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Message: <blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 6550236" data-attributes="member: 1210">All righty then. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />It has been a long week- apologies I have not been able to post anything more until tonight. I'm not sure whether one post will cover everything that happened, but anyway:We last left out heroes having finally learned the dreadful truth from Charon- that Tenebrous is Orcus trying to return. They already knew that Fray is at Tenebrous' body. So, to clarify- the pcs weren't entirely certain, but after some discussion, were fairly sure that Fray and the cult of Tenebrous were sort of mutually using one another, and rather than being true allies, the pcs expected that they might turn on each other, but almost certainly wouldn't work too hard to help each other. (They were absolutely correct in this assessment, as it turned out.) The party knew that Fray was planning on somehow harnessing the power of the Final Word ritual that the Tenebrous cultists were attempting to perform to usurp Coila's power (Coila being the goddess of time, natch). Anyhow, at the start of the session, Shifty showed up. Shifty is one of the original members of the group from 1st level, a gnome rogue whose player moved away not too long ago. Said player just happened to be in town for the finale- awesomesauce- and his epic destiny, Dark Wanderer, lets him walk anywhere in 24 hours. Kind of like an Amberite, if you're familiar with Roger Zelazny's Amber Chronicles (and if you aren't, you really ought to be <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> ). So it was easy to justify Shifty finding them on the banks of the River Styx. A little roleplaying got him past Kane the Conqueror's rage at Shifty for screwing up an alliance with some goliaths recently- Shifty claimed it was one of the "Shifted", his evil duplicates from the future, which actually seemed pretty reasonable given all the times they have seen doubles of themselves. So, the pcs boarded their spelljammer and went to find Shom. Shom is an astral domain that is abandoned and mostly forsaken. Via knowledge skills and (mostly) some divination rituals, the pcs learned a few interesting things about Shom while en route.<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Before it was abandoned, Shom was home to a race called the illumians, who were connected to the Words of Creation (of which the Final Word is one). The illumians had two pieces of one of the words, but eventually fell into factions.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The illumians called upon the maruts, cosmic adjudicators, to settle their dispute. The maruts ruled against both illumian factions, and both were destroyed.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Shom is now mostly empty, but maruts are one of the most common things one might encounter there.</li> </ul>The pcs decided to explore Shom a little, and they found a group of maruts, 9 performing a ritual with 3 standing guard. The pcs engaged the guards in conversation- and the guards claimed that the ritual was to protect the pcs from "the greatest energies". They were only willing to have a very limited dialog, but the pcs left them feeling that they were allies to some degree.The party still had about two months until New Years Eve. They have had several warnings that if they move before the time is right, they will be destroyed. The opposition (supposedly) is too strong. And what is the right moment? Why, when the ritual is complete. Between what they already knew and a whole buttload of divination rituals, they discovered a number of interesting and things. <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Direct questions about Fray fail to reveal anything.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">They might be able to disrupt the ceremony to raise Orcus by killing enough of the cultists before the ceremony is complete. (The pcs surmise that the cultists will be slain by the Final Word as part of the ritual, sacrificing them to bring Orcus back to life.)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">There is no way to protect them from the Final Word if they are too close. Minimum safe distance is one mile.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The body of Tenebrous is guarded by "meteor defenses". </li> </ul>They also stumble upon a piece of information so disconcerting and unexpected that it brings everyone to attention. There is apparently a third contender for the powers of the goddess of Time. This is something that the pcs had no clue whatsoever about until this moment. They speculate about who it could be- Maltar? Boccob? More divinations seem to indicate that neither of them is the one. They put the matter aside, hoping it won't bite them in the ass in the near future.</blockquote>

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