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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Libertad" data-source="post: 9085084" data-attributes="member: 6750502"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/VeYhujv.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />After the PCs finish their long rest, Azrael will have deposited Ashmedai in a prison near the end of time. He and the party will be summoned back to the room with seven Lampstands, one of their fires no longer burning. The Reapers' next mission is as follows: the Woman is in labor and giving birth to the Child under the protection of the archangel Michael. A seven-headed Dragon seeks to kill her in this moment of weakness. “Find the Path. Resist the Dragon. Protect the Woman.”But the PCs and Azrael won’t be alone in this: the lampstand’s fire will open a portal to a room filled with Elders, valiant people of God who have passed on but turned down the final path to Heaven so that they may continue to do good work in the rest of reality. The book explains that it should be up to the PCs who they choose, but in asking for guidance the above quoted text is repeated.The Woman is an Enigma of mystery, and even the oldest celestials don’t know the truth, nor where to find her at the moment. What is known is that she is faith made manifest. The fact that the Woman is giving birth is a momentous event, even if most don’t know the specifics of its significance. There’s a sidebar offering various suggestions for her true identity,such as her as Eve being eternally at war with the serpent (who is thus reflected as the Dragon) or the personification of the global Christian community. Her current location with Michael is in the Veil, hundreds of light-years away from Earth. While she cannot be located via the Book of Souls, there are various means of finding her: Find the Path spell will automatically lead to her, using the Book of Souls to track Michael instead can also work, and using lower-level divination spells such as Locate Creature and Commune require bending the physics of the Veil or succeeding on an Arcana check. Otherwise, a skill challenge can be done, such as charting a course through space via Nature, History or Religion to find meaning in scriptural verses and prophecies, or sussing out otherwise nonsense patterns in the Book of Souls via Perception or Survival.If the PCs succeed in finding the Woman without taking a short or long rest, they manage to catch up to her and Michael before the Dragon has arrived. Otherwise they arrive with combat having already begun, giving them no time to prepare and the Woman and archangel already having taken damage. As this combat takes place in the middle of space, PCs who don’t have a means of gaining a fly speed are given a Mantle of the Reaper to make up for this.The Dragon is actually one of the forms of Satan himself, and is actually the final boss of this adventure. However, he and the Woman both have abilities which cancel out each other’s Legendary Actions and Resistances, and since the Woman cannot concentrate on spells due to giving birth, both beings are very limited in what they do for this encounter. That being said, the Dragon is still very powerful, and the goal isn’t to defeat the Dragon but to protect the Woman for three rounds, which gives her and the baby enough time to escape.<img src="https://i.imgur.com/NTyagox.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />In terms of stats Michael the Archangel is a very powerful CR 21 celestial. He has a fast fly speed, loads of hit points (243), 21 AC, stellar ability scores with Dexterity being the lowest at 22, and can attack 3 times with a unique longsword that prevents struck targets from regaining hit points for 24 hours. He also has an assortment of “holy magic” spells like Resurrection, Flame Strike, and Commune, legendary actions, and once per day can Pronounce Judgment to make a creature suffer either disadvantage on saving throws, make all attack rolls gain advantage on the target, or damaging attacks deal 7 extra radiant damage. This last ability cannot be resisted.The Woman is a more fragile yet still powerful entity. She has 238 hit points, 16 AC, and her lowest ability scores are Constitution and Intelligence at 20. She is also a 20th level spellcaster, having mostly Cleric-style spells such as Greater Restoration and Holy Aura. She is immune to spells of 6th level and lower unless she wants to be affected, advantage on saves vs all other magical effects, can change shape into a Medium size teenage girl (she’s Gargantuan normally), and once per day can Restore Faith. This last ability is an encouraging phrase that grants a permanent benefit to a single target: having a Flaw reduced or removed, +1 to an ability score, a new proficiency, or a new Boon or Blessing.* Finally, her Legendary actions include granting a target +5 on their next saving throw, throwing a Crown of Stars as a ranged attack dealing radiant damage, casting a spell of 5th level or lower, or “Let it be done” where each creature of her choice has advantage on attacks, saves, and ability checks until the start of her next turn. Additionally, if at least one creature continuously prays to God which takes the form of concentrating on a spell, the Woman has resistance to all damage (she will tell them as much during combat). Overall, an extremely powerful “support” character.*But she won’t use it until much later in the campaign, during a plot-relevant moment.However, the only action she will be using in this battle is Suppress Power, which causes each creature of her choice within 240 feet to be unable to use features or abilities that contain the word “Legendary” in its name. And the Dragon has a similar ability, Preeminent Suppression, that eliminates her legendary actions, but this doesn’t require any action on his part.Now let’s cover the Dragon. While technically Gargantuan size, each of his seven heads is treated as a Huge size creature on the game mat and can move independent of each other up to 50 feet per turn despite otherwise sharing the same stats and overall action economy. Satan has 666 hit points, appropriately enough, 20 AC, a mere 10 Dexterity (and no proficiency in Dexterity saves) but every other ability score of his is 26 to 32, meaning his non-DEX saving throws are through the roof. He’s immune to quite a bit of conditions as well as fire, necrotic, and nonmagical physical attacks. He has a similar limited magical immunity as the Woman, and his major attacks include making a number of bite attacks equal to his active heads which individually deal a moderate amount of damage but with +19 to hit he’s practically guaranteed to strike. The Dragon also has a rechargeable breath weapon from each of his active heads (can only be damaged once) that deals damage as well as forced movement. Finally, he can also perform Call of the Unworthy in conjunction with his bites, an AoE effect that deals psychic damage on a failed save where targets are overwhelmed by their sins and feels deep despair.The Dragon has a variety of Legendary Actions, but I figure those are best saved for the final battle of this campaign. So what’s this about “active heads?” Well if the Dragon fails a saving throw against something that would otherwise reduce the amount of actions it has such as stunned, paralysis, sleep, and so on, one of the heads is affected and thus is taken out of commission during the fight.Satan is very much a “death by a thousand cuts” kind of guy. He doesn’t have very damaging individual attacks, but if his heads coordinate efforts along with Call of the Unworthy he can seriously damage a target. Additionally his 120 foot fly speed can catch up with most characters save Michael who can keep up with his pace. Unless he’s rolling a Dexterity saving throw Satan is going to succeed on saves the vast majority of the time, although ironically his CON and INT are the next-lowest at +11 and +10. Being a Gargantuan creature with 30 Strength and a Proficiency Bonus of +9 (he should have +10 for being CR 30) shoving and grappling him are suboptimal tactics and he’s immune to the prone condition.We even get an “area control” optional rule where PCs who minmax in dealing single-target damage can still feel like they’re protecting the Woman. Basically, they trade a certain amount of damage to impose some kind of effect or forced action on the part of the Dragon. For example, 10 points of damage can be exchanged to impose disadvantage on the Dragon’s next attack roll, 20 points can move a head 20 feet and halve its movement speed until the start of the attacker’s next turn, 25 points can stun the Dragon until the start of the attacker’s next turn, and 30 points can increase the stun duration to 1 minute. Due to how stun works, this will take one of the heads out of the fight for that amount of time.Between the action economy of the party, Michael, Azrael, and the Elder, they can do a bunch of stuff to the Dragon in just a single turn, and unless the monster focuses on one PC (something his default battle tactics don’t do) it’s likely that they can survive for 3 rounds, even if the Dragon is likely to resist many of their effects. Amusingly the area control optional rules make it easy for a damage-heavy party to stunlock a bunch of heads.The Woman gives birth to a newborn child at the end of the third round of combat, triggering cutscene-time boxed text as she hands the baby to Michael, who asks Azrael if he can trust the Reapers to continue protecting the Woman. The Woman will then transform into her Medium shape, use a healing spell to restore the party’s hit points, then fall unconscious. Azrael will carry her and call for the party to retreat, prompting a skill challenge chase scene as the PCs flee across space via some kind of cosmic wormhole with the Dragon hot in pursuit.For this skill challenge, the party must succeed on 6 of these rolls, with one check being made per round to a maximum of 9 rounds. A single character makes a roll, being the Active Player, although they can gain bonuses, advantage, or even auto-success on the roll if they use limited resources (typically per-rest or per-day) or use a tool or environmental feature in a creative way. Each round has its own appropriate skills and DC, which range from 16 to 20. They include things like using colored clouds of cosmic gas to hide from the Dragon’s gaze, Perception to follow Azrael as they fly past blindingly bright stars, or tricking the Dragon into veering too close to the gravitational pull of a collapsing neutron star.PCs who fail a challenge end up careening off course in a 1 on 1 encounter known as a Consequence before they reunite with the party at the end of the challenge. If the skill challenge lasts for 9 rounds, the party has one last chance by grappling the Dragon and throwing it away. If the Active Player fails all the remaining PCs go off course, or an Active Player can automatically succeed but risk going off course themselves if they then fail a DC 21 Dexterity save.So technically speaking, failing this skill challenge doesn’t cause a Game Over, but it does cause additional complications to arise via encounters. The 6 Consequences involve a PC being flung through time and space, sometimes ending up in another realm of existence. One example has them crash into a post-apocalyptic Earth overrun by demons, where they have to escape via a nearby planar portal 500 feet away as flaming eruptions and bloodfiends threaten them. Another has a character sent back into the past during a momentous occasion of their life and are stuck in a time loop, and the encounter is resolved via roleplay or a Deception/Insight check (to either lie to themselves or realize their growth). A third has Gethsemani summon that PC to 16th Century Earth via a Candle of Invocation, where she needs their advice for fighting demons. A fourth has a PC end up on a lifeless desert planet where they meet the Horseman of Famine, who hasn’t been summoned by the Scroll of Seven Seals yet and is enjoying the bleak desolation.Sure, I’m going to knowingly and willingly help plunge Earth into a post-apocalyptic hellscape and kill off a third of humanity in all manner of horrific ways, but that doesn’t make me a bad person…right?!A fifth has a PC end up in the nightmarish dream realm of Babylon, where they take a small amount of psychic damage every hour they do not find a way out. And a sixth has the PC relive the last moments of a pastor and his flock being hunted down by the Antichrist’s Marked Taskforce, and they have an opportunity to sacrifice themselves as a distraction to help the rest of the congregation escape.All of these Consequences save the post-apocalyptic Earth have permanent effects upon resolution. For example, the time loop can reduce, remove, or modify the involved PC’s Eternal Trait, while a PC who helps out Gethsemani can gain proficiency in a new language or Intelligence-based skill that isn’t Nature. And the encounters involving the Horseman of Famine, Babylon’s Realm, and the Marked Taskforce grants that PC advantage on attacks and saving throws (or checks instead of attacks for Babylon) during combat with those specific characters.<img src="https://i.imgur.com/dHhVRzf.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />One way or another, the party ends up in the Garden of Eden, a safe place to protect the Woman and her child. The region is a lush and scenic environment overrun with colorful flora and fauna. In the center of the Garden is the Tree of Life, a wise and ancient creature who telepathically communicates with the party, welcoming them to Eden and offering to protect the Woman for 1,260 days. The Tree says that they will meet again, but in less happy times. This is a prophecy for when the Horseman of Famine arrives in Eden to kill the Tree and thus destroy life itself.Once the Woman and her baby are confirmed safe, Azrael will check the Book of Souls, which has a brightly glowing page. He then transfers the party to World’s End, which is Earth in the far, far future with the end of the universe just around the corner and no life remaining. The archangels use this point in time as a prison for Satan’s most dangerous demons, and the landscape is charred rock with the sky filled with falling meteors and a blood-red moon. As the PCs are in the Veil they aren’t at risk of danger from this hostile environment. The captured fiends are housed in iron buildings with vault doors covered in angelic runes and the names of the fiends imprisoned within, such as Ashmedai along with the Archdemons from Adventurer’s Guide to the Bible. The runes are so powerful that nothing short of a Wish spell or plot device can open them.<img src="https://i.imgur.com/zew5ZTU.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />The reason for Azrael’s sudden teleportation here becomes evident by the presence of the Horseman of Conquest, who falls to the surface via a glowing white meteor. The reason she came is that she sensed a betrayal, but the specifics escape Conquest and thus she is here to merely bear witness. During her conversation with Azrael and the PCs it will become clear that she has contempt for the Angel of Death, but the PCs have opportunities to learn more about her and ask her things. Conquest is cold and aloof, caring little for the wars between angels and demons, and that as a Horseman she is the representation of conflict as a concept. She claims that the PCs will die at her hands some day, but that it’s nothing personal for her violence is “fair and unbiased.”When the conversation comes to a natural close, Azrael and the party will be summoned back to the Lampstands, leveling up to 12.Thoughts So Far: This is a relatively brief chapter in comparison to the ones before and after it, really only having one big set-piece battle. But it introduces the concept of Elders which is a big deal, and I do like its skill challenges, neither of which softlock the PCs from progressing the main plot but come with consequences. Amusingly, the Consequences for failing to escape the Dragon aren’t really that much of a hindrance; on the contrary, they can give positive mechanical benefits to a PC while also foreshadowing future characters and encounters.I am unsure of how challenging the fight against the Dragon will be. A lot can happen in 3 rounds, but as it’s the only real combat scenario and given that the PCs outnumber the bad guy in action economy I am a bit concerned it may be too easy. The encounter with Conquest at World’s End is foreshadowing Ashmedai’s prison break, and once again it’s a railroaded event that the PCs can’t really investigate further.Join us next time as we enter the Material Plane and infiltrate the Antichrist’s headquarters in Chapter 3: Desecration!</blockquote>

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