Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
Playing the Game
Story Hour
Wing Three
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 6058173" data-attributes="member: 508"><p><strong>ADVENTURE 34 - CULT OF THE FAR REALM</strong></p><p></p><p>PC Roster: <p style="margin-left: 20px">Akari, elven paladin of Hieroneous</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Cal Trop, human cleric of Kord</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Chalkan, half-elf ranger/cleric of Corellon Larethian/sorcerer/arcane archer</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Feron Dru, half-elf druid</p><p> </p><p>It was the early hours of the next morning that all eight members of Wing Three gathered around to discuss the Cult of the Far Realm and their plans for incorporating the material plane into the eternal plane of chaos. Telgrane relayed Delgrove's information to those members who had not been involved with their excursion to 26 Paper Street the night before.</p><p></p><p>"Delgrove said there were six main leaders of the Cult of the Far Realm. We've already taken care of Strangeway, so that just leaves five.</p><p></p><p>"First up is an elf named <strong>Bollivond</strong>. He’s a fairly powerful wizard, and pretty much the main guy who decided that the world could become part of the Far Realm, and in doing so, those who instigated the transformation could become 'super powerful, like the gods or demigods that dwell in that plane.' It’s his run-down place in the Styes that’s been made the cult’s headquarters.</p><p></p><p>"Next up is <strong>Quillianna</strong>; she’s a tiefling from one of the Outer Planes somewhere. Bollivand apparently picked her up on one of his extraplanar excursions. She’s got some kinda demon blood in her or something, and she just likes the idea of spreading as much chaos into the world as possible.</p><p></p><p>"For muscle, they’ve got Chondak and Kelvic. <strong>Chondak Bloodfist</strong> is a bald half-orc with a large sword who is also some sort of spellcaster. <strong>Kelvic Stonehammer</strong> is a dwarf in charge of rounding up the sacrifices. Apparently he has no spellcasting ability."</p><p></p><p>"Wait, sacrifices?" asked Rale. "What are the sacrifices for?"</p><p></p><p>"Delgrove claimed he didn't know; he didn’t get too deep into the cult before deciding he was into something he didn’t really want to be a part of. But he said Kelvic's been grabbing people off the streets and holing them up somewhere, and, this being the Styes we're talking about, nobody paid a whole lot of attention to the disappearances.</p><p></p><p>"Finally, there’s <strong>Stisska</strong>, some sort of naga. And that’s it, at least as far as the leadership goes. Delgrove said there’s at least half a dozen just regular old cult members, too, like he was, most of them just folks off the street, although a couple are low-level sorcerers.”</p><p></p><p>"So you know where their headquarters is?" asked Slayer. "Let's go get 'em!"</p><p></p><p>"We do," replied Telgrane. "It's a dilapidated manor built into the side of a cliff at the north end of the Styes. Delgrove also warned that they have some kind of weird guardian, something he’s never gotten a good look at even when he was looking right at it."</p><p></p><p>"What's that supposed to mean?" Slayer asked.</p><p></p><p>"I'm not sure," Telgrane replied. "Delgrove wasn't quite able to explain very well what he meant about that. He's also never been inside the manor, so we don't know what the interior is like, but he knows (having heard it from one of the other low-ranking cult members) that there’s a secret level underneath the structure, where the cult has a gate to the Far Realm, and where they harvest the cyst-stones that, once positioned in strategic places around the Styes, will open a permanent leak from the Far Realm into this world, giving it the start it needs to eventually overcome all of this reality."</p><p></p><p>"So let's go!" said Slayer, grabbing up his greatsword.</p><p></p><p>"Not so fast," replied Telgrane, putting a hand on the half-orc's shoulder. "We need to decide who will storm the place, and who will remain behind as a backup force."</p><p></p><p>"Dibs!" cried out Slayer and Chalkan simultaneously, then scowled at each other.</p><p></p><p>Cal put a hand on Slayer's shoulder. "I think we'll want you to lead our reserve force," he said diplomatically. "If we run into trouble, we'll need your muscle to come in and rescue us." He didn't voice his concern that, knowing they'd be facing a group of spellcasters, the odds would be that one or more of them would attempt to dominate Slayer and use him against the rest of the group. The half-orc had demonstrated once too often in the past his inability to shrug off the mental commands of a strong-willed spellcaster.</p><p></p><p>"Fine," grumbled Slayer, who plopped down on the sofa and started polishing his weapons.</p><p></p><p>"Feron and I will accompany Chalkan, since we've dealt with the Cult before," Cal continued. Telgrane didn't fail to notice his name having been dropped from the list. "Hey, what about me?" he asked.</p><p></p><p>"I think it best if Akari accompanies us," Cal reasoned. "We've got Slayer as backup muscle, and I think if we had both you and Delphyne as backup spellcasters we'd be best off. You know how battles with wizards go: it's fire off the big spells up front and then you're left with just the little stuff later on. I'd like to have two fresh spellcasters coming in later to the fight, full of high-level spells when the enemy wizards are low on the good stuff."</p><p></p><p>"Fine," grumbled Telgrane, plopping down on the sofa next to Slayer, his scowl nearly identical to that of the half-orc. Then he brightened up. "Hey, this will give me a chance to cast that <em>permanency</em> spell I've been wanting to try!" he enthused.</p><p></p><p>The others geared up and headed out to the Styes.</p><p></p><p> - - - </p><p></p><p>"That should be it, ahead," whispered Chalkan. The ramshackle front of an aging manor projected directly out of the face of the narrow cliff towering above it, leaving the whole edifice in cloaking shadows. There looked to be at least two levels to the manor, the upper level nearly twice as wide as the lower, but supported by a shelf of solid rock to the structure's side. The entire building projected some 10 feet or so from the cliff rock, with no way of telling how deep into the cliff side the building might reach. There were two main entrances visible: a front door to the right and a set of large double doors, almost like those on a barn, to the left. "Which way do we enter?" asked the half-elf.</p><p></p><p>"That's obviously the front door to the place," remarked Cal. "Let's try the barn doors; maybe there's a lesser-used entry from there."</p><p></p><p>The group pried open the creaky doors on the left and entered what had apparently, in better days, been a stables: the room held a set of horse stalls (currently empty) and an old wooden wagon. Hanging on the walls were various accouterments used in horse grooming. The numerous cobwebs among the equipment and the wagon indicated they hadn’t seen much in the way of use recently. However, the stench of raw meat and the lingering odor of a large animal indicated that something had been making this its lair of late.</p><p></p><p>They didn't have long to wait to find out just what had been lairing there, and at the same time they never did really find out. A low growl was the first indication of a presence with them in the room; the growl was followed by the appearance of some sort of creature as it manifested from within one of the unused horse stalls. The creature stalked silently on padded feet, but it was impossible to say how many feet it had; sometimes there seemed to be four, at others, six or seven. The creature was - usually - the size of a large dog or small pony, although sometimes it would shift in just the right way to tower above the group. About all that the group could tell about the beast was that it was furred and somehow lupine, although its body seemed to be in a constant state of flux; it was almost as if they were seeing it through a swarm of mirror shards that floated at varying angles and reflected only distorted visions of the beast that confronted them.</p><p></p><p>A gout of flame burst from the creature's throat, or perhaps a section of space up to a foot from the general area of the creature's muzzle - it was hard to tell. It enveloped Akari, who had leapt to the front of the group's formation at the sight of the strange beast. "It's evil!" he cried out as he swung <em>Hoardmaster</em> into the creature's side. The elf was pleased to see that whatever strange geometries the creature's body followed, it was as vulnerable to sharpened steel as any other creature he'd fought thus far. The creature let out a roar of pain, its two eyes - no, three - no, wait, four - no, there were definitely only two eyes - glowing with an evil reddish light. It clamped its jaws onto Akari's arm and tried dragging him to the ground, but Cal's mace swung down into the side of its impossible head and crushed its skull. The creature collapsed, folding in on itself, and disappeared in a flash of alien light as the group's minds all ached at trying to make sense of what they had just seen.</p><p></p><p>"No wonder Delgrove couldn't describe it any better than he did," commented Akari. "That hurt my head just looking at it."</p><p></p><p>"So, front door then?" asked Feron.</p><p></p><p>The front door was locked, but considering the noise they had made in the stables fighting the impossible guard-beast the group considered it was likely the Cult had already realized there were intruders about, so rather than wasting time trying to remain stealthy Cal just kicked his way through the door. There was a short flight of stairs leading up to the main floor and opening into a large foyer, the floor containing a large painting of the six-tentacles-and-eye symbol denoting the Far Realm – the very same emblem tattooed on the right palms of both Delgrove and Strangeway. There were several closed wooden doors and open doorways leading to other rooms in the manor.</p><p></p><p>Stepping into the foyer, Chalkan and Akari were taken by surprise when the tentacles painted on the floor came to sudden life. Each was wrapped up in a tight embrace, and while Akari's tentacle sent a burst of electricity coursing through his body, Chalkan found his skin burning at the acidic touch of the appendage encompassing him. Cal and Feron dashed to either side of the wall and dodged the writhing tentacles that had thus far not found a victim to embrace; neither noticed the nearly invisible chameleon perched on the ceiling farther down the hall. This was Bollivond’s lizard familiar, <strong>Aerivole</strong>, whose mental link with his master alerted the elven wizard to the intrusion of the adventuring group. He gathered up Chondak and Kelric, then used <em>dimension door</em> to transport the three of them to the hallway.</p><p></p><p>By this time, Akari had freed himself from his tentacle's grip, slicing it with <em>Hoardmaster</em> while it alternately blasted him with sonics and drained the heat from his body. Ducking another probing tentacle, he attacked the appendage gripping Chalkan at its base while Cal and Feron skirted the foyer and faced the new threats approaching from the hallway. Kelric Stonehammer seemed like a typical dwarven fighter, but closer examination revealed the writhing tendrils in among the hairs of his beard. He wielded a warhammer, wore half-plate armor, and carried a light steel shield. Chondak Bloodfist was an odd-looking half-orc, for while he wielded a greatsword he seemed to eschew armor, relying instead upon the thickness of his pebbly skin, which seemed almost as tough and durable as that of a rhino. Both closed with looks of glee upon their faces, while Bollivand whistled and caught his lizard familiar as he dropped from the ceiling, scampered up his master's arm, and took his place on his shoulder. There were small tentacles growing from the elven wizard's right arm. He wheeled and walked down the hallway, calling for the others to rejoin them downstairs when they were finished.</p><p></p><p>"Pretty sure of himself," snarled Cal, calling forth a <em>divine power</em> spell to further enhance his physical attributes as he waded into battle with the dwarf.</p><p></p><p>"Must know something you don't," grunted Kelric, swinging his warhammer into Cal's shield.</p><p></p><p>Chondak, meanwhile, made a beeline for Feron, a snarl on his face as he faced a foe he deemed doubly unworthy: an elf-blood, and a female one at that. Feron quickly disavowed him of that notion, calling down a lightning strike from the ceiling that lit the half-orc up and sent tendrils of smoke wisping away from his armored skin.</p><p></p><p>The two one-on-one skirmishes were fairly equal in power until Akari successfully freed Chalkan from the tentacle trap; at that point the cultists were outnumbered two-to-one, and the eventual outcome was in little doubt. After slaying the two cultists, they grabbed up their weapons and armor, tossing them into Feron's magical haversack in what had become a well-practiced maneuver. "Downstairs, the elf said?" asked Cal.</p><p></p><p>They popped into a few rooms along the way as they looked for a stairwell leading downstairs. In the kitchen, a collection of pots, pans, knives, and eating utensils configured themselves into a cutlery golem and attacked, but the biggest outcome of that fight was the horrific noise it made; if the rest of the Cultists weren't already aware of their intrusion, they likely were by the time the golem collapsed into a clanging pile on the kitchen floor. But eventually the group found a hidden passage along a back hallway, with a spiral staircase leading down into darkness. The group healed up, then followed the stairway down to the lower level.</p><p></p><p>The group spread out at the bottom of the stairs, wary of an attack. They were in a large room, some 25 feet wide and nearly twice that long, with a row of four statues on either side. Directly across from them was an open doorway leading into an even larger room beyond. In that larger room, at the farthest end, stood an archway bracketing a sheet of solid blackness along the wall. An unconscious man in peasant garb hung spread-eagled by four chains binding him to the marble arch. A robed elf stood at his side, wielding what looked to be a sacrificial dagger. Next to him stood a tiefling woman, while a half-dozen or so hooded followers gathered around them. Whatever they were up to, it didn't look good for the chained peasant.</p><p></p><p>Akari raced into the room of statues, with the others close at his heels. As she ran, Feron cast a quick <em>detect magic</em> on the statues, and three of them registered a magical nature. She started to call out a warning to the others, but then a <em>fireball</em> streaked at the group from somewhere behind them and encompassed them all in flames. The other three whirled around to face this unseen attacker, but Akari pressed on, running through the doorway and into the larger room.</p><p></p><p>Bollivond took the opportunity to cast a quick <em>wall of ice</em> across the doorway, effectively sealing the impulsive elf into the larger, octagonal room with the cultists - and more importantly, sealing the other three adventurers out. Akari noticed that seven walls of the octagon contained an archway like the one that had an unconscious peasant bound to it; each archway had a gemstone at its peak, and each was a different color. The one above the bound peasant was an unearthly stone with a myriad of swirling colors bound into it. The cultists grabbed up daggers from their belts and moved to try to engage the elven paladin, but Quillianna held them off and raised a <em>wall of fire</em> in the center of the room, imprisoning Akari within. She followed that up by summoning a fiendish giant praying mantis into the circle of fire, with orders to slay the elf.</p><p></p><p>In the meantime, the statues radiating magic didn't seem to be causing any problems; rather, it was a nonmagical statue of a helmeted warrior from which the <em>fireball</em> had apparently come; this was made clear when another one came racing across the room from between the slits in the helmet's visor. Then, her hiding place no longer a surprise, Stisska the spirit naga lifted the helmet's visor and came slithering out of the hollow statue. She was followed by her familiar, a twin-headed viper called a bancali. Feron and the naga traded spell-blasts, while Chalkan, recognizing that his greatest damage potential lay in his bow, not his spells, peppered the naga with arrows. Cal, in the meantime, attacked the <em>wall of ice</em> with his mace and every bit of strength he could muster, determined to carve a way into the octagonal room to save Akari before the foolish elf was slain yet again.</p><p></p><p>As for Akari, he had managed to slay the hellish mantis and watch as it discorporated to reform in whatever fiendish plane had spawned it, and was running through the <em>wall of fire</em> when he was struck by a <em>hold person</em> spell. The spell caught him off guard, and he stopped his movement while standing right in the middle of a sheet of flame, but his elvish heritage (new as it was) gave him the mental strength needed to fend off the spell. He stood there, engulfed in flames, realizing he could survive the heat for a short while - and that it would look incredibly intimidating to his foes to see him standing there, apparently unfazed by the fire blazing all around him, calmly gripping his sword as if to say, "What else you got?"</p><p></p><p>“You are too late to stop us!” bellowed Bollivond. “The Far Realm calls to us, and you cannot prevent us from basking in its unearthly radiance!” With that, he plunged his dagger into the peasant’s heart, killing him instantly. Immediately, a swirling commenced in the middle of the black plane, cascading in erratic waves. They encompassed the peasant’s body, and in an instant, not only were all traces of the slain peasant gone, but the gateway now lay open to another world. "The Blood Gate has been opened!" bellowed Bollivond. "Into the beckoning chaos of the Far Realm!"</p><p></p><p>Bollivond, Quillianna, and the cultists raced through the now-open gate, into a blinding radiance that made Akari shield his eyes. A crashing noise behind him told him that Cal had broken through the <em>wall of ice</em>, and he waited for once for the rest of his group before plunging ahead into unknown danger. Feron and Chalkan joined Cal through the shattered <em>wall of ice</em>, around the <em>wall of fire</em>, and met up with Akari. The elf filled them in on what had happened, and they realized that they'd have to follow through the Blood Gate and into the Far Realm if they were going to put a stop to the cultists. With a quick prayer to their various gods on their lips, the four stepped into a world of unimaginable chaos.</p><p></p><p>The scene before them as they passed through the Blood Gate was difficult for their minds to process. They saw not one view, but several, overlapping and bleeding through each other. Glistening, tentacled slugs seemed to ooze and glide slowly through the air, while in the distance they could see what might be mountains or perhaps the shells of mollusks too big to even contemplate. Elsewhere, patches of flame arose out of nowhere, burning a bright purple before vanishing as quickly as they appeared. Patches of what could either be oddly-shaped grasses or upright tongues swayed in a nonexistent breeze, while scuttling near Feron's leg was a goblin-faced creature whose body was made up of two joined hands. Spread out among this patchwork reality were the transformed enemies they had come here to stop.</p><p></p><p>The otherworldly energies of the Far Realm had not been kind to the cultists, who had basked in such energies before and had already suffered some transmutational effects as a result. Bollivond, whose right arm had already sprouted tentacles, felt an unimaginable pressure in his head as his brain expanded, shattering his skull as his body levitated out of both the robe he wore and the armor he wore underneath. As his body shifted and changed, it flowed out of the neck of his armor, which crashed to the ground beneath him and he floated in the unnatural breezes of the Far Realm, fully transformed into a levitating grell, tentacles twitching beneath his massive brainlike body.</p><p></p><p>Quillianna screamed as blood poured from her every orifice, hardening into a thick, chitinous substance that covered her body like petrified black candle wax. It didn't seem to affect her ability to move, though, and the chaos-worshiping tiefling smirked in delight at her new form.</p><p></p><p>The run-of-the-mill cultists fared much worse. One started screaming as violent changes erupted throughout his body, spurting out claws, tentacles, gnarled wings, teeth, and a host of limbs hitherto before unseen. He collapsed into the form of a chaos beast and started attacking those within range. Two more cultists started spasming violently, and hugged each other in fear. Their forms merged together, and oversized, inhuman eyes sprouted from their mouths. The two emerged as a single entity, a man-crab that scuttled erratically towards the group in an attempt to take their new-found misery out on them. The rest of the cultists’ bodies seemed to melt and flow like liquid, finally merging into a gibbering mouther.</p><p></p><p>The group watched these transformations with a mixture of astonishment, fear, and panic, each examining their own bodies to ensure that the Far Realm wouldn't be transforming them into something unspeakable. But fortunately, the effects seemed to only occur after long exposure to the chaotic world, for they looked and felt no different.</p><p></p><p>The time for such introspection was shortened by Bollivond's sudden attack. Despite his new form, he still had his full spellcasting ability, and he tried petrifying Feron with a <em>flesh to stone</em> spell that fortunately had no effect. The group rushed into battle, but even that was problematic, for spacial orientation didn't seem to work correctly on this weird plane, or even the same way twice. Feron called down a bolt of lightning from the sky, and instead of just striking Bollivond its spell effect widened into a ragged line, catching the goblin-faced hand-monster some ten feet away as well. It exploded in a mass of black goo, which bubbled on the ground for a short time and then evaporated. Cal tried racing forward to slam his mace into the side of the man-crab, but found himself 20 feet beyond his mark, uncertain if he had moved at super-speed or teleported the short distance away. Chalkan shot an arrow at the chaos beast, only to have it spontaneously transform into a hornet and buzz away into the distance. Akari thrust <em>Hoardmaster</em> at one of Bollivond's tentacles and severed it, only for it to burst into purple flames when it hit the ground.</p><p></p><p>The cultist-beasts were definitely at a home advantage here in the Far Realm, for the oddities of the plane seemed normal to them, their bodies having fully adapted to the swirling chaos of the land. Not so the Wing Three adventurers, who were learning by trial and error a new set of rules every few seconds, and fighting on an ever-shifting terrain. One moment the ground was normal; the next, blue monoliths were sprouting from the ground, forming a maze of obstacles. The group found itself fighting in a field of black snowflakes, which had no real effect other than to further disorient the adventurers; they had no idea which effects were harmless and which could potentially kill them. Fortunately, the man-crab and the chaos beast had become virtually mindless; the group left them to their own devices and they ended up battling each other. Likewise with the gibbering mouther, which wandered off into the endless plane of chaos and was last seen squirting into the sky in a zone of weightlessness. That really only left Bollivond and Quillianna for the group to fight, and despite their advantages in understanding this strange world, they were slowly being cut to pieces. A bolt of electricity from Feron's <em>call lightning</em> spell did in Quillianna, whereas Bollivond's exposed brain was cracked open by a blow from Cal's mace, spreading gore in all directions. Once the two of them were slain, Cal called for a retreat back to the Blood Gate, for they had no idea how long the extraplanar passageway would remain open, and nobody wanted to risk being trapped in the Far Realm forever. Akari took the time to grab up Bollivond's discarded armor, for it seemed to be of good quality and Feron thought it might be magical; into the <em>Heward's handy haversack</em> it went for further examination later.</p><p></p><p>Returning through the Blood Gate, the group saw that both of the magical walls - fire and ice - had disappeared during their absence. Concerned that they were unsure about what the magical statues in the other room were all about, they had Feron examine them more closely with a <em>detect magic</em> spell, and they radiated a form of teleportation magic. Extensive experimentation finally showed that if they were touched by a tattoo of an eye surrounded by tentacles (the tattoo that each of the cultists had on their right palms; fortunately, Kelric's and Chondak's were available once the group dragged their bodies downstairs), they each led to a different place. One was an extensive library, no doubt worth quite a bit to the Adventurers Guild wizards and sages (and if not, Altamaic of the Temple of Boccob would probably pay handsomely for the set). Another led to a workshop of sorts, where a magma beast crafted cyst stones from gems taken from the Far Realm; these would have been placed in a magical pattern around the Styes (according to some papers the group found in the library) to allow the Far Realm to spill into Oerth. The adventurers killed the magma beast and destroyed the existing cyst stones so they couldn't be used. The last statue led to a prison, where the group rescued six other peasants, each having been taken from the Styes and kept here as future "Blood Gate keys." They were grateful for their rescue, and returned home when the group left Bollivond's manor to go report back to the Adventurers Guild. The Guild leaders would decide what to do about the Blood Gates, whether they should be destroyed or studied; despite their observed use, it might be possible that they could be activated without the sacrifice of a living victim.</p><p></p><p>But all of that was out of the group's hands for now. They were just glad to be back on their own world, in a place where normal geometries stayed the same and the laws of physics weren't constantly in flux. And, as Cal pointed out, it was quite possible that the group of four adventurers had just saved the world - for if the Cult of the Far Realm had succeeded in opening the way for the plane of chaos to leak into the material plane, there was no telling that there would have been any way to undo that.</p><p></p><p>What the heck - they were counting it as saving the world.</p><p></p><p> - - - </p><p></p><p>I had a great time having the PCs fight in the Far Realm. I normally make up geomorphs or entire maps of the areas that the group is in; for the Far Realm, I used a full-sized sheet of 22" by 28" paper (the back of a sheet from a desk calendar from work), but instead of drawing the 1" grid using a yardstick, I hand drew the spaces, and had them vary greatly in size and shape. Most were four-sided polygons, but occasionally they would bunch up into a triangle or expand into a pentagon. I also did up rules ahead of time for what chaotic effects would occur each round while they were on the Far Realm. I had spontaneous bursts of purple flames (that expanded, contracted, and moved each round until they vanished as sudden as they had appeared), I had rules for when monoliths would rise up from the ground, I had teleport zones (for this round, if you step on a triangle space you teleport to the nearest triangle space in the direction you were traveling), and so forth.</p><p></p><p>Bollivond's armor was eventually given to Telgrane, who wears it to this day. It's <em>ethereal armor</em>, and once it's donned correctly and activated, all but a small patch of it shunts to the Ethereal Plane, so the wearer hardly even feels its presence. (As a result, no chance of arcane spell failure.) The "zone" that's present moves around of its own accord, jumping into the way of oncoming attacks. As a result, the wearer gets the effect of wearing the armor, but only for the first hit each round; the second (and further) hit each round affects the wearer as if he wasn't wearing any armor at all.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Richards, post: 6058173, member: 508"] [b]ADVENTURE 34 - CULT OF THE FAR REALM[/b] PC Roster: [INDENT]Akari, elven paladin of Hieroneous Cal Trop, human cleric of Kord Chalkan, half-elf ranger/cleric of Corellon Larethian/sorcerer/arcane archer Feron Dru, half-elf druid[/INDENT] It was the early hours of the next morning that all eight members of Wing Three gathered around to discuss the Cult of the Far Realm and their plans for incorporating the material plane into the eternal plane of chaos. Telgrane relayed Delgrove's information to those members who had not been involved with their excursion to 26 Paper Street the night before. "Delgrove said there were six main leaders of the Cult of the Far Realm. We've already taken care of Strangeway, so that just leaves five. "First up is an elf named [b]Bollivond[/b]. He’s a fairly powerful wizard, and pretty much the main guy who decided that the world could become part of the Far Realm, and in doing so, those who instigated the transformation could become 'super powerful, like the gods or demigods that dwell in that plane.' It’s his run-down place in the Styes that’s been made the cult’s headquarters. "Next up is [b]Quillianna[/b]; she’s a tiefling from one of the Outer Planes somewhere. Bollivand apparently picked her up on one of his extraplanar excursions. She’s got some kinda demon blood in her or something, and she just likes the idea of spreading as much chaos into the world as possible. "For muscle, they’ve got Chondak and Kelvic. [b]Chondak Bloodfist[/b] is a bald half-orc with a large sword who is also some sort of spellcaster. [b]Kelvic Stonehammer[/b] is a dwarf in charge of rounding up the sacrifices. Apparently he has no spellcasting ability." "Wait, sacrifices?" asked Rale. "What are the sacrifices for?" "Delgrove claimed he didn't know; he didn’t get too deep into the cult before deciding he was into something he didn’t really want to be a part of. But he said Kelvic's been grabbing people off the streets and holing them up somewhere, and, this being the Styes we're talking about, nobody paid a whole lot of attention to the disappearances. "Finally, there’s [b]Stisska[/b], some sort of naga. And that’s it, at least as far as the leadership goes. Delgrove said there’s at least half a dozen just regular old cult members, too, like he was, most of them just folks off the street, although a couple are low-level sorcerers.” "So you know where their headquarters is?" asked Slayer. "Let's go get 'em!" "We do," replied Telgrane. "It's a dilapidated manor built into the side of a cliff at the north end of the Styes. Delgrove also warned that they have some kind of weird guardian, something he’s never gotten a good look at even when he was looking right at it." "What's that supposed to mean?" Slayer asked. "I'm not sure," Telgrane replied. "Delgrove wasn't quite able to explain very well what he meant about that. He's also never been inside the manor, so we don't know what the interior is like, but he knows (having heard it from one of the other low-ranking cult members) that there’s a secret level underneath the structure, where the cult has a gate to the Far Realm, and where they harvest the cyst-stones that, once positioned in strategic places around the Styes, will open a permanent leak from the Far Realm into this world, giving it the start it needs to eventually overcome all of this reality." "So let's go!" said Slayer, grabbing up his greatsword. "Not so fast," replied Telgrane, putting a hand on the half-orc's shoulder. "We need to decide who will storm the place, and who will remain behind as a backup force." "Dibs!" cried out Slayer and Chalkan simultaneously, then scowled at each other. Cal put a hand on Slayer's shoulder. "I think we'll want you to lead our reserve force," he said diplomatically. "If we run into trouble, we'll need your muscle to come in and rescue us." He didn't voice his concern that, knowing they'd be facing a group of spellcasters, the odds would be that one or more of them would attempt to dominate Slayer and use him against the rest of the group. The half-orc had demonstrated once too often in the past his inability to shrug off the mental commands of a strong-willed spellcaster. "Fine," grumbled Slayer, who plopped down on the sofa and started polishing his weapons. "Feron and I will accompany Chalkan, since we've dealt with the Cult before," Cal continued. Telgrane didn't fail to notice his name having been dropped from the list. "Hey, what about me?" he asked. "I think it best if Akari accompanies us," Cal reasoned. "We've got Slayer as backup muscle, and I think if we had both you and Delphyne as backup spellcasters we'd be best off. You know how battles with wizards go: it's fire off the big spells up front and then you're left with just the little stuff later on. I'd like to have two fresh spellcasters coming in later to the fight, full of high-level spells when the enemy wizards are low on the good stuff." "Fine," grumbled Telgrane, plopping down on the sofa next to Slayer, his scowl nearly identical to that of the half-orc. Then he brightened up. "Hey, this will give me a chance to cast that [i]permanency[/i] spell I've been wanting to try!" he enthused. The others geared up and headed out to the Styes. - - - "That should be it, ahead," whispered Chalkan. The ramshackle front of an aging manor projected directly out of the face of the narrow cliff towering above it, leaving the whole edifice in cloaking shadows. There looked to be at least two levels to the manor, the upper level nearly twice as wide as the lower, but supported by a shelf of solid rock to the structure's side. The entire building projected some 10 feet or so from the cliff rock, with no way of telling how deep into the cliff side the building might reach. There were two main entrances visible: a front door to the right and a set of large double doors, almost like those on a barn, to the left. "Which way do we enter?" asked the half-elf. "That's obviously the front door to the place," remarked Cal. "Let's try the barn doors; maybe there's a lesser-used entry from there." The group pried open the creaky doors on the left and entered what had apparently, in better days, been a stables: the room held a set of horse stalls (currently empty) and an old wooden wagon. Hanging on the walls were various accouterments used in horse grooming. The numerous cobwebs among the equipment and the wagon indicated they hadn’t seen much in the way of use recently. However, the stench of raw meat and the lingering odor of a large animal indicated that something had been making this its lair of late. They didn't have long to wait to find out just what had been lairing there, and at the same time they never did really find out. A low growl was the first indication of a presence with them in the room; the growl was followed by the appearance of some sort of creature as it manifested from within one of the unused horse stalls. The creature stalked silently on padded feet, but it was impossible to say how many feet it had; sometimes there seemed to be four, at others, six or seven. The creature was - usually - the size of a large dog or small pony, although sometimes it would shift in just the right way to tower above the group. About all that the group could tell about the beast was that it was furred and somehow lupine, although its body seemed to be in a constant state of flux; it was almost as if they were seeing it through a swarm of mirror shards that floated at varying angles and reflected only distorted visions of the beast that confronted them. A gout of flame burst from the creature's throat, or perhaps a section of space up to a foot from the general area of the creature's muzzle - it was hard to tell. It enveloped Akari, who had leapt to the front of the group's formation at the sight of the strange beast. "It's evil!" he cried out as he swung [i]Hoardmaster[/i] into the creature's side. The elf was pleased to see that whatever strange geometries the creature's body followed, it was as vulnerable to sharpened steel as any other creature he'd fought thus far. The creature let out a roar of pain, its two eyes - no, three - no, wait, four - no, there were definitely only two eyes - glowing with an evil reddish light. It clamped its jaws onto Akari's arm and tried dragging him to the ground, but Cal's mace swung down into the side of its impossible head and crushed its skull. The creature collapsed, folding in on itself, and disappeared in a flash of alien light as the group's minds all ached at trying to make sense of what they had just seen. "No wonder Delgrove couldn't describe it any better than he did," commented Akari. "That hurt my head just looking at it." "So, front door then?" asked Feron. The front door was locked, but considering the noise they had made in the stables fighting the impossible guard-beast the group considered it was likely the Cult had already realized there were intruders about, so rather than wasting time trying to remain stealthy Cal just kicked his way through the door. There was a short flight of stairs leading up to the main floor and opening into a large foyer, the floor containing a large painting of the six-tentacles-and-eye symbol denoting the Far Realm – the very same emblem tattooed on the right palms of both Delgrove and Strangeway. There were several closed wooden doors and open doorways leading to other rooms in the manor. Stepping into the foyer, Chalkan and Akari were taken by surprise when the tentacles painted on the floor came to sudden life. Each was wrapped up in a tight embrace, and while Akari's tentacle sent a burst of electricity coursing through his body, Chalkan found his skin burning at the acidic touch of the appendage encompassing him. Cal and Feron dashed to either side of the wall and dodged the writhing tentacles that had thus far not found a victim to embrace; neither noticed the nearly invisible chameleon perched on the ceiling farther down the hall. This was Bollivond’s lizard familiar, [b]Aerivole[/b], whose mental link with his master alerted the elven wizard to the intrusion of the adventuring group. He gathered up Chondak and Kelric, then used [i]dimension door[/i] to transport the three of them to the hallway. By this time, Akari had freed himself from his tentacle's grip, slicing it with [i]Hoardmaster[/i] while it alternately blasted him with sonics and drained the heat from his body. Ducking another probing tentacle, he attacked the appendage gripping Chalkan at its base while Cal and Feron skirted the foyer and faced the new threats approaching from the hallway. Kelric Stonehammer seemed like a typical dwarven fighter, but closer examination revealed the writhing tendrils in among the hairs of his beard. He wielded a warhammer, wore half-plate armor, and carried a light steel shield. Chondak Bloodfist was an odd-looking half-orc, for while he wielded a greatsword he seemed to eschew armor, relying instead upon the thickness of his pebbly skin, which seemed almost as tough and durable as that of a rhino. Both closed with looks of glee upon their faces, while Bollivand whistled and caught his lizard familiar as he dropped from the ceiling, scampered up his master's arm, and took his place on his shoulder. There were small tentacles growing from the elven wizard's right arm. He wheeled and walked down the hallway, calling for the others to rejoin them downstairs when they were finished. "Pretty sure of himself," snarled Cal, calling forth a [i]divine power[/i] spell to further enhance his physical attributes as he waded into battle with the dwarf. "Must know something you don't," grunted Kelric, swinging his warhammer into Cal's shield. Chondak, meanwhile, made a beeline for Feron, a snarl on his face as he faced a foe he deemed doubly unworthy: an elf-blood, and a female one at that. Feron quickly disavowed him of that notion, calling down a lightning strike from the ceiling that lit the half-orc up and sent tendrils of smoke wisping away from his armored skin. The two one-on-one skirmishes were fairly equal in power until Akari successfully freed Chalkan from the tentacle trap; at that point the cultists were outnumbered two-to-one, and the eventual outcome was in little doubt. After slaying the two cultists, they grabbed up their weapons and armor, tossing them into Feron's magical haversack in what had become a well-practiced maneuver. "Downstairs, the elf said?" asked Cal. They popped into a few rooms along the way as they looked for a stairwell leading downstairs. In the kitchen, a collection of pots, pans, knives, and eating utensils configured themselves into a cutlery golem and attacked, but the biggest outcome of that fight was the horrific noise it made; if the rest of the Cultists weren't already aware of their intrusion, they likely were by the time the golem collapsed into a clanging pile on the kitchen floor. But eventually the group found a hidden passage along a back hallway, with a spiral staircase leading down into darkness. The group healed up, then followed the stairway down to the lower level. The group spread out at the bottom of the stairs, wary of an attack. They were in a large room, some 25 feet wide and nearly twice that long, with a row of four statues on either side. Directly across from them was an open doorway leading into an even larger room beyond. In that larger room, at the farthest end, stood an archway bracketing a sheet of solid blackness along the wall. An unconscious man in peasant garb hung spread-eagled by four chains binding him to the marble arch. A robed elf stood at his side, wielding what looked to be a sacrificial dagger. Next to him stood a tiefling woman, while a half-dozen or so hooded followers gathered around them. Whatever they were up to, it didn't look good for the chained peasant. Akari raced into the room of statues, with the others close at his heels. As she ran, Feron cast a quick [i]detect magic[/i] on the statues, and three of them registered a magical nature. She started to call out a warning to the others, but then a [i]fireball[/i] streaked at the group from somewhere behind them and encompassed them all in flames. The other three whirled around to face this unseen attacker, but Akari pressed on, running through the doorway and into the larger room. Bollivond took the opportunity to cast a quick [i]wall of ice[/i] across the doorway, effectively sealing the impulsive elf into the larger, octagonal room with the cultists - and more importantly, sealing the other three adventurers out. Akari noticed that seven walls of the octagon contained an archway like the one that had an unconscious peasant bound to it; each archway had a gemstone at its peak, and each was a different color. The one above the bound peasant was an unearthly stone with a myriad of swirling colors bound into it. The cultists grabbed up daggers from their belts and moved to try to engage the elven paladin, but Quillianna held them off and raised a [i]wall of fire[/i] in the center of the room, imprisoning Akari within. She followed that up by summoning a fiendish giant praying mantis into the circle of fire, with orders to slay the elf. In the meantime, the statues radiating magic didn't seem to be causing any problems; rather, it was a nonmagical statue of a helmeted warrior from which the [i]fireball[/i] had apparently come; this was made clear when another one came racing across the room from between the slits in the helmet's visor. Then, her hiding place no longer a surprise, Stisska the spirit naga lifted the helmet's visor and came slithering out of the hollow statue. She was followed by her familiar, a twin-headed viper called a bancali. Feron and the naga traded spell-blasts, while Chalkan, recognizing that his greatest damage potential lay in his bow, not his spells, peppered the naga with arrows. Cal, in the meantime, attacked the [i]wall of ice[/i] with his mace and every bit of strength he could muster, determined to carve a way into the octagonal room to save Akari before the foolish elf was slain yet again. As for Akari, he had managed to slay the hellish mantis and watch as it discorporated to reform in whatever fiendish plane had spawned it, and was running through the [i]wall of fire[/i] when he was struck by a [i]hold person[/i] spell. The spell caught him off guard, and he stopped his movement while standing right in the middle of a sheet of flame, but his elvish heritage (new as it was) gave him the mental strength needed to fend off the spell. He stood there, engulfed in flames, realizing he could survive the heat for a short while - and that it would look incredibly intimidating to his foes to see him standing there, apparently unfazed by the fire blazing all around him, calmly gripping his sword as if to say, "What else you got?" “You are too late to stop us!” bellowed Bollivond. “The Far Realm calls to us, and you cannot prevent us from basking in its unearthly radiance!” With that, he plunged his dagger into the peasant’s heart, killing him instantly. Immediately, a swirling commenced in the middle of the black plane, cascading in erratic waves. They encompassed the peasant’s body, and in an instant, not only were all traces of the slain peasant gone, but the gateway now lay open to another world. "The Blood Gate has been opened!" bellowed Bollivond. "Into the beckoning chaos of the Far Realm!" Bollivond, Quillianna, and the cultists raced through the now-open gate, into a blinding radiance that made Akari shield his eyes. A crashing noise behind him told him that Cal had broken through the [i]wall of ice[/i], and he waited for once for the rest of his group before plunging ahead into unknown danger. Feron and Chalkan joined Cal through the shattered [i]wall of ice[/i], around the [i]wall of fire[/i], and met up with Akari. The elf filled them in on what had happened, and they realized that they'd have to follow through the Blood Gate and into the Far Realm if they were going to put a stop to the cultists. With a quick prayer to their various gods on their lips, the four stepped into a world of unimaginable chaos. The scene before them as they passed through the Blood Gate was difficult for their minds to process. They saw not one view, but several, overlapping and bleeding through each other. Glistening, tentacled slugs seemed to ooze and glide slowly through the air, while in the distance they could see what might be mountains or perhaps the shells of mollusks too big to even contemplate. Elsewhere, patches of flame arose out of nowhere, burning a bright purple before vanishing as quickly as they appeared. Patches of what could either be oddly-shaped grasses or upright tongues swayed in a nonexistent breeze, while scuttling near Feron's leg was a goblin-faced creature whose body was made up of two joined hands. Spread out among this patchwork reality were the transformed enemies they had come here to stop. The otherworldly energies of the Far Realm had not been kind to the cultists, who had basked in such energies before and had already suffered some transmutational effects as a result. Bollivond, whose right arm had already sprouted tentacles, felt an unimaginable pressure in his head as his brain expanded, shattering his skull as his body levitated out of both the robe he wore and the armor he wore underneath. As his body shifted and changed, it flowed out of the neck of his armor, which crashed to the ground beneath him and he floated in the unnatural breezes of the Far Realm, fully transformed into a levitating grell, tentacles twitching beneath his massive brainlike body. Quillianna screamed as blood poured from her every orifice, hardening into a thick, chitinous substance that covered her body like petrified black candle wax. It didn't seem to affect her ability to move, though, and the chaos-worshiping tiefling smirked in delight at her new form. The run-of-the-mill cultists fared much worse. One started screaming as violent changes erupted throughout his body, spurting out claws, tentacles, gnarled wings, teeth, and a host of limbs hitherto before unseen. He collapsed into the form of a chaos beast and started attacking those within range. Two more cultists started spasming violently, and hugged each other in fear. Their forms merged together, and oversized, inhuman eyes sprouted from their mouths. The two emerged as a single entity, a man-crab that scuttled erratically towards the group in an attempt to take their new-found misery out on them. The rest of the cultists’ bodies seemed to melt and flow like liquid, finally merging into a gibbering mouther. The group watched these transformations with a mixture of astonishment, fear, and panic, each examining their own bodies to ensure that the Far Realm wouldn't be transforming them into something unspeakable. But fortunately, the effects seemed to only occur after long exposure to the chaotic world, for they looked and felt no different. The time for such introspection was shortened by Bollivond's sudden attack. Despite his new form, he still had his full spellcasting ability, and he tried petrifying Feron with a [i]flesh to stone[/i] spell that fortunately had no effect. The group rushed into battle, but even that was problematic, for spacial orientation didn't seem to work correctly on this weird plane, or even the same way twice. Feron called down a bolt of lightning from the sky, and instead of just striking Bollivond its spell effect widened into a ragged line, catching the goblin-faced hand-monster some ten feet away as well. It exploded in a mass of black goo, which bubbled on the ground for a short time and then evaporated. Cal tried racing forward to slam his mace into the side of the man-crab, but found himself 20 feet beyond his mark, uncertain if he had moved at super-speed or teleported the short distance away. Chalkan shot an arrow at the chaos beast, only to have it spontaneously transform into a hornet and buzz away into the distance. Akari thrust [i]Hoardmaster[/i] at one of Bollivond's tentacles and severed it, only for it to burst into purple flames when it hit the ground. The cultist-beasts were definitely at a home advantage here in the Far Realm, for the oddities of the plane seemed normal to them, their bodies having fully adapted to the swirling chaos of the land. Not so the Wing Three adventurers, who were learning by trial and error a new set of rules every few seconds, and fighting on an ever-shifting terrain. One moment the ground was normal; the next, blue monoliths were sprouting from the ground, forming a maze of obstacles. The group found itself fighting in a field of black snowflakes, which had no real effect other than to further disorient the adventurers; they had no idea which effects were harmless and which could potentially kill them. Fortunately, the man-crab and the chaos beast had become virtually mindless; the group left them to their own devices and they ended up battling each other. Likewise with the gibbering mouther, which wandered off into the endless plane of chaos and was last seen squirting into the sky in a zone of weightlessness. That really only left Bollivond and Quillianna for the group to fight, and despite their advantages in understanding this strange world, they were slowly being cut to pieces. A bolt of electricity from Feron's [i]call lightning[/i] spell did in Quillianna, whereas Bollivond's exposed brain was cracked open by a blow from Cal's mace, spreading gore in all directions. Once the two of them were slain, Cal called for a retreat back to the Blood Gate, for they had no idea how long the extraplanar passageway would remain open, and nobody wanted to risk being trapped in the Far Realm forever. Akari took the time to grab up Bollivond's discarded armor, for it seemed to be of good quality and Feron thought it might be magical; into the [i]Heward's handy haversack[/i] it went for further examination later. Returning through the Blood Gate, the group saw that both of the magical walls - fire and ice - had disappeared during their absence. Concerned that they were unsure about what the magical statues in the other room were all about, they had Feron examine them more closely with a [i]detect magic[/i] spell, and they radiated a form of teleportation magic. Extensive experimentation finally showed that if they were touched by a tattoo of an eye surrounded by tentacles (the tattoo that each of the cultists had on their right palms; fortunately, Kelric's and Chondak's were available once the group dragged their bodies downstairs), they each led to a different place. One was an extensive library, no doubt worth quite a bit to the Adventurers Guild wizards and sages (and if not, Altamaic of the Temple of Boccob would probably pay handsomely for the set). Another led to a workshop of sorts, where a magma beast crafted cyst stones from gems taken from the Far Realm; these would have been placed in a magical pattern around the Styes (according to some papers the group found in the library) to allow the Far Realm to spill into Oerth. The adventurers killed the magma beast and destroyed the existing cyst stones so they couldn't be used. The last statue led to a prison, where the group rescued six other peasants, each having been taken from the Styes and kept here as future "Blood Gate keys." They were grateful for their rescue, and returned home when the group left Bollivond's manor to go report back to the Adventurers Guild. The Guild leaders would decide what to do about the Blood Gates, whether they should be destroyed or studied; despite their observed use, it might be possible that they could be activated without the sacrifice of a living victim. But all of that was out of the group's hands for now. They were just glad to be back on their own world, in a place where normal geometries stayed the same and the laws of physics weren't constantly in flux. And, as Cal pointed out, it was quite possible that the group of four adventurers had just saved the world - for if the Cult of the Far Realm had succeeded in opening the way for the plane of chaos to leak into the material plane, there was no telling that there would have been any way to undo that. What the heck - they were counting it as saving the world. - - - I had a great time having the PCs fight in the Far Realm. I normally make up geomorphs or entire maps of the areas that the group is in; for the Far Realm, I used a full-sized sheet of 22" by 28" paper (the back of a sheet from a desk calendar from work), but instead of drawing the 1" grid using a yardstick, I hand drew the spaces, and had them vary greatly in size and shape. Most were four-sided polygons, but occasionally they would bunch up into a triangle or expand into a pentagon. I also did up rules ahead of time for what chaotic effects would occur each round while they were on the Far Realm. I had spontaneous bursts of purple flames (that expanded, contracted, and moved each round until they vanished as sudden as they had appeared), I had rules for when monoliths would rise up from the ground, I had teleport zones (for this round, if you step on a triangle space you teleport to the nearest triangle space in the direction you were traveling), and so forth. Bollivond's armor was eventually given to Telgrane, who wears it to this day. It's [i]ethereal armor[/i], and once it's donned correctly and activated, all but a small patch of it shunts to the Ethereal Plane, so the wearer hardly even feels its presence. (As a result, no chance of arcane spell failure.) The "zone" that's present moves around of its own accord, jumping into the way of oncoming attacks. As a result, the wearer gets the effect of wearing the armor, but only for the first hit each round; the second (and further) hit each round affects the wearer as if he wasn't wearing any armor at all. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
Playing the Game
Story Hour
Wing Three
Top