Post by David on Aug 5, 2008 17:26:51 GMT -5
Basically, a massive version of Stonehenge (Tovag Baragu) has been acting as a strange series of gates to other worlds for over a year now. The author of this mischief appears to be a goddess venerated by the early Neanderthals of Oerth, but who was bound into stasis by the gods of the Homo Sapiens. Vertigo, the goddess of misfortune, seems to be still bound to the larger moon, Luna, but acting by spell and proxy on the planet at Tovag Baragu. As a result of Vertigo’s age, she knows a number of tricks (including summoning spells) which are seriously confounding the PCs, including a number of ancient, insane, Cthulhu-esque baddies!
Into all this walks the most powerful (PC) shaman, Black Robe. Members of his extended tribe are in the “path” of all this craziness since they live on the plains near Tovag Baragu. Black Robe has already sponsored and/or accompanied three parties to seek out Vertigo and put things aright, but none have been successful. Black Robe also gathered a lower level party to “clean up the mess” which had already come through the standing stones -- it is a spin-off group of that party that’s playing on Wednesdays (the world is like a massive Marvel comic, complete with cross-over stories and mini-series!).
The group (now known as the Charn party) has discovered that one of the gates is “locked open” to the world of Charn. About three months ago, a woman calling herself the Queen of Charn unleashed undead upon her world -- a world which had little clerical support and no other undead than skeletons or zombies previously. The ghouls and shadows ran amok. In addition, during this craziness, Queen Sidra used a series of “skyships” to blanket the major towns in darkness. This enhanced the undeads’ power. She also hid a pair of runestone in each location which gathered the souls on the dead and directed their power into the earth, to further empower her undead. Unfortunately, things worked too well and got out of hand; instead of defeating the other nation, the Queen’s undead forces annihilated every living thing. What’s more, while the original undead were still under her control, those created later were only under the control of that which created them -- many of which were destroyed. As a result, numerous free-willed shadows and empowered-ghouls remained, turning on the Queen’s own forces and wiping out her own population. The party does NOT know the complete status of things now, but they do know there are VERY few living things left on the surface of the planet.
Having freed Pommeville, the town nearest the gate back to Oerth, the heroes have charged themselves with the mission of finding the Queen and using HER life blood to create the bloodstone required to seal the gate (long story). Other than the fact that Queen Sidra lives in Clavell, the capital city of Belvar, on the coast to the east, the heroes do not yet know what they’re going to do. Supporting them is the native shaman and wereraven, Montrose; although he is wise, he has relatively little medicine-power in comparison to the heroes.
The party consists of:
Zatoiichi (Ichi) -- 6th lvl blind monk
Tor Redlocke -- 7th lvl paladin of Bahamut
Maedhros -- 6th/6th half-elven mage / cleric of Corellon Larethian
Kyron Drake -- 0 lvl shaman (formerly 8th lvl ranger), with his psuedo dragon, Dart, and yearling hippogriff, Akusaka
Idky -- 5th lvl krolli (winged lizard-man-sorta) cleric of Fharlanghn
Into all this walks the most powerful (PC) shaman, Black Robe. Members of his extended tribe are in the “path” of all this craziness since they live on the plains near Tovag Baragu. Black Robe has already sponsored and/or accompanied three parties to seek out Vertigo and put things aright, but none have been successful. Black Robe also gathered a lower level party to “clean up the mess” which had already come through the standing stones -- it is a spin-off group of that party that’s playing on Wednesdays (the world is like a massive Marvel comic, complete with cross-over stories and mini-series!).
The group (now known as the Charn party) has discovered that one of the gates is “locked open” to the world of Charn. About three months ago, a woman calling herself the Queen of Charn unleashed undead upon her world -- a world which had little clerical support and no other undead than skeletons or zombies previously. The ghouls and shadows ran amok. In addition, during this craziness, Queen Sidra used a series of “skyships” to blanket the major towns in darkness. This enhanced the undeads’ power. She also hid a pair of runestone in each location which gathered the souls on the dead and directed their power into the earth, to further empower her undead. Unfortunately, things worked too well and got out of hand; instead of defeating the other nation, the Queen’s undead forces annihilated every living thing. What’s more, while the original undead were still under her control, those created later were only under the control of that which created them -- many of which were destroyed. As a result, numerous free-willed shadows and empowered-ghouls remained, turning on the Queen’s own forces and wiping out her own population. The party does NOT know the complete status of things now, but they do know there are VERY few living things left on the surface of the planet.
Having freed Pommeville, the town nearest the gate back to Oerth, the heroes have charged themselves with the mission of finding the Queen and using HER life blood to create the bloodstone required to seal the gate (long story). Other than the fact that Queen Sidra lives in Clavell, the capital city of Belvar, on the coast to the east, the heroes do not yet know what they’re going to do. Supporting them is the native shaman and wereraven, Montrose; although he is wise, he has relatively little medicine-power in comparison to the heroes.
The party consists of:
Zatoiichi (Ichi) -- 6th lvl blind monk
Tor Redlocke -- 7th lvl paladin of Bahamut
Maedhros -- 6th/6th half-elven mage / cleric of Corellon Larethian
Kyron Drake -- 0 lvl shaman (formerly 8th lvl ranger), with his psuedo dragon, Dart, and yearling hippogriff, Akusaka
Idky -- 5th lvl krolli (winged lizard-man-sorta) cleric of Fharlanghn