Nemesis Destiny
Adventurer
This one is mainly for [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION], but others may find value in it as well. He (I think?) asked for details on a game I mentioned running that had apocalyptic themes and dealt with fate, and I'm happy to share, but this game has a lot of background, and I didn't want to clutter the initial thread any further as this is a huge derail.
The background
This game, that I'd named Drakkan Reunification, has a lot of threads interwoven into other aspects of our campaign world, so it needs a bit of explanation.
First of all, Drakkans are a human culture in my campaign world (that I co-DM with my wife) patterned after Scandinavian vikings (among other things), but that's the shortest way to put it, I think. They are a sea-faring, warrior culture with a long history on the continent of Krondor. On the surface, they seem uncivilized and savage to some of the other cultures, but they have honour and noble intentions, and in many ways are quite a bit more developed than they appear. They eventually came to peace with the other nations of Lanasia and Daventrae, brokered by the dwarves, whose mountain range separates them.
I will apologize in advance for my abuse of Scandinavian tongues for the creation of my names of people, places, and things in Drakkan culture.
Long ago in the timeline, one of the kings of Drakka had twin sons, and rather than risk a schism in his kingdom, bequeathed a new kingdom to one of them on a volcanic island off the coast. While this appears to be a shortchange, suffice to say the island has deep cultural significance for them as it is a home for dragons, which they revere, and from whence their name is derived. Anyway, fate had other plans. The voyage of Kellan was blown off course, and ended with their ships dashed to splinters on the rocks of a far away shore. They found the nation of Drakknir in the northern reaches of Itania
Fast forward to present time. A demonic invasion threatens Krondor, and a prophet arrives from across the sea, fortelling the reunification of the Drakkan nations, through the arrival of the Crown of the Lost King, and that this would herald the end of the demon war. The current king, excited by the prospect, immediately dispatches a voyage across the sea to locate his long-lost kin and retrieve the MacGuffin Crown.
Meanwhile in Itania, they have problems of their own. The land is struck by a sickness and corruption that runs through the earth itself. The human kingdoms to the south have fallen into disarray; violence, famine, pestilence, and death are everywhere. During the 3.x era, this was the main campaign I ran. Spanning level 1-18, it took the better part of 4 years to complete, gaming weekly, on average. It told part of the story.
Untold ages ago, a terrifying god-being bent on annihilation was sealed away, preventing calamity from enveloping all of creation. It bears a similarity to Tharizdun in D&D lore, or Azathoth from the Cthulhu Mythos. A being so alien and powerful that it defies understanding. Fortunately, it sleeps.
Other powerful beings became aware of it, and sought to harness its power for their own ends. One such being was T'satha - a demon-queen whose lust for power and conquest were legendary even among demon-kind (it should be noted that demons in my campaign are extra-terrestrial, rather than immortals from another plane, but their function in-game is unaffected, as they use portals to travel, rather than space vessels). Anyway, T'satha somehow managed to seize a fragment of the sleeping god-being, and forge its essence into an implement of destruction and domination. It took the form of a hideous greatsword, and it had a malevolence all its own. It was known as Kahlidoth.
Other beings also sought that power. T'satha's chief rivals, the three two-headed snake-demons, Malethion, Ichtherion, and (name unknown), became aware of Kahlidoth, and schemed to claim it as their own. To that end, they fashioned the amulet Merhidoth, a focus of tremendous power which would render the bearer immune to the fell influence of Kalhidoth, while enhancing their ability to control the fell blade. And so they went to war. In the ensuing conflict, one or more of the snake-gods was killed, and both Merhidoth and Kalhidoth lost in time & space.
As luck would have it, Kalhidoth found its way to Myrth, my game world, and festered there, waiting to be discovered. An end to which it subtly worked, much as the One Ring does in Tolkien's lore. Even as it lay hidden, it spread its fell taint across the land over centuries. Powers of Myrth became aware of it, Groth, the monolithic evil, in particular. He sent his four Bringers of Unholy Doom (echoing the four riders of the Apocalypse from biblical lore, at least in theme; I'm not religious so I might have muddled it). These riders waged a crusade for Kalhidoth, and eventually it was found. The resulting strife ruined and destroyed an entire nation, but it was eventually sealed away there in that nation's capital, Nythr, guarded by Aesa, a former cultist and Lich-devotee of Groth, now reduced to a ghostly spectre and thoroughly insane.
I should also note that in this campaign, only the cult of Groth holds the secret to lichdom, as well as all resurrection magic. Revivify is available, but Raise Dead, Resurrection, True Resurrection and the like are simply not normally available, barring wresting the secret from a Grothan cultist, and best-of-luck getting one to cooperate.
I will further note that Groth, though one of only two evil gods in a pantheon of 16, is by far the strongest of them, such that he too was sealed away in the distant past. In so doing, the other gods of Myrth also had to seal themselves, and have a pact of non-interference. They don't always abide by it, but most do, at the risk of releasing the power of Groth upon the world once more. So the gods exist, but they are largely unable or unwilling to directly influence the world, and can only do so through their agents; mortal priests invested with their power. Grothan cultists are few in number but great in power. Only two powers dare to meddle in the affairs of mortals, risking the ire of the other gods; Letha, the Other Evil God, mistress of vengeance, and Dechtire, goddess of luck, daughter of Gelena, goddess of fate and creation.
So, back to the 3.x campaign. It covered the story of the uncovering and apparent destruction of Kalhidoth, along with all of Groth's current Bringers of Unholy Doom. The game spanned over two years of in-game time, and, as I mentioned, took over 4 years to complete. It was the first time I'd ever completed an entire campaign arc. I was very emotionally invested in it, but by the end, I spent more time fighting the rules and wondering why things didn't work than I did actually running the game, so I was quite burnt out by the end.
It ended, as I said, with the apparent destruction of the evil artifact by adventurers, and involved, near the end, an assault on the seat of power in the main human kingdom of Itania, which was found to be infested by the forces of Groth's agents, T'satha's demonic hordes, and vestiges of the evil of the evil god-thing from which Kalhidoth was forged. This great battle involved all the nations of Itania, including Drakknir, and was calamitous in and of itself, even though the heroes did triumph.
The Campaign
So, the campaign I actually mean to talk about, the Drakkan Reunification, takes place in the midst of all this. This was my first long game running 4e, and I found it to be a huge improvement over 3.x. I have many reasons, but this thread isn't about editions, so I'll leave it at that.
Several things are happening; the land is tainted by the malign influence of Kalhidoth (but nobody yet knows its source), the savage tribes of the steppes to the south are becoming increasingly violent, there are soldiers of the human nations encroaching as well. Famine has struck, since the land is sick and increasingly unable to bear crops. Animals are also tainted and showing signs of aberration; Cthonic tentacles and the like. Even the dead won't sleep, and this concerns the gods, especially Faidos, god of death, though he is powerless to affect the world, beyond the influence of his [few] followers. Dechtire, however, refuses to sit idly by while the world burns. Risking censure, she takes human form, as a blind seer, to nudge things in the right direction. She became advisor to King Alrek the Wise, descendant of Kellen's line. I initially figured her role in the campaign would be more prominent, but things didn't work out that way. Oh well.
I've already talked about character creation in this thread.
For this campaign, I made liberal use of modules and played a lot of mix and match. I repurposed and renamed many NPCs. There is a lot of detail there that I will leave out, because it gets a bit confusing due to the changes made. I can go into greater detail about this later. This post will be long enough.
The game opened with goblin raids, advance word of which comes from the king's second cousin, Gretchen (one of the PCs). She staggered into his hall, wounded, warning of a coming goblin war band. Healed by one of the other PCs, she tells her tale, and they prepare their defences. The goblins are routed, but they manage to capture one, and interrogate him. He agrees to lead them to his master. I used Snilvor from Harkenwold for this NPC. He would continue to plague the PCs throughout the module, and even redeemed himself in the end.
In addition to ranting about Kaz'ralgh, a demigod-like being and red herring that I'd hinted at in my 3.x game, it turns out his master is a fell necromancer called Kalevi (he takes Kalten's role from Reavers, but I expanded on it), and happens to be one of Groth's Bringers of Unholy Doom. Death, in fact. The PCs kill his body, driving him out, but he instead takes the body of one of the PCs via a Magic Jar, though the two are left sharing the body. This ties into my modified Reavers of Harkenwold (renamed Graefholm). Kalevi periodically takes control of the PC from time to time, but they never did figure out what was truly going on (I did let the player of the PC in on part of it). Had the Kaz'ralgh thing taken off, I would have explored it more, but it didn't come up much.
I ran my modified Reavers of Harkenwold module at this point. I have to say, that module is just excellent, and I truly feel that had it been one of the 4e launch modules, the game might have enjoyed better success. That said, I modified the heck out of it, omiting parts, and altering names, places, and NPCs, as well as inserting all kinds of content to suit my game. I also interwove several threads of plot and included NPCs from my earlier 3.x game.
I realize that ran the risk of causing continuity problems if the PCs did something unexpected, and I don't like to railroad like this, but the good part about 4e, is that power design is pretty robust, and I was able to design NPCs with abilities that would allow escape when it was required for story reasons. A combination of that and Level +x NPCs was sufficient to ensure that prior established events would remain unentangled with continuity problems.
As part of the denouement of Reavers, Kalevi leaves the PC's body to take over Haadrek, Gretchen's grandfather, cousin to the king, Jarl of Graefholm, which is in the south of Drakknir. Kalevi shunted Haadrek's spirit into his heirloom blade and, in Haadrek's body, escapes to the southern Itanian kingdoms to join his Grothan brethren (which was a big part of my other campaign). The PCs pursue him south, but are blindsided by a warband of Orcs and other goblinoids from the Steppes of the Immarveldt. Gretchen, carrying her family's heirloom blade, is killed, but her body comes back to life with the spirit of Haadrek, after he sensed an empty vessel and occupied it. Awkward.
Not long after this, the group run into another group of badly-injured Drakkans, speaking with a strange accent, heading north. They claim to be from across the sea, and so are escorted back to Vathhattan, the capital of Drakknir. Feasts are held while they explain their purpose. Unfortunately the Crown of the Lost King is, itself, lost to the people of Drakknir. The PCs help, searching high and low, including Isstarn, the tower of Ice, far to the north (where I ran a cute crossover with events in my older 3.x game), and the Tomb of Kellan. They encounter no sign of the object, in the Ice tower, and though the tomb of Kellan was empty, it offered some clues about the True Nature of the MacGuffin, and its possible location.
The original Drakkans in Kellan's party had settled along the coast, but were forced to abandon the settlements by trolls. At one point, after establishing a realtively safe hold inland, they tried to retake the initial settlements on the coast. They, along with the MacGuffin, never returned. One of the PCs remembered an old song which contained a further clue about where this was, so off they went. I used a bunch of material from the 4e Steading of the Giant module in Dungeon, and merged it with some unused maps from Reavers, as well as a heap of custom content.
Long story short, they narrowly succeeded in their bold raid, and reclaimed the Crown, which turned out to actually be a mace. One of the PCs grabbed it and ran back to Vathattan, while another collapsed the exit to prevent the trolls' pursuit, but that trapped them in the cave. Fortunately, there was another way; a water drain in the caves that led to unknown depths. Taking that option in preference to near-certain death, they emerged, breathless, in an underground lake.
Shortly afterward, they encountered the most serious manifestation of corruption to date; malevolent tentacles reaching up from the depths. Their fallen companion, Kara, now a Valkyrie, came upon them and drove back the corruption. She was obviously Returned. She still bore the wound that felled her, though it didn't seem to trouble her. Mechanically, she was converted from Human to Revenant, and given a new Theme (refluffed Haunted Blade). She also had a mission, given by the gods, and that was to guide this group to their Fate. She was not given the details.
They emerged from the mountain in a lost and isolated plateau, where it turns out the descendants of Kellan formed a second colony, amongst the elves who lived there, and the dwarves of nearby Khara-zulg. There were quite a few more dwarves than there had traditionally been, as it seems that Khara-zulg was evacuated. More evidence abounded of corruption, and they battled it valiantly wherever it would be found. They were directionless, but decided to try and make their way back to known lands. The mountain was impassable, and the roads through the Undermyrth were blocked by the sealing of Khara-zulg. There were other roads, but they were not known.
The group decided to push through the fallen dwarf city. There they met restless dead and animated dwarven guardians, now infused with the power of the corruption. This culminated in a battle with a mechanical dragon construct at the mouth of a verticle mining bore hole. One of the PCs fell down the shaft, taking the dragon down with it. The player wanted out of the game for IRL reasons, and I used this as a way to have his fate remain nebulous. He never did return, but his disappearance down the hole was a great impetus to get the rest of the group moving.
They descended the shaft, looking for their lost companion, but finding only chunks of dragon. They are reunited with Snilvor, who says he knows the way out and will guide them. They have a bit of trouble trusting him, but decide that they have little choice and can always murder him if he deceives them.
At the bottom of the shaft, they find themselves in the Undermyrth, which, at this juncture, I felt heavily inspired by Final Fantasy IV. For those unfamiliar with that game, part of the mid-game takes place underground; it's a vast cave with magma lakes, and is populated by dwarves, dark fey, and fierce beasts. It contains only one path to the surface: a magical tower that reaches from the roots of the earth to the sky and has apocalyptic connotations. I repurposed everything, but tried to maintain the feel. The others in my group who've played that game said it was pretty good. I drew on other sources of inspiration as well.
Snilvor knew about the tower, and that it leads to the surface, but little else. After coming to a crossroad, the group is ambushed by dark goblins (which look more like Pathfinder goblins), though the battle attracts some dark elves (which are nothing like WotC dark elves), who aid the group, but drag off Snilvor, because though he is tainted by dark magic, he is not like the other dark goblins.
With only one dissenter, the PCs decide to make for the tower anyway to try their luck. The tower, which is actually an ancient magical focus that is at the focal point of many ley line convergences, is also corrupted by the taint of Kahlidoth, and not only is well-equipped to defend against intruders, but also partly under the control of dark goblins, who seem unaffected by its power (I wonder why?). It's situated on the far side of a lava-filled gorge, and has a narrow stone bridge that (unbeknownst to the PCs) can magically retract.
The group, under heavy fire from tower artillery, and facing a now-disappearing drawbridge, beat a hasty retreat. The tower sends out hunters to find them, but the group evades discovery and decide to try and find Snilvor after all. As it happens, Snilvor left a breadcrumb trail of mushroom bits for them to follow. The trail leads to an enchanted cave with a waterfall in slow motion, that I ripped off from Beyond the Crystal Cave, a module that had been updated from AD&D for 4e, and released in Dungeon as part of Encounters. I had been running through it in a PbP run by Jbear on this very board.
They navigated the cave, met the dark elves, negotiated Snilvor's release, and learned a ton about the nature of things in my world. They also experienced a massive time dilation, as I needed to resync things with my older 3.x campaign, and I had also established that the dark elves live in a pocket dimension that exists somewhere else, beyond the world. The interior of the cave gradually gave way to starscape and the settlement itself floats on rocky islands in a sea of stars, suspended in twilight and darkness.
The group returned to the tower and with Snilvor's help, fought an uphill battle to gain entry. They then fought their way up the tower, through the corruption, to the surface. It ended up taking them to the ruins of Fel'eneldra, the seat of power in a nation of dark elves from millennia ago. It had, up until recently, been inhabited by Thazgoraad, a fearsome shadow dragon.They found the dragon's corpse, complete with missing parts and wounds of battle, all of which were references to his "defeat" in my 3.x game. Of course, he was a cultist of Groth and had attained draco-lichdom. He came back to life to defend his tower in death, but again suffered defeat, though the group knew nothing about phylacteries and so he would reform after their departure.
In the dragon's lair in the top of the tower, was a reflecting pool, functioning as a powerful focus for a scrying ritual. The group's chief ritual caster, the druid, used it and received a powerful vision of the future. It depicted a lichlike version of Kalevi, whom they thought defeated, working with three other liches to bring about a dire future. They seemed to be casting some sort of ritual, and it involved a malevolent force like the tentacles they had been seeing. It also depicted war, and their kin dying. Alarmed, they returned to Drakknir.
They showed up just in time to join Alrek's forces; he'd been asked by some southlanders to help participate in a seige on the capital city in the heart of Itania. I played up the blind seer's role a bit more here, hinting at a greater destiny for all of them.
In the ensuing battle they fell to demons and Death Knights, which involved a bit of "unfair" DM choices, including Level +8 creatures, but being fearless Drakkan warriors, I knew they'd not give up until the end. They perished after a longer and closer battle than I anticipated, and awoke in the mist to the sound of a feast-hall. Following the sound, they arrived at a great hall, and within were the spirits of many of their ancestors, as well as some of the gods, or at least, representations of them.
I did a fair bit of exposition here, having the gods explain that the corruption they'd seen in life extended even into death and the realm of the dead, which in my cosmology is somwhere in the Deep Ethereal, beyond the wall of sleep. To end the threat, the corruption needed to be stopped at its source, but that they were powerless to interfere, because the corruption exists in the real world as well as here. They explained that agents of Groth were trying to capture the essence of Kahlidoth after its destruction by other heroes; they had forseen this. If the cultists of Groth managed to bind the power of Kahlidoth to their master, not even their combined power could keep the Evil One sealed away any longer.
I originally wanted to make this part of my campaign longer, but I was running out of ideas and getting a little bit of DM fatigue, so I cut to the chase a little more, and the PCs were not as interested in exploration as I'd hoped (which, looking back on it, is understandable). The gods offered as much help as they could; Faidos, god of death, would allow them passage into the Otherworld (or deep ethereal), Mord, god of sea and storms, would pilot their boat in the ethereal sea
I lost a bunch of my notes from this part of the game when power2ool went down, and I realized that I'd forgotten to journal the rest in my campaign calendar. The player controlling the Valkyrie decided that her role was finished, and he took over Snilvor, who also died during the battle, actually being somewhat heroic.
I recall that they crossed the ethereal sea, fought off a corrupted kraken, and made landfall on a frightening-looking island. They beached, with Mord awaiting their return, and made their way to the island interior. They fought Grothan cultists and wound up in some kind of ruins, where they discovered the four Bringers of Unholy Doom, in lich form, all working on a ritual.
The group deduced what was going on, at least enough to act. The liches were full power level 10 elites, but needed to spend actions and remain in place to maintain their ritual while the PCs attacked, so they were a bit constrained. They were all customized creatures, also lost to the power2ool void. I recall that the group was constantly being harried by cultist minions whlie they fought the Four. The PCs quickly figured out that all they needed to do was Disrupt The Ritual, rather than outright killing any of the Four. I do recall that they succeeded in preventing the Grothans from their prize, but can't recall if any of the Four were felled. I think at least some were. I very nearly killed two of the PCs, which would have meant their souls would be lost Forever.
The Epilogue
After the destruction of the Grothan vessel intended to contain the Essence of Kahlidoth, the PCs fled to Mord's waiting ship, and crossed back to the ethereal shore closest to the mortal realm, where they were thanked by the gods, and offered either a place of honour in the halls of the dead or reconstitution in their old mortal form. I left the campaign there, awaiting their choices, with the intent to possibly run more adventures for them; after all, the Grothan liches' phylacteries were not destroyed, and the continent lay in near-ruin. Savage tribes still threatened their border, and human armies would sway to whomever had the strength to command them, as they found out through the Reavers material. I'd renamed the Iron Circle into the Crimson Legion, and it was revealed that they were under the command of one of the liches.
There were more thematic elements at play than what I've included here, because it's hard to explain it all; this campaign has roots going back to the late 90s and it could fill volumes. It's also hard to shorten years of gaming into a few paragraphs, but I've tried. I deliberately didn't talk a lot about game mechanics, in part because we run a lot of houserules, and I've written about them before. I can answer any questions, and can refer you to my online campaign sourcebook for further info. It's not 100% complete, or even accurate in some cases, as sometimes there have been miscommunications of intent between my co-DM and myself, so even that source should be taken with a grain of salt. I hope this is helpful to pemerton, and anyone else curious (and patient!) enough to read it.
The background
This game, that I'd named Drakkan Reunification, has a lot of threads interwoven into other aspects of our campaign world, so it needs a bit of explanation.
First of all, Drakkans are a human culture in my campaign world (that I co-DM with my wife) patterned after Scandinavian vikings (among other things), but that's the shortest way to put it, I think. They are a sea-faring, warrior culture with a long history on the continent of Krondor. On the surface, they seem uncivilized and savage to some of the other cultures, but they have honour and noble intentions, and in many ways are quite a bit more developed than they appear. They eventually came to peace with the other nations of Lanasia and Daventrae, brokered by the dwarves, whose mountain range separates them.
I will apologize in advance for my abuse of Scandinavian tongues for the creation of my names of people, places, and things in Drakkan culture.
Long ago in the timeline, one of the kings of Drakka had twin sons, and rather than risk a schism in his kingdom, bequeathed a new kingdom to one of them on a volcanic island off the coast. While this appears to be a shortchange, suffice to say the island has deep cultural significance for them as it is a home for dragons, which they revere, and from whence their name is derived. Anyway, fate had other plans. The voyage of Kellan was blown off course, and ended with their ships dashed to splinters on the rocks of a far away shore. They found the nation of Drakknir in the northern reaches of Itania
Fast forward to present time. A demonic invasion threatens Krondor, and a prophet arrives from across the sea, fortelling the reunification of the Drakkan nations, through the arrival of the Crown of the Lost King, and that this would herald the end of the demon war. The current king, excited by the prospect, immediately dispatches a voyage across the sea to locate his long-lost kin and retrieve the MacGuffin Crown.
Meanwhile in Itania, they have problems of their own. The land is struck by a sickness and corruption that runs through the earth itself. The human kingdoms to the south have fallen into disarray; violence, famine, pestilence, and death are everywhere. During the 3.x era, this was the main campaign I ran. Spanning level 1-18, it took the better part of 4 years to complete, gaming weekly, on average. It told part of the story.
Untold ages ago, a terrifying god-being bent on annihilation was sealed away, preventing calamity from enveloping all of creation. It bears a similarity to Tharizdun in D&D lore, or Azathoth from the Cthulhu Mythos. A being so alien and powerful that it defies understanding. Fortunately, it sleeps.
Other powerful beings became aware of it, and sought to harness its power for their own ends. One such being was T'satha - a demon-queen whose lust for power and conquest were legendary even among demon-kind (it should be noted that demons in my campaign are extra-terrestrial, rather than immortals from another plane, but their function in-game is unaffected, as they use portals to travel, rather than space vessels). Anyway, T'satha somehow managed to seize a fragment of the sleeping god-being, and forge its essence into an implement of destruction and domination. It took the form of a hideous greatsword, and it had a malevolence all its own. It was known as Kahlidoth.
Other beings also sought that power. T'satha's chief rivals, the three two-headed snake-demons, Malethion, Ichtherion, and (name unknown), became aware of Kahlidoth, and schemed to claim it as their own. To that end, they fashioned the amulet Merhidoth, a focus of tremendous power which would render the bearer immune to the fell influence of Kalhidoth, while enhancing their ability to control the fell blade. And so they went to war. In the ensuing conflict, one or more of the snake-gods was killed, and both Merhidoth and Kalhidoth lost in time & space.
As luck would have it, Kalhidoth found its way to Myrth, my game world, and festered there, waiting to be discovered. An end to which it subtly worked, much as the One Ring does in Tolkien's lore. Even as it lay hidden, it spread its fell taint across the land over centuries. Powers of Myrth became aware of it, Groth, the monolithic evil, in particular. He sent his four Bringers of Unholy Doom (echoing the four riders of the Apocalypse from biblical lore, at least in theme; I'm not religious so I might have muddled it). These riders waged a crusade for Kalhidoth, and eventually it was found. The resulting strife ruined and destroyed an entire nation, but it was eventually sealed away there in that nation's capital, Nythr, guarded by Aesa, a former cultist and Lich-devotee of Groth, now reduced to a ghostly spectre and thoroughly insane.
I should also note that in this campaign, only the cult of Groth holds the secret to lichdom, as well as all resurrection magic. Revivify is available, but Raise Dead, Resurrection, True Resurrection and the like are simply not normally available, barring wresting the secret from a Grothan cultist, and best-of-luck getting one to cooperate.
I will further note that Groth, though one of only two evil gods in a pantheon of 16, is by far the strongest of them, such that he too was sealed away in the distant past. In so doing, the other gods of Myrth also had to seal themselves, and have a pact of non-interference. They don't always abide by it, but most do, at the risk of releasing the power of Groth upon the world once more. So the gods exist, but they are largely unable or unwilling to directly influence the world, and can only do so through their agents; mortal priests invested with their power. Grothan cultists are few in number but great in power. Only two powers dare to meddle in the affairs of mortals, risking the ire of the other gods; Letha, the Other Evil God, mistress of vengeance, and Dechtire, goddess of luck, daughter of Gelena, goddess of fate and creation.
So, back to the 3.x campaign. It covered the story of the uncovering and apparent destruction of Kalhidoth, along with all of Groth's current Bringers of Unholy Doom. The game spanned over two years of in-game time, and, as I mentioned, took over 4 years to complete. It was the first time I'd ever completed an entire campaign arc. I was very emotionally invested in it, but by the end, I spent more time fighting the rules and wondering why things didn't work than I did actually running the game, so I was quite burnt out by the end.
It ended, as I said, with the apparent destruction of the evil artifact by adventurers, and involved, near the end, an assault on the seat of power in the main human kingdom of Itania, which was found to be infested by the forces of Groth's agents, T'satha's demonic hordes, and vestiges of the evil of the evil god-thing from which Kalhidoth was forged. This great battle involved all the nations of Itania, including Drakknir, and was calamitous in and of itself, even though the heroes did triumph.
The Campaign
So, the campaign I actually mean to talk about, the Drakkan Reunification, takes place in the midst of all this. This was my first long game running 4e, and I found it to be a huge improvement over 3.x. I have many reasons, but this thread isn't about editions, so I'll leave it at that.
Several things are happening; the land is tainted by the malign influence of Kalhidoth (but nobody yet knows its source), the savage tribes of the steppes to the south are becoming increasingly violent, there are soldiers of the human nations encroaching as well. Famine has struck, since the land is sick and increasingly unable to bear crops. Animals are also tainted and showing signs of aberration; Cthonic tentacles and the like. Even the dead won't sleep, and this concerns the gods, especially Faidos, god of death, though he is powerless to affect the world, beyond the influence of his [few] followers. Dechtire, however, refuses to sit idly by while the world burns. Risking censure, she takes human form, as a blind seer, to nudge things in the right direction. She became advisor to King Alrek the Wise, descendant of Kellen's line. I initially figured her role in the campaign would be more prominent, but things didn't work out that way. Oh well.
I've already talked about character creation in this thread.
For this campaign, I made liberal use of modules and played a lot of mix and match. I repurposed and renamed many NPCs. There is a lot of detail there that I will leave out, because it gets a bit confusing due to the changes made. I can go into greater detail about this later. This post will be long enough.
The game opened with goblin raids, advance word of which comes from the king's second cousin, Gretchen (one of the PCs). She staggered into his hall, wounded, warning of a coming goblin war band. Healed by one of the other PCs, she tells her tale, and they prepare their defences. The goblins are routed, but they manage to capture one, and interrogate him. He agrees to lead them to his master. I used Snilvor from Harkenwold for this NPC. He would continue to plague the PCs throughout the module, and even redeemed himself in the end.
In addition to ranting about Kaz'ralgh, a demigod-like being and red herring that I'd hinted at in my 3.x game, it turns out his master is a fell necromancer called Kalevi (he takes Kalten's role from Reavers, but I expanded on it), and happens to be one of Groth's Bringers of Unholy Doom. Death, in fact. The PCs kill his body, driving him out, but he instead takes the body of one of the PCs via a Magic Jar, though the two are left sharing the body. This ties into my modified Reavers of Harkenwold (renamed Graefholm). Kalevi periodically takes control of the PC from time to time, but they never did figure out what was truly going on (I did let the player of the PC in on part of it). Had the Kaz'ralgh thing taken off, I would have explored it more, but it didn't come up much.
I ran my modified Reavers of Harkenwold module at this point. I have to say, that module is just excellent, and I truly feel that had it been one of the 4e launch modules, the game might have enjoyed better success. That said, I modified the heck out of it, omiting parts, and altering names, places, and NPCs, as well as inserting all kinds of content to suit my game. I also interwove several threads of plot and included NPCs from my earlier 3.x game.
I realize that ran the risk of causing continuity problems if the PCs did something unexpected, and I don't like to railroad like this, but the good part about 4e, is that power design is pretty robust, and I was able to design NPCs with abilities that would allow escape when it was required for story reasons. A combination of that and Level +x NPCs was sufficient to ensure that prior established events would remain unentangled with continuity problems.
As part of the denouement of Reavers, Kalevi leaves the PC's body to take over Haadrek, Gretchen's grandfather, cousin to the king, Jarl of Graefholm, which is in the south of Drakknir. Kalevi shunted Haadrek's spirit into his heirloom blade and, in Haadrek's body, escapes to the southern Itanian kingdoms to join his Grothan brethren (which was a big part of my other campaign). The PCs pursue him south, but are blindsided by a warband of Orcs and other goblinoids from the Steppes of the Immarveldt. Gretchen, carrying her family's heirloom blade, is killed, but her body comes back to life with the spirit of Haadrek, after he sensed an empty vessel and occupied it. Awkward.
Not long after this, the group run into another group of badly-injured Drakkans, speaking with a strange accent, heading north. They claim to be from across the sea, and so are escorted back to Vathhattan, the capital of Drakknir. Feasts are held while they explain their purpose. Unfortunately the Crown of the Lost King is, itself, lost to the people of Drakknir. The PCs help, searching high and low, including Isstarn, the tower of Ice, far to the north (where I ran a cute crossover with events in my older 3.x game), and the Tomb of Kellan. They encounter no sign of the object, in the Ice tower, and though the tomb of Kellan was empty, it offered some clues about the True Nature of the MacGuffin, and its possible location.
The original Drakkans in Kellan's party had settled along the coast, but were forced to abandon the settlements by trolls. At one point, after establishing a realtively safe hold inland, they tried to retake the initial settlements on the coast. They, along with the MacGuffin, never returned. One of the PCs remembered an old song which contained a further clue about where this was, so off they went. I used a bunch of material from the 4e Steading of the Giant module in Dungeon, and merged it with some unused maps from Reavers, as well as a heap of custom content.
Long story short, they narrowly succeeded in their bold raid, and reclaimed the Crown, which turned out to actually be a mace. One of the PCs grabbed it and ran back to Vathattan, while another collapsed the exit to prevent the trolls' pursuit, but that trapped them in the cave. Fortunately, there was another way; a water drain in the caves that led to unknown depths. Taking that option in preference to near-certain death, they emerged, breathless, in an underground lake.
Shortly afterward, they encountered the most serious manifestation of corruption to date; malevolent tentacles reaching up from the depths. Their fallen companion, Kara, now a Valkyrie, came upon them and drove back the corruption. She was obviously Returned. She still bore the wound that felled her, though it didn't seem to trouble her. Mechanically, she was converted from Human to Revenant, and given a new Theme (refluffed Haunted Blade). She also had a mission, given by the gods, and that was to guide this group to their Fate. She was not given the details.
They emerged from the mountain in a lost and isolated plateau, where it turns out the descendants of Kellan formed a second colony, amongst the elves who lived there, and the dwarves of nearby Khara-zulg. There were quite a few more dwarves than there had traditionally been, as it seems that Khara-zulg was evacuated. More evidence abounded of corruption, and they battled it valiantly wherever it would be found. They were directionless, but decided to try and make their way back to known lands. The mountain was impassable, and the roads through the Undermyrth were blocked by the sealing of Khara-zulg. There were other roads, but they were not known.
The group decided to push through the fallen dwarf city. There they met restless dead and animated dwarven guardians, now infused with the power of the corruption. This culminated in a battle with a mechanical dragon construct at the mouth of a verticle mining bore hole. One of the PCs fell down the shaft, taking the dragon down with it. The player wanted out of the game for IRL reasons, and I used this as a way to have his fate remain nebulous. He never did return, but his disappearance down the hole was a great impetus to get the rest of the group moving.
They descended the shaft, looking for their lost companion, but finding only chunks of dragon. They are reunited with Snilvor, who says he knows the way out and will guide them. They have a bit of trouble trusting him, but decide that they have little choice and can always murder him if he deceives them.
At the bottom of the shaft, they find themselves in the Undermyrth, which, at this juncture, I felt heavily inspired by Final Fantasy IV. For those unfamiliar with that game, part of the mid-game takes place underground; it's a vast cave with magma lakes, and is populated by dwarves, dark fey, and fierce beasts. It contains only one path to the surface: a magical tower that reaches from the roots of the earth to the sky and has apocalyptic connotations. I repurposed everything, but tried to maintain the feel. The others in my group who've played that game said it was pretty good. I drew on other sources of inspiration as well.
Snilvor knew about the tower, and that it leads to the surface, but little else. After coming to a crossroad, the group is ambushed by dark goblins (which look more like Pathfinder goblins), though the battle attracts some dark elves (which are nothing like WotC dark elves), who aid the group, but drag off Snilvor, because though he is tainted by dark magic, he is not like the other dark goblins.
With only one dissenter, the PCs decide to make for the tower anyway to try their luck. The tower, which is actually an ancient magical focus that is at the focal point of many ley line convergences, is also corrupted by the taint of Kahlidoth, and not only is well-equipped to defend against intruders, but also partly under the control of dark goblins, who seem unaffected by its power (I wonder why?). It's situated on the far side of a lava-filled gorge, and has a narrow stone bridge that (unbeknownst to the PCs) can magically retract.
The group, under heavy fire from tower artillery, and facing a now-disappearing drawbridge, beat a hasty retreat. The tower sends out hunters to find them, but the group evades discovery and decide to try and find Snilvor after all. As it happens, Snilvor left a breadcrumb trail of mushroom bits for them to follow. The trail leads to an enchanted cave with a waterfall in slow motion, that I ripped off from Beyond the Crystal Cave, a module that had been updated from AD&D for 4e, and released in Dungeon as part of Encounters. I had been running through it in a PbP run by Jbear on this very board.
They navigated the cave, met the dark elves, negotiated Snilvor's release, and learned a ton about the nature of things in my world. They also experienced a massive time dilation, as I needed to resync things with my older 3.x campaign, and I had also established that the dark elves live in a pocket dimension that exists somewhere else, beyond the world. The interior of the cave gradually gave way to starscape and the settlement itself floats on rocky islands in a sea of stars, suspended in twilight and darkness.
The group returned to the tower and with Snilvor's help, fought an uphill battle to gain entry. They then fought their way up the tower, through the corruption, to the surface. It ended up taking them to the ruins of Fel'eneldra, the seat of power in a nation of dark elves from millennia ago. It had, up until recently, been inhabited by Thazgoraad, a fearsome shadow dragon.They found the dragon's corpse, complete with missing parts and wounds of battle, all of which were references to his "defeat" in my 3.x game. Of course, he was a cultist of Groth and had attained draco-lichdom. He came back to life to defend his tower in death, but again suffered defeat, though the group knew nothing about phylacteries and so he would reform after their departure.
In the dragon's lair in the top of the tower, was a reflecting pool, functioning as a powerful focus for a scrying ritual. The group's chief ritual caster, the druid, used it and received a powerful vision of the future. It depicted a lichlike version of Kalevi, whom they thought defeated, working with three other liches to bring about a dire future. They seemed to be casting some sort of ritual, and it involved a malevolent force like the tentacles they had been seeing. It also depicted war, and their kin dying. Alarmed, they returned to Drakknir.
They showed up just in time to join Alrek's forces; he'd been asked by some southlanders to help participate in a seige on the capital city in the heart of Itania. I played up the blind seer's role a bit more here, hinting at a greater destiny for all of them.
In the ensuing battle they fell to demons and Death Knights, which involved a bit of "unfair" DM choices, including Level +8 creatures, but being fearless Drakkan warriors, I knew they'd not give up until the end. They perished after a longer and closer battle than I anticipated, and awoke in the mist to the sound of a feast-hall. Following the sound, they arrived at a great hall, and within were the spirits of many of their ancestors, as well as some of the gods, or at least, representations of them.
I did a fair bit of exposition here, having the gods explain that the corruption they'd seen in life extended even into death and the realm of the dead, which in my cosmology is somwhere in the Deep Ethereal, beyond the wall of sleep. To end the threat, the corruption needed to be stopped at its source, but that they were powerless to interfere, because the corruption exists in the real world as well as here. They explained that agents of Groth were trying to capture the essence of Kahlidoth after its destruction by other heroes; they had forseen this. If the cultists of Groth managed to bind the power of Kahlidoth to their master, not even their combined power could keep the Evil One sealed away any longer.
I originally wanted to make this part of my campaign longer, but I was running out of ideas and getting a little bit of DM fatigue, so I cut to the chase a little more, and the PCs were not as interested in exploration as I'd hoped (which, looking back on it, is understandable). The gods offered as much help as they could; Faidos, god of death, would allow them passage into the Otherworld (or deep ethereal), Mord, god of sea and storms, would pilot their boat in the ethereal sea
I lost a bunch of my notes from this part of the game when power2ool went down, and I realized that I'd forgotten to journal the rest in my campaign calendar. The player controlling the Valkyrie decided that her role was finished, and he took over Snilvor, who also died during the battle, actually being somewhat heroic.
I recall that they crossed the ethereal sea, fought off a corrupted kraken, and made landfall on a frightening-looking island. They beached, with Mord awaiting their return, and made their way to the island interior. They fought Grothan cultists and wound up in some kind of ruins, where they discovered the four Bringers of Unholy Doom, in lich form, all working on a ritual.
The group deduced what was going on, at least enough to act. The liches were full power level 10 elites, but needed to spend actions and remain in place to maintain their ritual while the PCs attacked, so they were a bit constrained. They were all customized creatures, also lost to the power2ool void. I recall that the group was constantly being harried by cultist minions whlie they fought the Four. The PCs quickly figured out that all they needed to do was Disrupt The Ritual, rather than outright killing any of the Four. I do recall that they succeeded in preventing the Grothans from their prize, but can't recall if any of the Four were felled. I think at least some were. I very nearly killed two of the PCs, which would have meant their souls would be lost Forever.
The Epilogue
After the destruction of the Grothan vessel intended to contain the Essence of Kahlidoth, the PCs fled to Mord's waiting ship, and crossed back to the ethereal shore closest to the mortal realm, where they were thanked by the gods, and offered either a place of honour in the halls of the dead or reconstitution in their old mortal form. I left the campaign there, awaiting their choices, with the intent to possibly run more adventures for them; after all, the Grothan liches' phylacteries were not destroyed, and the continent lay in near-ruin. Savage tribes still threatened their border, and human armies would sway to whomever had the strength to command them, as they found out through the Reavers material. I'd renamed the Iron Circle into the Crimson Legion, and it was revealed that they were under the command of one of the liches.
There were more thematic elements at play than what I've included here, because it's hard to explain it all; this campaign has roots going back to the late 90s and it could fill volumes. It's also hard to shorten years of gaming into a few paragraphs, but I've tried. I deliberately didn't talk a lot about game mechanics, in part because we run a lot of houserules, and I've written about them before. I can answer any questions, and can refer you to my online campaign sourcebook for further info. It's not 100% complete, or even accurate in some cases, as sometimes there have been miscommunications of intent between my co-DM and myself, so even that source should be taken with a grain of salt. I hope this is helpful to pemerton, and anyone else curious (and patient!) enough to read it.
