilu, at least stay for the party,” said Gorwinua.
And he walked out.
Hektor went back to the rest of the group. He muttered to himself, “I’ll see if anyone else will help me hunt down Barakah then.” Hektor spent the rest of the evening trying to convince the others in the throne room to aid him in hunting down the vessel of Ammutseba.

Alabaster clapped Danar on the back, “You killed them with that sword we made you. Amazing job!”
Danar said, “Yes! It performed wonderfully.”
Danar went over to the place that Jevaninada had died. The Diamond Sword of Xoria lay on the ground and Danar nudged it with his foot while saying, “Funny, the changes that a king can make on the world for better or worse.” As he spoke, the sword changed from a dark red crystal color to gray. Danar took the sword for safekeeping until he could put it in the hands of Princess Tarigananata. As he held the hilt Danar felt weakened, but the feeling passed when he stowed it in his portable hole.
Tagenadi swept up the remains of his brother, Darudanano, into a glass jar. Once he’d finished he stood up and carefully dusted his hands off into the jar. “Okay, I think that’s everything.”
Gorwinua came up. “I think you missed something,” she said as she tossed Tagenadi the Crown of Xoria.
“We should take this to Princess Tarigananata.” Tagenadi felt weakened as he held the crown.
“Best keep it safe for her then.”
“Yes.” Tagenadi put the crown into his portable hole and the feeling passed.
Torin interjected, “Hold on! That belongs to me by right of conquest.”
Tagenadi said, “This war needs to end. You have your underground lands. The living Xorians will have theirs. We need to return this land to peace.”
“We need to return this land to the living,” barked Torin.
“Well, that too,” said Tagenadi. “I’m certain I won’t have a part in this new world and the underground lands that were taken from the dwarves are surely yours.”
“Don’t get too comfortable with that crown. I’ll speak with the High King about this,” Torin turned on his heel and walked out of the throne room.

After finishing the schmoozing in the throne room, the Alliance members left Nox Castle. Kig Yupington stayed behind to oversee the transition of power for now. The rest teleported back to Jipangu for a celebration!

Goodbyes

As the party started, Tagenadi went to speak privately to Fauxmalius, “Amalius, I need to tell you another story about a friend I lost in this war which, I think, is now ending. I think my friend lost himself in this war. If he would come back he would find that he still has his friends. If you see that friend of mine pass that story along.”
Fauxmalius told Tagenadi, “Your message will be heard.”
Tagenadi said, “Shall we join the party?”
“Actually, that same friend of ours might have something you want. I think he’s found a way to bring back your mortal body.”
“He…” Tagenadi was stunned. “What?”
“You don’t have to be a skeleton anymore. You can be just a human.”
Tagenadi stood with his jaw open for a moment. He clacked his teeth together. “That would be good.”
Amalius said, “Why don’t you come see me in a year and we’ll talk about it.”
“Okay…” Tagenadi shook his head, then asked, “How was the honeymoon?”
“Great, I’ll tell you on the way to the party.”

The death of Blendegad and Jevaninada and the rejuvenation of the dragovinians rocked Cimmeria. Wild celebrations were held throughout Eastern Cimmeria, but events had a different tone in Western Cimmeria where the Xorians had conquered for the last half century. People rose up all throughout the Xorian Empire to attack and murder the previously immortal nobility. Riots swept the nation.

The overly stressed military broke as they tried to maintain order. The entire office corps had been staffed by dragovinians who were executed as soon as they were identified. Thousands of soldiers deserted. The Amazons immediately seceded from the Empire as well, taking their much needed martial might with them.

At the party in Jipangu, Gorwinua sat to the side, pensive. Before the promiscuous party was in full swing she sang a melancholy song.

When she was done, she left with barely a trace.

Hektor got blitzed, made a fool of himself, and passed out.

In the morning Hektor found a letter and a portable hole on his bedside table. The letter was addressed to him in Gorwinua’s hand. The letter explained that her time in Cimmeria had passed. She wrote that it was important that strong leadership keep Cimmeria together and it was Hektor’s responsibility to guide the new leaders of the land.

At the end of the letter was Gorwinua’s will detailing the distribution of her belongings contained within the portable hole between Hektor, Danar, Tagenadi, Torin, the Great Library of Mars’ Oasis, and the future Great Chief of the Orc Tribes. To each of her friends, Gorwinua gave a few magic items, some of her writings, and some gold. The Great Library was given the rest of Gorwinua’s extensive oeuvre. Hektor was given the responsibility of identifying the future Great Chief of the Orc Tribes once such a person existed and giving him a set of magical items and two books detailing orc history.

Gorwinua gave each of her friends an important duty as well, to protect a verse of the Hymn of Resurrection used to revive Zeus. The old prophecy was now known to many and a dead god could be brought back at any time. A powerful ability that could be used for good or evil. The only significant limitation on this process was “a voice better than the gods,” Gorwinua’s voice. Her Hymn was the key to reviving a god and no one person could possess such power. Hektor, Danar, Tagenadi, Torin, and Eathirilu as well, would each be given a verse to guard for posterity as they wished.

The epilogue continued after this, detailing the events over the next few years.