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Wing Three
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<blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 6262679" data-attributes="member: 508"><p><strong>FLASHBACK - ADVENTURE 77: SERVANTS OF ORCUS</strong></p><p></p><p>PC Roster: <p style="margin-left: 20px">Akari, tiefling paladin</p><p></p><p>Okay, now that the other PCs in the Wing Three campaign have found out what came of Akari, there's no reason to keep the rest of you in the dark about it. The following is what happened when I ran Logan through a solo adventure with his tiefling paladin, Akari.</p><p></p><p> - - - </p><p></p><p>"Thank you for meeting me," offered <strong>Father Justinian</strong>, head cleric of the Temple of Hieroneous, as Akari stood before him across from his desk.</p><p></p><p>"But of course," replied Akari. He carried his helmet at his side but was otherwise in full armor, having just finished a combat training session with some of the younger recruits of the church.</p><p></p><p>"I watched you train with the acolytes," began Father Justinian. "I was very impressed. They can learn a lot from you."</p><p></p><p>"Thank you, Holy Father. That is certainly my intention."</p><p></p><p>"You enjoy training the acolytes?"</p><p></p><p>"I do."</p><p></p><p>"Would you consider doing so on a more...permanent basis?"</p><p></p><p>Akari cocked his horned head to the side, puzzled. "Sir?" he asked.</p><p></p><p>"As you know, we are in the beginning stages of construction of the new Temple, across town. The building itself won't be finished for another six months, but once it is I expect all of the acolytes intending to tread the path of cleric or paladin to undergo combat training at our new facility. And I'd like to offer up the position of head weapons master to you, Akari."</p><p></p><p>Akari snapped to full attention. "That is quite a compliment, Holy Father," he said.</p><p></p><p>"I can think of no better man for the position," replied Father Justinian. "Now, I understand you still have duties at your Adventurers Guild, and I don't want to take you from those duties - good heavens, you've just recently prevented the sun from being extinguished! So we'll have to find a way to work around your adventuring schedule, but I'm sure we can figure something out. And I don't need an answer right away from you, so think it over. But I'd like an answer by the end of the month, so we have time to make other arrangements if you decide otherwise."</p><p></p><p>"As you wish, Holy Father," replied Akari. Then Father Justinian bid him goodnight, and he turned and exited the Church of Hieroneous, his thoughts a blur over what he had just been offered. Absently flipping his helmet over his head, he turned and headed towards the Adventurers Guild, thinking over the ramifications. He'd have to talk to Telgrane, his "bink partner," to see how he would feel about possibly adventuring without a backup. He'd need to talk to Guildmaster Farthingale, of course. And he should at least talk to the others in his Wing, to get their inputs....</p><p></p><p>His train of thought was suddenly interrupted by a series of clinks emanating from the chestplate of his armor. Looking down, he saw a small collection of crossbow bolts clattering down onto the cobblestones of the street, and belatedly realized he was under attack.</p><p></p><p>Akari raised his shield in the direction the bolts had been fired, but was hit from either side as well. Peering over his shield and seeing no enemies in the open street with him, he concentrated on his ability to detect evil and got a clear sense that there was an entire arc of evil centered around him, immediately before him and to either side. As he realized he was nearly surrounded by invisible foes, bolts continued to strike him from all sides, but none were able to pierce his magical armor, which covered him from head to toe.</p><p></p><p>At the same time, he also felt that the crossbow bolts weren't the only means of attack, for he felt a tingling in his head that experience taught him were attempts to capture his willpower via spells. He couldn't tell if these were <em>hold person</em> spells or <em>dominate person</em> spells, but they felt like something along those lines. Fortunately, he was able to steel his mind against such attacks, and the spells failed to take hold.</p><p></p><p>Akari pulled <em>Deathstriker</em> from his belt, swung it over his head, and released it, aiming for what he determined would be chest level of a standard-sized person standing directly ahead of him. The magical warhammer flew true, coming to an abrupt halt in midair some 20 feet away to the sounds of a "Whoof!" of pain and surprise. There was the sound of a body hitting the street as Akari opened his hand and <em>Deathstriker</em> obediently returned. But at the same time, a spell finally made it past the resistance provided by Akari's shield, and he found himself suddenly blind - granted, no worse than he had been, considering his opponents were all cloaked in <em>greater invisibility</em> spells, but disconcerting nonetheless.</p><p></p><p>"This isn't working!" cried an unseen voice. "Get him!"</p><p></p><p>Akari suddenly felt a body attempt to tackle him from the front; he steadied his stance and remained upright, giving his invisible assailant a steel gauntlet in the face for his trouble. Another invisible attacker plowed into him from his left, followed almost immediately by another from the right, but it wasn't until a fourth attacker dropped and grabbed the paladin's legs from behind that the unseen assault force managed to topple Akari onto his back.</p><p></p><p>An unseen dog-pile then began, with body after body jumping onto Akari's arms and legs and holding him down. The paladin felt someone trying to pry <em>Deathstriker</em> from his hand, but he tightened his grasp and held onto his weapon. Clinks along his armor told him that they were still trying to stab him with the crossbow bolts, but were unable to puncture through his armor.</p><p></p><p>The assailants figured this out as well, and soon some were pulling off Akari's helmet while others tugged at the paladin's boots. "Here!" cried a voice from near Akari's legs, as the paladin felt the cool evening air on his left foot - they had managed to remove his sock as well as his boot.</p><p></p><p>Akari's left foot suddenly became the choice target of his unseen foes, and the paladin felt a series of puncture wounds on his ankle and foot as the still-invisible crossbow bolts were stabbed through his skin. The tiefling could feel the poison coursing through his system soon after, as the strength left his limbs. And still, while all of this was happening, he could feel a constant barrage of assaults against his mind, as spells were cast from unseen lips. Akari realized he was in actual danger and started to make the mental call to his loyal griffon in the Beastlands when everything suddenly froze for the paladin - his limbs had no strength at all, and his mind no longer wanted to resist his assailants. He lay there in a blissful lethargy, no longer having to make decisions about what to do, no longer having to do anything at all. His new masters would take care of him.</p><p></p><p>"Man, that was a close thing!" called out the unseen voice that apparently was directing the others. "Okay, gather up all of his stuff, and let's get him to Orcus."</p><p></p><p>Hidden in the shadows on a nearby alleyway as well as by the <em>greater invisibility</em> spells cloaking their forms, <strong>Tiatianna</strong> and <strong>Justaine</strong> looked on, Tiatianna's magically-enhanced eyesight allowing her to see invisible creatures. She watched as the Orcus cultists gathered up Akari, his weapons and shield, his helmet and boot, and the crossbow bolts that had been scattered in the attack, the heads of the latter each liberally coated in the venom of a purple worm. Then the leader opened a <em>gate</em>, and the group stepped through.</p><p></p><p>"This doesn't feel right," Tiatianna said, watching them leave and dropping the <em>greater invisibility</em> spell cloaking her form. Her elven eyes glowed with power, radiant energy spilling out from the valkyrie she had imprisoned in her lithe body.</p><p></p><p>"It's necessary if we're going to take down Orcus on his own plane," responded Justaine gruffly, returning to visibility as well. He was a cleric, ostensibly of the deities of good, but he had sworn to take down Orcus by any means necessary and this was all part of the best path to achieving their goal.</p><p></p><p>"Hey, we discussed this, kiddies," said <strong>Benny the Devil</strong>, stepping up behind them and putting an incorporeal arm around - and occasionally through - their shoulders. "Orcus spends a week torturing a good-aligned paladin, and at the end of that time he's got a self-loathing undead servant who'll do anything he commands while hating himself for doing it. But most importantly, the Unhallowing ceremony will weaken Orcus significantly - and that's when we'll strike. It's our best chance."</p><p></p><p>"I know," said Tiatianna sadly.</p><p></p><p>"C'mon, you grumpy lot," said Benny. "We've still got lots of work to do, and now only a week to do it in. Let's go back to the calcified remains of our Elder God on the Astral Plane, and see about raising you guys that army of devils! We're gonna need 'em to fight off the army of demons and undead in Orcus's realm if you're going to have a chance to take down the Big Guy! But I know you guys will come through! You always come through!" The information devil reached into his vest pocket and brought out a piece of chalk as he talked. Concentrating furiously on the chalk until he was able to manifest it in the material world, he hastily started scribbling arcane formula onto the cobblestones of the street, centered around a circle he had drawn.</p><p></p><p>"There we go!" Benny said proudly after finishing his <em>gate</em>. "Last one in's a rotten egg!"</p><p></p><p>The trio stepped into the chalk circle and were gone.</p><p></p><p> - - -</p><p></p><p>Okay, I imagine this is going to require a little extra explanation. "Wing Three" is only one of two campaigns I'm currently running. When 3E first came out, I started up a campaign with my two sons, Stuart and Logan. We decided that we'd have each of the two players run two different PCs concurrently, and that if anybody got killed (in the early stages before resurrection was a possibility) any replacement characters had to be a new class that we hadn't used before, so we could get a good "feel" for the 11 classes of 3E. The boys probably ran through 4-5 PCs each, but Justaine was one of Stuart's original PCs, and Tiatianna was one of Logan's "first replacement" PCs - in fact, she was the sorcerer daughter of one of his original 3E PCs, an elven paladin named Lhorgan.</p><p></p><p>In the course of our campaign, we ran an adventure from the pages of <em>Dungeon</em> magazine called "Headless." Written by none other than James Jacobs himself, it dealt with a plot to create a Deadgate, which when constructed and activated would shunt the souls of the recently-slain not to their earned afterlife, but directly to Orcus's realm, thereby increasing his power. We'd gone through quite a lot of adventures by that time, but "Headless" gave us our first TPK.</p><p></p><p>However, due to the specific plotline of "Headless," I realized that the TPK didn't necessarily have to spell the end of that campaign. Instead, I had the slain PCs (at that point, they were Justaine the cleric, Tiatianna the sorcerer, Veridian the druid, Soriah the fighter, and Kane the awakened dire wolf) "wake up dead" at Orcus's feet on his Abyssal plane of Thanatos with no memories of their former lives. Orcus, the Demon Lord of the Undead, informed them that they were demons - his trusted lieutenants, in fact - who had failed in an attempt to overthrow Orcus and take his throne for themselves. However, rather than kill these upstart demons, he decided to imprison them in the bodies of mortals and make them earn their way back into his good graces. Not knowing anything at all but that what they were told by Orcus, these evil PCs (now named Germtongue, Titmouse, Vilechild, Snakeheart, and Karkass) went on a series of missions for Orcus to prove their value.</p><p></p><p>I think I had them run through three adventures believing themselves to be evil demons in mortal form before they ran across Tiatianna's father Lhorgan, who after his death had become a deva and was there to stop these "demons" from accomplishing their goals. Recognizing his daughter and Justaine (with whom he had adventured with during his life), he called out to them by name; hearing their true names restored the memories to both, but the others escaped and reported back to Orcus before Tiatianna and Justaine could do the same for them.</p><p></p><p>The next three adventures were spent trying to undo all of the damage they had done while "demons" - "Germtongue" had, for example, gated in a succubus and a marilith demon to assist them in one of their Orcus missions, and left them roaming Oerth after said mission was over. (And as I recall, on their very first mission as "demons," their very first act upon being gated naked and weaponless to the material plane was to ambush a pair of Hieronean paladins for their weapons and armor.) But by this point, our campaign - which up until "Headless" had simply been a series of unconnected adventures from <em>Dungeon</em> - now had an overarching goal: Stuart and Logan (mostly Stuart) wanted to take down Orcus in his castle in Thanatos. We decided our final adventure in this campaign would be an assault upon Thanatos when the PCs were both 20th level.</p><p></p><p>To that end, I introduced a new NPC: Benny the information devil. Benny was a bureaucratic sort, basically the Hellish equivalent of an office drone, spending his days scrying upon mortals and making assessments on which ones would be ripe for temptation and the selling of their mortal souls. All would have been fine for Benny had he not been caught poaching - in the harem of an Archduke of Hell. Benny was sentenced to permanent incorporeality - unable to affect the material world in any way. However, Hellish law allows for an "escape clause" to any punishment, so the Archduke gave him one he thought would be impossible to achieve: take down Orcus, the Demon Lord of the Undead.</p><p></p><p>However, being an information devil, Benny had a means of checking up on mortals, and he soon found that Justaine and Tiatianna had the same goal, so he appeared before them and offered to join forces. He never tried to hide the fact that he was a lawful evil devil, but played heavily on "the enemy of my enemy is my friend," and assisted the two in undoing the evil they had perpetrated as "demons." (He was responsible for trapping the marilith "Germtongue" had brought to Oerth into a chalk circle that gated her to the Upper Planes, ultimately leading to her certain destruction, for example.)</p><p></p><p>Stuart and Logan both eventually went off to college, and this campaign crawled to a near halt, as we could only advance the plot when they were both at home. So while "Wing Three" progresses along at about an adventure a month or so, "The Orcus Campaign" (as we call it) only progresses at one or two adventures a year.</p><p></p><p>In any case, by the time "Wing Three" was up to its 77th adventure, in "The Orcus Campaign" this was the plan to take down Orcus: <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Have an extradimensional tattoo placed upon Justaine's chest. (Done.)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Go to the Nine Hells and retrieve a <em>holy longspear of fiendslaying</em> that had once been used to kill an Archduke of Hell. Once retrieved, place the longspear in the extradimensional tattoo. (Done.)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Go to Ysgard and earn the services of a valkyrie willing to help take down Orcus. (Done: Hildebrun the Valkyrie is now resident inside Tiatianna's body, waiting to be unleashed at Orcus at the proper time. We've determined that Hildebrun's kamikaze sacrifice will weaken Orcus to the point he should be able to be overcome by the PCs.)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Have a pair of drone constructs built by Bindlestaff the Animator, which can be "piloted" to Thanatos without being detected, as Benny the Devil cannot draw a chalk gate to anyplace he hasn't already been to or at least "seen" through some type of scrying device. (Done.)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Find the calcified remains of an Elder God floating in the Graveyard of the Gods in the Astral Plane, and learn to pilot it. (Done; they found what is likely to be Cthulhu.)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Obtain a magic chain from the Cyclops metalsmith in Tarterus responsible for imprisoning gods and titans; use it to create a superpowered version of <em>iron bands of Bilarro</em> capable of wrapping around Orcus's hand, imprisoning his <em>rod of Orcus</em> during the upcoming fight, preventing its use against the PCs.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Hire the services of an army of devils willing to extend the Blood War directly into Orcus's Realm.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Summon the Hellcow to calcified Cthulhu to fortify the PCs so they can temporarily exist without harm in Orcus's Abyssal Plane.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Pilot calcified Cthulhu through an enormous chalk gate leading directly above Orcus's castle in Thanatos, exiting before it plummets into the castle and making one Hell of an announcement of "We're here, and we'd like a word with you."</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">While the army of devils fights off the army of demons and undead, the PCs make it to Orcus and take him down. After Brunhilde weakens Orcus and the Destroyer (a marut working with the PCs) deploys the enchanted chain to bind the <em>rod of Orcus</em>, Justaine makes the killing blow with the <em>holy longspear of fiendslaying</em>.</li> </ul><p>So that's the plan, anyway. But Benny recently learned of "The Unhallowing," a ritual that Orcus performs on a good-aligned paladin or cleric, which weakens him after a week of torture and siphoning of his undead essence into his new unwilling slave. Learning that Orcus had entrusted the capture of a suitable host to one of his human cults, and fearing that those bozos would likely mess it up, Benny convinced Justaine and Tiatianna that they needed to assist with the capture of the paladin, quietly behind the scenes so as not to tip off the cult that Orcus's stated enemies were actually assisting them.</p><p></p><p>And that is where the two campaigns suddenly collided. As Benny, I convinced the chaotic good cleric Justaine and the chaotic neutral Tiatianna that this was a necessary evil that would ultimately help pave the way to a bigger good: the total destruction of Orcus, Demon Lord of the Undead. I was sure to point out that the main goal was to get Orcus to his weakened state so they could more easily kill him, and that after Orcus had been slain, they would be able to slay the undead paladin (if he even survived the assault upon Orcus) and then resurrect him back to his pre-undead state. So they agreed on this plan of action.</p><p></p><p>So then, out of the blue, I asked Logan if he wanted to run a quick encounter with Akari, setting it up as a discussion with the high priest of Akari's Church of Hieroneous about a possible follow-on position at the end of the campaign. (The "Wing Three" campaign got its first 20th-level PC, Cal, one adventure ago, so we're starting to think about wrapping up loose plotlines and deciding on post-campaign careers for the PCs.) Logan was fine with the combat against invisible enemies up until the final words of the invisible head cultist, and realized that his PC in the Orcus Campaign had just authorized the destruction of his PC in the Wing Three campaign.</p><p></p><p>So here's a fond farewell to Akari, who started out as a human, was reborn as an elf, was forcefully transformed into a tiefling, and ultimately became a self-loathing vampire under the direct command of Orcus, the Demon Lord of the Undead. He'll be there when Justaine, Tiatianna, Benny, and the Destroyer storm Orcus's castle on Thanatos, doing his best to destroy those who would harm Lord Orcus and hating his every action as he does so.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Richards, post: 6262679, member: 508"] [b]FLASHBACK - ADVENTURE 77: SERVANTS OF ORCUS[/b] PC Roster: [INDENT]Akari, tiefling paladin[/INDENT] Okay, now that the other PCs in the Wing Three campaign have found out what came of Akari, there's no reason to keep the rest of you in the dark about it. The following is what happened when I ran Logan through a solo adventure with his tiefling paladin, Akari. - - - "Thank you for meeting me," offered [b]Father Justinian[/b], head cleric of the Temple of Hieroneous, as Akari stood before him across from his desk. "But of course," replied Akari. He carried his helmet at his side but was otherwise in full armor, having just finished a combat training session with some of the younger recruits of the church. "I watched you train with the acolytes," began Father Justinian. "I was very impressed. They can learn a lot from you." "Thank you, Holy Father. That is certainly my intention." "You enjoy training the acolytes?" "I do." "Would you consider doing so on a more...permanent basis?" Akari cocked his horned head to the side, puzzled. "Sir?" he asked. "As you know, we are in the beginning stages of construction of the new Temple, across town. The building itself won't be finished for another six months, but once it is I expect all of the acolytes intending to tread the path of cleric or paladin to undergo combat training at our new facility. And I'd like to offer up the position of head weapons master to you, Akari." Akari snapped to full attention. "That is quite a compliment, Holy Father," he said. "I can think of no better man for the position," replied Father Justinian. "Now, I understand you still have duties at your Adventurers Guild, and I don't want to take you from those duties - good heavens, you've just recently prevented the sun from being extinguished! So we'll have to find a way to work around your adventuring schedule, but I'm sure we can figure something out. And I don't need an answer right away from you, so think it over. But I'd like an answer by the end of the month, so we have time to make other arrangements if you decide otherwise." "As you wish, Holy Father," replied Akari. Then Father Justinian bid him goodnight, and he turned and exited the Church of Hieroneous, his thoughts a blur over what he had just been offered. Absently flipping his helmet over his head, he turned and headed towards the Adventurers Guild, thinking over the ramifications. He'd have to talk to Telgrane, his "bink partner," to see how he would feel about possibly adventuring without a backup. He'd need to talk to Guildmaster Farthingale, of course. And he should at least talk to the others in his Wing, to get their inputs.... His train of thought was suddenly interrupted by a series of clinks emanating from the chestplate of his armor. Looking down, he saw a small collection of crossbow bolts clattering down onto the cobblestones of the street, and belatedly realized he was under attack. Akari raised his shield in the direction the bolts had been fired, but was hit from either side as well. Peering over his shield and seeing no enemies in the open street with him, he concentrated on his ability to detect evil and got a clear sense that there was an entire arc of evil centered around him, immediately before him and to either side. As he realized he was nearly surrounded by invisible foes, bolts continued to strike him from all sides, but none were able to pierce his magical armor, which covered him from head to toe. At the same time, he also felt that the crossbow bolts weren't the only means of attack, for he felt a tingling in his head that experience taught him were attempts to capture his willpower via spells. He couldn't tell if these were [i]hold person[/i] spells or [i]dominate person[/i] spells, but they felt like something along those lines. Fortunately, he was able to steel his mind against such attacks, and the spells failed to take hold. Akari pulled [i]Deathstriker[/i] from his belt, swung it over his head, and released it, aiming for what he determined would be chest level of a standard-sized person standing directly ahead of him. The magical warhammer flew true, coming to an abrupt halt in midair some 20 feet away to the sounds of a "Whoof!" of pain and surprise. There was the sound of a body hitting the street as Akari opened his hand and [i]Deathstriker[/i] obediently returned. But at the same time, a spell finally made it past the resistance provided by Akari's shield, and he found himself suddenly blind - granted, no worse than he had been, considering his opponents were all cloaked in [i]greater invisibility[/i] spells, but disconcerting nonetheless. "This isn't working!" cried an unseen voice. "Get him!" Akari suddenly felt a body attempt to tackle him from the front; he steadied his stance and remained upright, giving his invisible assailant a steel gauntlet in the face for his trouble. Another invisible attacker plowed into him from his left, followed almost immediately by another from the right, but it wasn't until a fourth attacker dropped and grabbed the paladin's legs from behind that the unseen assault force managed to topple Akari onto his back. An unseen dog-pile then began, with body after body jumping onto Akari's arms and legs and holding him down. The paladin felt someone trying to pry [i]Deathstriker[/i] from his hand, but he tightened his grasp and held onto his weapon. Clinks along his armor told him that they were still trying to stab him with the crossbow bolts, but were unable to puncture through his armor. The assailants figured this out as well, and soon some were pulling off Akari's helmet while others tugged at the paladin's boots. "Here!" cried a voice from near Akari's legs, as the paladin felt the cool evening air on his left foot - they had managed to remove his sock as well as his boot. Akari's left foot suddenly became the choice target of his unseen foes, and the paladin felt a series of puncture wounds on his ankle and foot as the still-invisible crossbow bolts were stabbed through his skin. The tiefling could feel the poison coursing through his system soon after, as the strength left his limbs. And still, while all of this was happening, he could feel a constant barrage of assaults against his mind, as spells were cast from unseen lips. Akari realized he was in actual danger and started to make the mental call to his loyal griffon in the Beastlands when everything suddenly froze for the paladin - his limbs had no strength at all, and his mind no longer wanted to resist his assailants. He lay there in a blissful lethargy, no longer having to make decisions about what to do, no longer having to do anything at all. His new masters would take care of him. "Man, that was a close thing!" called out the unseen voice that apparently was directing the others. "Okay, gather up all of his stuff, and let's get him to Orcus." Hidden in the shadows on a nearby alleyway as well as by the [i]greater invisibility[/i] spells cloaking their forms, [b]Tiatianna[/b] and [b]Justaine[/b] looked on, Tiatianna's magically-enhanced eyesight allowing her to see invisible creatures. She watched as the Orcus cultists gathered up Akari, his weapons and shield, his helmet and boot, and the crossbow bolts that had been scattered in the attack, the heads of the latter each liberally coated in the venom of a purple worm. Then the leader opened a [i]gate[/i], and the group stepped through. "This doesn't feel right," Tiatianna said, watching them leave and dropping the [i]greater invisibility[/i] spell cloaking her form. Her elven eyes glowed with power, radiant energy spilling out from the valkyrie she had imprisoned in her lithe body. "It's necessary if we're going to take down Orcus on his own plane," responded Justaine gruffly, returning to visibility as well. He was a cleric, ostensibly of the deities of good, but he had sworn to take down Orcus by any means necessary and this was all part of the best path to achieving their goal. "Hey, we discussed this, kiddies," said [b]Benny the Devil[/b], stepping up behind them and putting an incorporeal arm around - and occasionally through - their shoulders. "Orcus spends a week torturing a good-aligned paladin, and at the end of that time he's got a self-loathing undead servant who'll do anything he commands while hating himself for doing it. But most importantly, the Unhallowing ceremony will weaken Orcus significantly - and that's when we'll strike. It's our best chance." "I know," said Tiatianna sadly. "C'mon, you grumpy lot," said Benny. "We've still got lots of work to do, and now only a week to do it in. Let's go back to the calcified remains of our Elder God on the Astral Plane, and see about raising you guys that army of devils! We're gonna need 'em to fight off the army of demons and undead in Orcus's realm if you're going to have a chance to take down the Big Guy! But I know you guys will come through! You always come through!" The information devil reached into his vest pocket and brought out a piece of chalk as he talked. Concentrating furiously on the chalk until he was able to manifest it in the material world, he hastily started scribbling arcane formula onto the cobblestones of the street, centered around a circle he had drawn. "There we go!" Benny said proudly after finishing his [i]gate[/i]. "Last one in's a rotten egg!" The trio stepped into the chalk circle and were gone. - - - Okay, I imagine this is going to require a little extra explanation. "Wing Three" is only one of two campaigns I'm currently running. When 3E first came out, I started up a campaign with my two sons, Stuart and Logan. We decided that we'd have each of the two players run two different PCs concurrently, and that if anybody got killed (in the early stages before resurrection was a possibility) any replacement characters had to be a new class that we hadn't used before, so we could get a good "feel" for the 11 classes of 3E. The boys probably ran through 4-5 PCs each, but Justaine was one of Stuart's original PCs, and Tiatianna was one of Logan's "first replacement" PCs - in fact, she was the sorcerer daughter of one of his original 3E PCs, an elven paladin named Lhorgan. In the course of our campaign, we ran an adventure from the pages of [i]Dungeon[/i] magazine called "Headless." Written by none other than James Jacobs himself, it dealt with a plot to create a Deadgate, which when constructed and activated would shunt the souls of the recently-slain not to their earned afterlife, but directly to Orcus's realm, thereby increasing his power. We'd gone through quite a lot of adventures by that time, but "Headless" gave us our first TPK. However, due to the specific plotline of "Headless," I realized that the TPK didn't necessarily have to spell the end of that campaign. Instead, I had the slain PCs (at that point, they were Justaine the cleric, Tiatianna the sorcerer, Veridian the druid, Soriah the fighter, and Kane the awakened dire wolf) "wake up dead" at Orcus's feet on his Abyssal plane of Thanatos with no memories of their former lives. Orcus, the Demon Lord of the Undead, informed them that they were demons - his trusted lieutenants, in fact - who had failed in an attempt to overthrow Orcus and take his throne for themselves. However, rather than kill these upstart demons, he decided to imprison them in the bodies of mortals and make them earn their way back into his good graces. Not knowing anything at all but that what they were told by Orcus, these evil PCs (now named Germtongue, Titmouse, Vilechild, Snakeheart, and Karkass) went on a series of missions for Orcus to prove their value. I think I had them run through three adventures believing themselves to be evil demons in mortal form before they ran across Tiatianna's father Lhorgan, who after his death had become a deva and was there to stop these "demons" from accomplishing their goals. Recognizing his daughter and Justaine (with whom he had adventured with during his life), he called out to them by name; hearing their true names restored the memories to both, but the others escaped and reported back to Orcus before Tiatianna and Justaine could do the same for them. The next three adventures were spent trying to undo all of the damage they had done while "demons" - "Germtongue" had, for example, gated in a succubus and a marilith demon to assist them in one of their Orcus missions, and left them roaming Oerth after said mission was over. (And as I recall, on their very first mission as "demons," their very first act upon being gated naked and weaponless to the material plane was to ambush a pair of Hieronean paladins for their weapons and armor.) But by this point, our campaign - which up until "Headless" had simply been a series of unconnected adventures from [i]Dungeon[/i] - now had an overarching goal: Stuart and Logan (mostly Stuart) wanted to take down Orcus in his castle in Thanatos. We decided our final adventure in this campaign would be an assault upon Thanatos when the PCs were both 20th level. To that end, I introduced a new NPC: Benny the information devil. Benny was a bureaucratic sort, basically the Hellish equivalent of an office drone, spending his days scrying upon mortals and making assessments on which ones would be ripe for temptation and the selling of their mortal souls. All would have been fine for Benny had he not been caught poaching - in the harem of an Archduke of Hell. Benny was sentenced to permanent incorporeality - unable to affect the material world in any way. However, Hellish law allows for an "escape clause" to any punishment, so the Archduke gave him one he thought would be impossible to achieve: take down Orcus, the Demon Lord of the Undead. However, being an information devil, Benny had a means of checking up on mortals, and he soon found that Justaine and Tiatianna had the same goal, so he appeared before them and offered to join forces. He never tried to hide the fact that he was a lawful evil devil, but played heavily on "the enemy of my enemy is my friend," and assisted the two in undoing the evil they had perpetrated as "demons." (He was responsible for trapping the marilith "Germtongue" had brought to Oerth into a chalk circle that gated her to the Upper Planes, ultimately leading to her certain destruction, for example.) Stuart and Logan both eventually went off to college, and this campaign crawled to a near halt, as we could only advance the plot when they were both at home. So while "Wing Three" progresses along at about an adventure a month or so, "The Orcus Campaign" (as we call it) only progresses at one or two adventures a year. In any case, by the time "Wing Three" was up to its 77th adventure, in "The Orcus Campaign" this was the plan to take down Orcus:[LIST][*]Have an extradimensional tattoo placed upon Justaine's chest. (Done.) [*]Go to the Nine Hells and retrieve a [i]holy longspear of fiendslaying[/i] that had once been used to kill an Archduke of Hell. Once retrieved, place the longspear in the extradimensional tattoo. (Done.) [*]Go to Ysgard and earn the services of a valkyrie willing to help take down Orcus. (Done: Hildebrun the Valkyrie is now resident inside Tiatianna's body, waiting to be unleashed at Orcus at the proper time. We've determined that Hildebrun's kamikaze sacrifice will weaken Orcus to the point he should be able to be overcome by the PCs.) [*]Have a pair of drone constructs built by Bindlestaff the Animator, which can be "piloted" to Thanatos without being detected, as Benny the Devil cannot draw a chalk gate to anyplace he hasn't already been to or at least "seen" through some type of scrying device. (Done.) [*]Find the calcified remains of an Elder God floating in the Graveyard of the Gods in the Astral Plane, and learn to pilot it. (Done; they found what is likely to be Cthulhu.) [*]Obtain a magic chain from the Cyclops metalsmith in Tarterus responsible for imprisoning gods and titans; use it to create a superpowered version of [i]iron bands of Bilarro[/i] capable of wrapping around Orcus's hand, imprisoning his [i]rod of Orcus[/i] during the upcoming fight, preventing its use against the PCs. [*]Hire the services of an army of devils willing to extend the Blood War directly into Orcus's Realm. [*]Summon the Hellcow to calcified Cthulhu to fortify the PCs so they can temporarily exist without harm in Orcus's Abyssal Plane. [*]Pilot calcified Cthulhu through an enormous chalk gate leading directly above Orcus's castle in Thanatos, exiting before it plummets into the castle and making one Hell of an announcement of "We're here, and we'd like a word with you." [*]While the army of devils fights off the army of demons and undead, the PCs make it to Orcus and take him down. After Brunhilde weakens Orcus and the Destroyer (a marut working with the PCs) deploys the enchanted chain to bind the [i]rod of Orcus[/i], Justaine makes the killing blow with the [i]holy longspear of fiendslaying[/i].[/LIST]So that's the plan, anyway. But Benny recently learned of "The Unhallowing," a ritual that Orcus performs on a good-aligned paladin or cleric, which weakens him after a week of torture and siphoning of his undead essence into his new unwilling slave. Learning that Orcus had entrusted the capture of a suitable host to one of his human cults, and fearing that those bozos would likely mess it up, Benny convinced Justaine and Tiatianna that they needed to assist with the capture of the paladin, quietly behind the scenes so as not to tip off the cult that Orcus's stated enemies were actually assisting them. And that is where the two campaigns suddenly collided. As Benny, I convinced the chaotic good cleric Justaine and the chaotic neutral Tiatianna that this was a necessary evil that would ultimately help pave the way to a bigger good: the total destruction of Orcus, Demon Lord of the Undead. I was sure to point out that the main goal was to get Orcus to his weakened state so they could more easily kill him, and that after Orcus had been slain, they would be able to slay the undead paladin (if he even survived the assault upon Orcus) and then resurrect him back to his pre-undead state. So they agreed on this plan of action. So then, out of the blue, I asked Logan if he wanted to run a quick encounter with Akari, setting it up as a discussion with the high priest of Akari's Church of Hieroneous about a possible follow-on position at the end of the campaign. (The "Wing Three" campaign got its first 20th-level PC, Cal, one adventure ago, so we're starting to think about wrapping up loose plotlines and deciding on post-campaign careers for the PCs.) Logan was fine with the combat against invisible enemies up until the final words of the invisible head cultist, and realized that his PC in the Orcus Campaign had just authorized the destruction of his PC in the Wing Three campaign. So here's a fond farewell to Akari, who started out as a human, was reborn as an elf, was forcefully transformed into a tiefling, and ultimately became a self-loathing vampire under the direct command of Orcus, the Demon Lord of the Undead. He'll be there when Justaine, Tiatianna, Benny, and the Destroyer storm Orcus's castle on Thanatos, doing his best to destroy those who would harm Lord Orcus and hating his every action as he does so. [/QUOTE]
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