What is this?
This is a writing exercise which will be written as if it were an adventure log.
I will take the plot request of one of the first five posters who suggests a story direction. I will start the next post with the quote from the post that will be used as inspiration. Thus this will be a somewhat collaborative effort, like fans in the front row yelling suggestions at the actors as they go through a play (no rotten fruit, please).
The Set-Up
The Blood Treaty was signed when the Demons and Devils realized that if they had focused their energies spent warring towards taking over the Planes, rather than fighting each other, the worlds would be theirs by now. Some digging and Divining uncovered the Blood Wars as a conspiracy wrought by a cabal of Good Gods just after the beginning of time.
No one was sure who the first Wizard who attempted to summon a Demon or Devil after the Blood Treaty. He only wanted an Imp familiar but instead got the united hordes of the Abyss and Hell. Ambitious Paladins who always wanted to cleanse the lower planes need wait no longer; the lower planes have come to them.
The last remnants of the Blue Sun Empire, the Illithid armies that created the Githyanki and Githzarai have begun traversing the planes and the spheres. They have linked minds with powerful entities, trying to create an alliance that can withstand the combines might of the layers of the Abyss and the many Hells.
Vecna clawed out his one remaining eye and has his most trusted Death Knight lopped off his remaining hand. Now the Liche-God and his followers wander the planes as a blind prophet.
Sigil was taken after a month long siege. The Lady of Pain retreated to her Maze. When her downtrodden citizens of Sigil, under the whip of Demons and Devils, pray to her, she was kicked out of Sigil due to the city's strict laws on dieties. Through the Mazes and Labyrinths of the World wanders the Lady of Pain with her ragtag retinue, looking for heroes bold enough to take her city back and save the cosmos.
Once the Demons and Devils held the city they begin using its gates as staging grounds to destroy everything. Plane after plane fall to Abyssal and Hellish forces.
The Characters
Balan - 1st level Half-Orc Paladin - LG - In training at the Fortress-Cathedral of Nine Wells
The Paladin died defeating the Enemy. His son resumed his place in the pantheon, taking up his alignment's seat in the Gods' Council. Many worship the Paladin's Son, a religion that notes his growth and lessons while learning what it means to be a Lawful Good diety and sharing his pain at the less of his father.
Balan had trained hard to be a member of the Holy Order of the Paladin's son. He was only an orphan, left on the cathedral steps, and so he didn't get the special regard initiates did when they were born to the order. Naturally, these Paladins seen handing the calling down to a son as especially holy. He would have been sent to the Cleric-hood but his swordarm was spied by the weaponsmaster and his training as a Paladin began.
He is a lage boy, well over six spans and weighing just over 4 stones due to his Orcish blood. His jet black hair is cropped short for his helm and his eyes are likewise dark. Balan smiles his boar-tooth grin easily and although his understanding of divinities is not particularly well wrought but his faith is deep and heartfelt.
The night before being ordained as full Paladins the 18 initiates were cloistered in the vaults beneath the Cathedral, so they might be kept away from all worldly distractions. The boys meditated, knowing that before the night was through an elder Paladin, dressed in the traditional garb of a demon, complete with elaborate wooden mask would interrupt their prayers. He would offer them three pieces of silver to turn from their holy road.
It was an old ritual, always carried out but tonight it would go horribly wrong and these 18 intiates would be tested with steel and blood on a night they had thought would be reserved for peace and meditation.
Jin - 1st level Human Sorcerer - NG - Arcane talented street-kid on the streets of Nine Wells
In the southern kingdoms they worship the Witch-Hunter, who burns those who use arcane magic and does not grant his Clerics Divine magic until they are proven and shriven for decades. The Witch-Hunter says this shall keep them safe from the tempation of all magics.
Jin and her mother got out of the southern kingdoms alive but her father wasn't so lucky. He died defending their humble tower, where Jin's mother practiced sorcery in peace and solitude. A few years later, Jin's mother succumed to a winter chill, but Jin always knew it was heartbreak that killed her mother. When Jin found she had the Arcane Touch she practised hard, thinking the skill was her only heirloom from her dead ma.
Jin is a strong girl, with dirty blonde hair and a round face. Her eyes sparkle when she is happy and flash like dragon's breath when she is angry. Jin has a talent for Summoning, much as her mother did and hopes to bring great beings to this plane to aid in her liberations of the southern kingdoms.
For now, Jin works with the Nine Wells Watch, working with the gatekeepers and casting Detect Magic from a city-made want on suspicious folk, making sure the city is kept safe. She was on duty with her captain when a man knocked on the gate door. He was immaculately dressed in robes that were such a dark shade of red as to be black and he held his head high.
From the high gate tower, the Captain turned to Jin and asked, "Jin, put the wand on this one. He might what you would see if you looked in a crystal ball and asked for sleaze."
Jin smiled at her captain's instincts, which were harder on visitors the later the hour. She pointed her wand, knowing the visitor couldn't see her but feeling that he was perceiving her act. The magical auras made her squint.
"How many?" the guard asked.
Jin gaped. "Nineteen, captain."
Sorrea - 1st level Half-Elven Ranger - CG - Apprentice Ranger in the Saintswood
Some say Robin Folkenbow is the bastard son or daughter of the Paladin. Robin's followers do not care what his heritage might be. He is a good and caring diety, lending strength to the people who pray at the Folkbow altar.
Sorrea made her living with her aunt, trapping and hunting in the royal forest and making certain that the poaching never endangered the forest's delicate balance. Her aunt taught her to fire a bow and use a spear. She taught her to identify the different mushrooms, roots and droppings and how to keep warm in the winter and cool in the summer.
Sorrea is a lithe girl, with long red hair tied back in a braid down her back. Her eyes are always scanning a room as if the people in it were a stag she is hunting. She likes people well enough but often sees them as too complicated and longs for the life in the forest, without the nonsense that seems to follow friends and family.
Sorrea picked up the trail of several deer heading towards the city, fleeing something. One of the stags had crashed into a tree in his haste, leaving a piece of antler on the rough bark. When she showed it to her aunt she frowned, not knowing what to make of it. "Dragon," Sorrea asked, trying to think of what could frighten a herd of deer like that. Her aunt responded by silently following their backtrail.
The trail led to a Wizard's tower. The Wizard was an old friend of her aunt and Sorrea believed that sometimes they would keep each other warm during the winter months. As Sorrea worked up the nerve to ask her aunt what she saw in men a flash of lightning came from within.
Her aunt grabbed her shoulders. "Sorrea, listen to me carefully. Go to Nine Wells, tell the wall captain that the Wizard's Tower is in danger."
Sorrea sneered. "I want to stay and help you, aunt." Her aunt's response, a brutal slap across the face took Sorrea by surprise.
"Do as I say, girl." Her aunt slid from the trail into the woods, stalking towards the tower. Sorrea rubbed her face and knew this would be the last time she would ever see her aunt alive but nonetheless, she started towards Nine Wells to complete her aunt's final wish.
Manch - 1st level Dwarven Rogue - CE - Streetwise cutpurse on the streets of Nine Wells
The Paladin defeated the Enemy and that seat on the Gods' Council was empty for what seemed like an eternity. Some even said that there were only eight Gods now and the world had no need for a ninth but the Wizards and Clerics who studied the heavens and alignments were not convinced the heavens could change so quickly.
Manch made his living on the street of Nine Wells. It was a prosperous city with wealth coming in and out all of the time. So long as the crimes weren't against the wrong people and weren't too regularly practiced, crime could be done here with fair regularity. Manch's clan disowned his father for oath-breaking and Manch's family are craftsman, lock-makers in the Guilder District of the city.
Manch is a square bit of muscle with a black beard kept short and a black hair that frames his face in two ponytails. His father always speaks of honor but so far as Manch can tell, honor only got his father banished and branded and so he makes no oaths and keeps none.
Sometimes he get's sailors drunks and sells them to ships for crew. By the time they sober up they are out at sea. Sometimes when he is desperate he cracks fools over the head with the butt of his axe, so's not to attract the wrong kind of attention. He killed a man in a barfight some years ago, but to Manch's credit, the other man drew a knife in what was to be a nice clean brawl. Manch planted his handaxe in the man's thigh and heard later than he had bled to death.
Manch would often pray to his victim's grave, not refering to his name, but only as fool. He was thinking that he himself would die in much this fashion. "Greetings, fool. Just another night in the alleys. I feel something coming, though. I feel something like a tidal wave of opportunity. Don't know what it is. Can't rightly say.
"Whatever it is, fool, watch my back for a time. I can make something of myself, show my pa that no oaths are necessary to live a rich life. Soon enough I'll join you in the feast hall and we'll continue our fight. Perhaps this time you won't be fool enough to draw steel on a Dwarf. Neh?"
Manch got off of his knees to go about his evening's activities. They would probably amount to a few stolen purses and a dramatic conclusion in a whore's arms.
Manch didn't pray to be heard by Gods and so was surprised when a chilling voice called from the graveyard's shadows. "A tidal wave of opportunity you say? Well spoken, young master Dwarf. You have no idea how right you are. Listen closely..."
Ideas?
This is a writing exercise which will be written as if it were an adventure log.
I will take the plot request of one of the first five posters who suggests a story direction. I will start the next post with the quote from the post that will be used as inspiration. Thus this will be a somewhat collaborative effort, like fans in the front row yelling suggestions at the actors as they go through a play (no rotten fruit, please).
The Set-Up
The Blood Treaty was signed when the Demons and Devils realized that if they had focused their energies spent warring towards taking over the Planes, rather than fighting each other, the worlds would be theirs by now. Some digging and Divining uncovered the Blood Wars as a conspiracy wrought by a cabal of Good Gods just after the beginning of time.
No one was sure who the first Wizard who attempted to summon a Demon or Devil after the Blood Treaty. He only wanted an Imp familiar but instead got the united hordes of the Abyss and Hell. Ambitious Paladins who always wanted to cleanse the lower planes need wait no longer; the lower planes have come to them.
The last remnants of the Blue Sun Empire, the Illithid armies that created the Githyanki and Githzarai have begun traversing the planes and the spheres. They have linked minds with powerful entities, trying to create an alliance that can withstand the combines might of the layers of the Abyss and the many Hells.
Vecna clawed out his one remaining eye and has his most trusted Death Knight lopped off his remaining hand. Now the Liche-God and his followers wander the planes as a blind prophet.
Sigil was taken after a month long siege. The Lady of Pain retreated to her Maze. When her downtrodden citizens of Sigil, under the whip of Demons and Devils, pray to her, she was kicked out of Sigil due to the city's strict laws on dieties. Through the Mazes and Labyrinths of the World wanders the Lady of Pain with her ragtag retinue, looking for heroes bold enough to take her city back and save the cosmos.
Once the Demons and Devils held the city they begin using its gates as staging grounds to destroy everything. Plane after plane fall to Abyssal and Hellish forces.
The Characters
Balan - 1st level Half-Orc Paladin - LG - In training at the Fortress-Cathedral of Nine Wells
The Paladin died defeating the Enemy. His son resumed his place in the pantheon, taking up his alignment's seat in the Gods' Council. Many worship the Paladin's Son, a religion that notes his growth and lessons while learning what it means to be a Lawful Good diety and sharing his pain at the less of his father.
Balan had trained hard to be a member of the Holy Order of the Paladin's son. He was only an orphan, left on the cathedral steps, and so he didn't get the special regard initiates did when they were born to the order. Naturally, these Paladins seen handing the calling down to a son as especially holy. He would have been sent to the Cleric-hood but his swordarm was spied by the weaponsmaster and his training as a Paladin began.
He is a lage boy, well over six spans and weighing just over 4 stones due to his Orcish blood. His jet black hair is cropped short for his helm and his eyes are likewise dark. Balan smiles his boar-tooth grin easily and although his understanding of divinities is not particularly well wrought but his faith is deep and heartfelt.
The night before being ordained as full Paladins the 18 initiates were cloistered in the vaults beneath the Cathedral, so they might be kept away from all worldly distractions. The boys meditated, knowing that before the night was through an elder Paladin, dressed in the traditional garb of a demon, complete with elaborate wooden mask would interrupt their prayers. He would offer them three pieces of silver to turn from their holy road.
It was an old ritual, always carried out but tonight it would go horribly wrong and these 18 intiates would be tested with steel and blood on a night they had thought would be reserved for peace and meditation.
Jin - 1st level Human Sorcerer - NG - Arcane talented street-kid on the streets of Nine Wells
In the southern kingdoms they worship the Witch-Hunter, who burns those who use arcane magic and does not grant his Clerics Divine magic until they are proven and shriven for decades. The Witch-Hunter says this shall keep them safe from the tempation of all magics.
Jin and her mother got out of the southern kingdoms alive but her father wasn't so lucky. He died defending their humble tower, where Jin's mother practiced sorcery in peace and solitude. A few years later, Jin's mother succumed to a winter chill, but Jin always knew it was heartbreak that killed her mother. When Jin found she had the Arcane Touch she practised hard, thinking the skill was her only heirloom from her dead ma.
Jin is a strong girl, with dirty blonde hair and a round face. Her eyes sparkle when she is happy and flash like dragon's breath when she is angry. Jin has a talent for Summoning, much as her mother did and hopes to bring great beings to this plane to aid in her liberations of the southern kingdoms.
For now, Jin works with the Nine Wells Watch, working with the gatekeepers and casting Detect Magic from a city-made want on suspicious folk, making sure the city is kept safe. She was on duty with her captain when a man knocked on the gate door. He was immaculately dressed in robes that were such a dark shade of red as to be black and he held his head high.
From the high gate tower, the Captain turned to Jin and asked, "Jin, put the wand on this one. He might what you would see if you looked in a crystal ball and asked for sleaze."
Jin smiled at her captain's instincts, which were harder on visitors the later the hour. She pointed her wand, knowing the visitor couldn't see her but feeling that he was perceiving her act. The magical auras made her squint.
"How many?" the guard asked.
Jin gaped. "Nineteen, captain."
Sorrea - 1st level Half-Elven Ranger - CG - Apprentice Ranger in the Saintswood
Some say Robin Folkenbow is the bastard son or daughter of the Paladin. Robin's followers do not care what his heritage might be. He is a good and caring diety, lending strength to the people who pray at the Folkbow altar.
Sorrea made her living with her aunt, trapping and hunting in the royal forest and making certain that the poaching never endangered the forest's delicate balance. Her aunt taught her to fire a bow and use a spear. She taught her to identify the different mushrooms, roots and droppings and how to keep warm in the winter and cool in the summer.
Sorrea is a lithe girl, with long red hair tied back in a braid down her back. Her eyes are always scanning a room as if the people in it were a stag she is hunting. She likes people well enough but often sees them as too complicated and longs for the life in the forest, without the nonsense that seems to follow friends and family.
Sorrea picked up the trail of several deer heading towards the city, fleeing something. One of the stags had crashed into a tree in his haste, leaving a piece of antler on the rough bark. When she showed it to her aunt she frowned, not knowing what to make of it. "Dragon," Sorrea asked, trying to think of what could frighten a herd of deer like that. Her aunt responded by silently following their backtrail.
The trail led to a Wizard's tower. The Wizard was an old friend of her aunt and Sorrea believed that sometimes they would keep each other warm during the winter months. As Sorrea worked up the nerve to ask her aunt what she saw in men a flash of lightning came from within.
Her aunt grabbed her shoulders. "Sorrea, listen to me carefully. Go to Nine Wells, tell the wall captain that the Wizard's Tower is in danger."
Sorrea sneered. "I want to stay and help you, aunt." Her aunt's response, a brutal slap across the face took Sorrea by surprise.
"Do as I say, girl." Her aunt slid from the trail into the woods, stalking towards the tower. Sorrea rubbed her face and knew this would be the last time she would ever see her aunt alive but nonetheless, she started towards Nine Wells to complete her aunt's final wish.
Manch - 1st level Dwarven Rogue - CE - Streetwise cutpurse on the streets of Nine Wells
The Paladin defeated the Enemy and that seat on the Gods' Council was empty for what seemed like an eternity. Some even said that there were only eight Gods now and the world had no need for a ninth but the Wizards and Clerics who studied the heavens and alignments were not convinced the heavens could change so quickly.
Manch made his living on the street of Nine Wells. It was a prosperous city with wealth coming in and out all of the time. So long as the crimes weren't against the wrong people and weren't too regularly practiced, crime could be done here with fair regularity. Manch's clan disowned his father for oath-breaking and Manch's family are craftsman, lock-makers in the Guilder District of the city.
Manch is a square bit of muscle with a black beard kept short and a black hair that frames his face in two ponytails. His father always speaks of honor but so far as Manch can tell, honor only got his father banished and branded and so he makes no oaths and keeps none.
Sometimes he get's sailors drunks and sells them to ships for crew. By the time they sober up they are out at sea. Sometimes when he is desperate he cracks fools over the head with the butt of his axe, so's not to attract the wrong kind of attention. He killed a man in a barfight some years ago, but to Manch's credit, the other man drew a knife in what was to be a nice clean brawl. Manch planted his handaxe in the man's thigh and heard later than he had bled to death.
Manch would often pray to his victim's grave, not refering to his name, but only as fool. He was thinking that he himself would die in much this fashion. "Greetings, fool. Just another night in the alleys. I feel something coming, though. I feel something like a tidal wave of opportunity. Don't know what it is. Can't rightly say.
"Whatever it is, fool, watch my back for a time. I can make something of myself, show my pa that no oaths are necessary to live a rich life. Soon enough I'll join you in the feast hall and we'll continue our fight. Perhaps this time you won't be fool enough to draw steel on a Dwarf. Neh?"
Manch got off of his knees to go about his evening's activities. They would probably amount to a few stolen purses and a dramatic conclusion in a whore's arms.
Manch didn't pray to be heard by Gods and so was surprised when a chilling voice called from the graveyard's shadows. "A tidal wave of opportunity you say? Well spoken, young master Dwarf. You have no idea how right you are. Listen closely..."
Ideas?
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