|
Post by Avi on Sept 12, 2012 12:11:49 GMT -5
Little Steve! Nooooo!
|
|
|
Post by Beeb on Sept 12, 2012 12:14:05 GMT -5
Mark, Tynan, and I are getting together today at around 6:30, Avi. You can come too, you know.
|
|
|
Post by Jongluer on Sept 14, 2012 19:05:10 GMT -5
So with Steve's departure, obviously the game has come to an end. Not just because Steve's character was a driving force behind the campaign's story at this point, but also because D&D with 3 people (regardless of class choices) is just fucking difficult. Anyway, Steve, and presumably the rest of you are probably wondering: what exactly was going to happen in the rest of the game?
The next three to four sessions would have dealt with the mysterious light that appeared in the Northeast when Avi broke that seal with the weird blue symbol on it.
The next session would have been about you guys coming to a set of high mountains that you would need to climb over. In one of the lower (but still high and cold) passes, you would have come upon a village that prayed to Brian's god, Cyndar. Above them on the mountain would be the famed monastery that Brian was seeking, however at the moment the path and monastery are besieged by some sort of giants (I hadn't decided exactly what yet, Ogres seemed to weak with Frost Giants too strong). The giants are besieging the temple for some half-remembered slight unrelated to your guys main quest. The monastery itself is mainly home to contemplatives and cloistered clerics, with a few Monks but the type of Monks that have BAB scores for meditative purposes rather than actual combat. While Brian might have communed with his God, and presumably been given some vague warning about the Well of Abundance, the rest of you could have learned from the learned scholars about the weird blue symbol.
The weird blue symbol is known as the Cerulean Sign, and the Keepers of the Cerulean Sign an ancient and secret order dedicated to fighting aberrations and other dangers to the material plane. They're eclectic and loosely organized, the priests know one or two agents and support them because by opposing Aberrations they oppose creatures that muck up the nature of time, space, and the infinite. Several months ago, one of the agents passed through the monastery and obtained some magical healing after a battle with a powerful psion that he managed to seal away in some old ruins. He planned to journey to a nearby set of ruins in search for some answers. The priests know little of Ahnval except that it appears in their most ancient and sadly well-worn manuscripts.
The next few sessions would have taken you guys into the sprawling dungeon complex in search for this Keeper. The dungeon would be home to a Mind Flayer who is planning to launch a plot to infiltrate and take over a small cult in one of the frontier settlements ruled over by Count Silver. Dependent on a bunch of other factors, he might have escaped and started another story arc involving frontier towns, cults, and strange work for the mysterious Ahnval, who would begin to be referred to as Ahnval the Ancient or Ahnval the Dreaming...or you would have just killed a Mind Flayer. No big deal.
This conflict would bring you into contact with the Keeper who would be able to shed some more light on Ahnval the Dreaming and the Well of Abundance. Ahnval the Dreaming is an ancient aboleth that relates to the founding of the Keepers order. He was trapped into a natural state of suspended animation to delay his plans of world domination when the world was very young. An ancient time when magic was ill understood, iron was beyond the grasp of the greatest smiths, and Elves were still a character class.
The Keepers have long stood against the darkness. Sometimes their numbers dwindle down to just a Keeper and his apprentice, other times they are far afield and widely supported. They are however, always somewhat secretive. In recent centuries they have begun to find records that there are other aberrations somehow falling into Ahnval's service, and psychically sensitive beings have encountered Ahnval in some other plane, a world of dreams.
Ahnval's power seems to be so great, that even now his dreams influence the world which he cannot interact with.
A great power would be necessary to stop him, something capable of granting wishes and conferring great strength. The Keeper knowing of the Well of Abundance as a myth, will suggest that if you're being driven to find it by your Gods, that you must seek it out. The Gods never do things just of their own interests, but for the good of all races and faiths.
From here the game would get somewhat sketchy, as you guys could have chosen to more directly fight Ahnval or gone off in search of the Well of Abundance. Ahnval's influence and the Well of Abundance are somewhat related, as you would discover and myths about one often lead to the other.
Your adventures would have taken you further into the unknown, against savage hordes, and beings never encountered before. You might have met savage humans, and half-giants, arrayed into tribes lead by powerful psions and psychic warriors, or thriving Thri-Keen city-states on the edges of vast deserts. Amidst all of this would be clues that would lead you eventually on a great journey into the vast caverns beneath the Red Rock Mountains.
Entering in through a gorge known as Nerull's Door, for it is said to go right into the underworld itself, you would have descended into the Underdark on your final quest for the Well of Abundance. You would find it, and yes, its waters are capable of performing some amazing feats, but you would discover something far more sinister.
The Well of Abundance is Ahnval's prison.
The original Keepers structured it to keep him underwater and under control. However, due to the rare adventurer leeching off the Well's power over millennia the restraints have waned. Ahnval's powers grow stronger by the day.
You would have been launched in a race against time to recover the ancient lore necessary to seal Ahnval away, eventually drawing you into an epic conclusion against an extremely powerful Aboleth and his aberrant servants...
The game would have had several breaking off points that might have modified what was and wasn't “canon,” as it were. Obviously you might have just found the Well of Abundance and been able to complete Steve's quest and gain the strength to defeat Ahnval who would be located somewhere else, all at once. Or the Well of Abundance might just plain not have done what it supposedly did, and it all have been some sort of weird misnomer.
I don't know, there were some options in there for good times. Like I said, a lot of it past a certain point becomes pretty sketchy and then it snaps back into focus at another point before becoming sketchy again.
|
|