[Midnight] Defeating the Shadow

[Ace]

They are damned when you destroy that mirror, too - the spirits of the dead are trapped in this plane, remember? They might even come back soon as undead.

But if you hadn't destroyed the mirror, they might have lived for years or decades more, maybe even raised a new generation of children.


I mean, if I were in the situation, I'd probably smash the mirrors, too, if I knew what they were for. But it is not an easy choice to make, especially for good-aligned characters.

Honestly having children is the last thing anyone on Midnight should do. By having a child you damn an innocent soul to eternal suffering. Its an act of unspeakable evil.

If you want a bleak it up farther option assume that becuse the barrier is up and souls can't leave they can enter either. Every life becomes more precious as there will be no new ones ever --

JMO but Midnight is just too hopeless an RPG for me -- now If I had a fools chance of hitting back and winning-- maybe --

 

[atomn]

If I ever ran a Midnight campaign and wanted the heroes to beat Izrador I would have them find a super-powerful artifact that could send them back in time to when the big Good vs. Evil battle happened and let them duke it out then.

 

[Xer0]

If I ever ran a Midnight campaign and wanted the heroes to beat Izrador I would have them find a super-powerful artifact that could send them back in time to when the big Good vs. Evil battle happened and let them duke it out then.

Sold!!

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

One possibility that I have been considering is allowing them to use powerful magic in combination with the breaking of a Dark Mirror to breach the planar boundary of the world and allow them to travel to the Outer Planes to beseech the gods to free them from their plight... only to learn that the gods have died from lack of worship.



In an earlier campaign set in the setting, I have actually been leading up to this, when a fiend manipulated the heroes to break a mirror so that it could escape itself...

 

[Jim Hague]

They are damned when you destroy that mirror, too - the spirits of the dead are trapped in this plane, remember? They might even come back soon as undead.

But if you hadn't destroyed the mirror, they might have lived for years or decades more, maybe even raised a new generation of children.


I mean, if I were in the situation, I'd probably smash the mirrors, too, if I knew what they were for. But it is not an easy choice to make, especially for good-aligned characters.

That sounds like some really excellent gaming to me. But remember, folks - d20/D&D is only for hack-n-slash, you can't possibly have deeper stories or 'real' roleplay in there at all...

 

[Xer0]

One possibility that I have been considering is allowing them to use powerful magic in combination with the breaking of a Dark Mirror to breach the planar boundary of the world and allow them to travel to the Outer Planes to beseech the gods to free them from their plight... only to learn that the gods have died from lack of worship.

Ouch, that's sobering. And a really good way to capture the hopelessness of the setting.

In an earlier campaign set in the setting, I have actually been leading up to this, when a fiend manipulated the heroes to break a mirror so that it could escape itself...

Very cool idea. I assume the fiend got away? Did the players ever realize they were being played?

How exactly did you handle the breaking of a mirror to escape to the outer planes?

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Ouch, that's sobering. And a really good way to capture the hopelessness of the setting.

Well, I was considering letting them return with a "second price" - perhaps the secret of psionics, which work as normal and wouldn't be detected by astiraxes...

Another possibility I entertained was to make them encounter some sort of planar civilization where they could ask the locals for help - but they would have a very tough case getting anyone to volunteer for the fight, since that means that those volunteers are unlikely to be able to come back and get trapped on Aeryth after their death. Even pointing out that the alternative - allowing Izrador to get powerful enough until he returns to the planes as a true deity - will only convince the most heroic and brave individuals.

Still, these people might help slowing or even turning the tide back. But it certainly won't be an easy fight, even then - and the civilizations of men, elves, and dwarves will remain weakened and even less able to stop the inevitable return of Izrador...

Very cool idea. I assume the fiend got away? Did the players ever realize they were being played?

Well, when the nice old challenger transformed into a hideous monstrosity and shouted "Finally! I am free!" while being sucked through a weird hole in the air where the mirror used to be, they did sort of get the impression that something went wrong...

He had also promised them that the spell he would be casting at the same time as they destroyed the mirror would not only prevent the explosion of energy into the surrounding area near this mirror, but also cause a chain reaction that would burst many other nearby mirrors. No such luck...

How exactly did you handle the breaking of a mirror to escape to the outer planes?

Casting a "plane shift" spell at the exact same time as breaking a mid-sized mirror will do it. Of course, learning even of the Existence of such a spell would be the hard part - especially considering that it has been very long since such a spell actually worked...

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Jurgen: IIRC, you may be mischaracterizing the effects of destroying the mirrors a bit. The only one that really goes nuclear in the way you're describing is the Grand Mirror, and that's in Theros Obsidia, where everyone is either an orc or a slave with an existence probably not much less miserable than that of the Fell. Yes, innocents may die in the destruction of a Black Mirror, but it's not quite such a massive carnage scenario as you're suggesting.

Even the smallest mirrors cause 5d6 damage to everyone within a mile, with a Fort 15 save for half damage. Since most people are first level characters (and possibly Commoners to boot), that means that the majority of the people inside of that radius will die.

The mid-size mirror causes 10d6 damage (with a Fort 20 save for half damage) across five miles. And that's an effect that probably can compared with a nuke...

 

[SWBaxter]

Midnight is commonly described as a setting where Evil won. And certainly, the description is fairly accurate - the human lands are occupied by the Shadow In The North, and the elven and dwarven lands are slowly being grinded to oblivion.

Well, if you go back to the primary inspiration material, Midnight is very similar to Middle Earth after the Battle of Unnumbered Tears, where Morgoth defeated the elven hosts along with their human and dwarf allies. He then set about destroying the three (IIRC) elven nations that remained, while flooding the rest of the land with orcs and those humans who'd turned to darkness. Very similar to Midnight, with the good guys under siege and much of the land occupied by the only god that seems able to act openly.

That era ended when Earindil contacted the Valar and begged them to intervene on behalf of the few remaining men and elves. They ended their self-imposed exile and launched the War of Wrath, where they stomped all over Morgoth's forces and bound him up until the end of time. Then one of his lieutenants, Sauron, eventually took over the big bad guy role, and that lead to the Lord of the Rings a few thousand years later.

It's not quite the same in Midnight, since Izrador is apparently almost as strong as the rest of the gods put together. You'd have to decide how accurate those ancient myths are, and work out why exactly the gods haven't already intervened on behalf of the good folk trapped with Izrador. In the Silmarillion, it was because of the bad blood between the Valar and Feanor's sons, in Midnight it could be any number of reasons. Resolve that, and maybe the gods are willing to suit up for round two with Izrador.

You can also go the mirror route, though in the long run breaking all those mirrors is just a temporary solution. Another possibility might be somehow redeeming Izrador - maybe somehow transforming him into a dualistic deity. Or finding some kind of escape to another world for the last few elves, dwarves, and humans. Lots of options, enough so that every campaign can end differently.

 

[Belen]

Yet I was wondering: Has anyone actually played or run an epic campaign where Izrador was actually defeated? Where the orc hordes were smashed and driven back to the North? And how did this campaign go?

What are your thoughts?

I ran a Midnight one shot at GenCon this year that dealt with a major victory against the shadow. A group of dwarves left the besieged city of Calador in search of a weapon against Izrador. They found the weapon in an abadoned clanhold on the outskirts of the dwraven city that was destroyed.

The "weapon" turned out to be a book written by an ancient dwarven channeler that taught people how to commune with the spirit world and harness the divine magic of the ancestors.

Thus, I introduced Shamanic divine magic into world. The people of Midnight would be able to have Shamans who could weild the same magics as the legates and maybe wven oppose Izrador himself.

I loved it.