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Once
More, Against Chaos!
The
Runewardens arrived back in Ptolus with an idea
of what needed to be done. They needed to reach
Dreta Phantas, the Dreaming City, and stop the
forces of the Galchutt from bringing the Night
of Dissolution. They met up with the Company
of the Black Lantern at Rosegate House and discussed
what they had discovered in the Seven
Jewels of Parnaith.
No
magic functioned in Ptolus, and the city was
degenerating into chaos. Some of the members
of either group did what they could to help.
Rumors spread of monstrous creatures rising
up from beneath the streets, and ratmen armed
with terrifying, functional weapons (probably
chaositech) appearing in places throughout the
city where no ratman would have dared to go
before.
And
the barbarian army was still outside the gates,
waiting to attack. To a lesser degree, they
may have been experiencing the same surprise
and disorientation that occurred within the
city, as their priests and shamans were unable
to call upon magic to aid them.
It
seemed that the end of the world -- the Night
of Dissolution -- was already here.
Then
Zophas
was contacted by his superior in the Knights
of the Pale, Dierna Hillerchaun. She explained
that she had learned (in her position as one
of the Twelve Commanders of the city) that the
chaos cults seemingly had all joined together.
The cultists believed that magic would soon
return and, when it did, they would conduct
a ritual that would spell disaster for the city.
Putting two and two together, Dierna and Zophas
realized that this was it. With the barbarians
ready to attack at any moment, the Commissar
and the Twelve Commanders couldn't afford to
divert any attention away, but she knew that
someone had to do something.
Dierna
further explained that this ritual of chaos
was being masterminded by Shigmaa Wuntad, who
apparently had some important prisoners to sacrifice
as part of the ceremony. The group already knew
where Shigmaa Wuntad was: under the Temple of
the Fifty-Three Gods of Chance, a church devoted
to luck, fortune and chaos. Until now, they
had thought the place harmless.
Fifty-Three
Gods of Chance
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The
Company of the Black Lantern
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Both
groups assembled and went to the Temple District.
By the time they arrived at the Temple of the
Fifty-Three Gods of Chance, magic had once again
returned. The hidden underground chambers beneath
the temple were guarded by a powerful demon
-- a glabrezu. But this demon was one that some
of them had
encountered before. Tellian
had made a deal with the demon when the Company
of the Black Lantern encountered him in the
Dark Elf fortress of Ul-Drakkan. The glabrezu
called in Tellian's debt, but the cleric refused
to pay up. A fierce battle ensued, and the heroes
emerged victorious.
Proceeding
farther into the temple, they found a huge sacrificial
chamber with an elaborate altar. Wuntad stood
atop what looked like a huge, bloody claw. It
was the dismembered claw of an actual Galchutt.
It turned out that long ago, in the distant,
misty past, the Galchutt turned on one of their
own and slaughtered him. They left the remnants
of his blood and flesh for their servants to
consume, so that when they did, the act would
awaken and invigorate the rest of the near-godlike
beings.
Without
hesitation, the group attacked. To get closer,
they fought through a line of ratman musketeers
and a number of rabid clerics and their flesh
golem creations. Then more clerics used a massive
magical/chaositech contraption to draw power
from a few humans and elves held in some kind
of stasis (some of the group recognized these
captives as sorcerers formerly held within Mahdoth's
Asylum). The energy siphoned from the prisoners
was focused into the altar, where four young
children waited in chains to be sacrificed.
While some of the group struggled with a half-demon
warrior and a massive kython warmaster, Aliya
and Zophas used a dimension door to get at the
hideous, mutated abomination that was Wuntad.
Meanwhile, Canabulum
and Serai
made their way to the altar. Canabulum destroyed
the chaositech energy machine, and Serai teleported
each of the children, one by one, back to his
house in the Noble's Quarter.
Dazlo
the dwarf fell to the power of the kython, but
was avenged by Tellian, Vexander,
and Gaerioth.
Mara
and Sercian
dealt with the remaining clerics, and Zophas
and Aliya, covered in the godsblood of the dead
Galchutt, defeated Wuntad himself.
But
the surprises were not over. Once they had recovered
from the battle, a quick search of the nearby
rooms uncovered a prison where the "important"
prisoners held by the chaos cult waited. The
characters had believed that the prisoners Dierna's
informants mentioned were the captive sorcerers
and children. However, the "important"
prisoners were none other than King Olgas of
the eastern barbarian tribes, his shaman, and
two bodyguards. The cultists had engineered
the whole barbarian invasion! The amassed army
outside the gate was here not for conquest,
but to ensure the return of their captive king.
Olgas
was angry, but grateful to the heroes, believing
that they had come here intending to free him.
He wanted to go to his people, and the group
could fulfill that request with greater speed
than even he had thought. Serai and Zophas teleported
with the king and his men to the front rank
of the barbarian horde.
It
took a great deal of diplomacy and well-crafted
words -- mostly on Zophas' part -- to convince
the barbarians that not only was this actually
their king (and not a "city-wizard's trick")
but that the perpetrators of the crime were
not acting on behalf of the city at all. Eventually,
the barbarians were satisfied, and Olgas commanded
them to withdraw.
The
city was saved, and -- with the ceremony interrupted
-- so was the world. But the blow to the forces
of chaos was only a setback, not a permanent
defeat. To stop (not merely postpone) the Night
of Dissolution, the heroes still needed to reach
Dreta Phantas. And to do so, they would have
to locate the enigmatic race known as the Urthon
Aedar. They also had to find a mysterious diadem
that would help protect against the forces of
chaos. Splitting up once again, the Runewardens
went off in search of the Urthon Aedar, and
the Company of the Black Lantern resigned themselves
to seeking the diadem in the dreaded
Banewarrens.
Next:
The Runewardens find the means of reaching the
Urthon Aedar with the help of none other than
the
Iron Mage.
(Side
Note: It was the final battle in the temple,
involving 10 PCs and their NPC allies [Udalaag
and Krang the automaton], about 12 powerful
individual NPC foes, 10 lesser NPC foes, and
nine NPC "victims," that inspired
the two-part "Dungeoncraft" article
on running large encounters that appeared in
issues 301 and 302 of Dragon
magazine. In the examples I used in those
issues, I just changed some names and details
-- the ratmen with rifles became archers, for
example.)
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