Prologue: The Legend Breakers, pt. 3

Kharebutu's trail led the heroes into the mountains north of Varen, to a small plateau on which he was busy inscribing a ritual circle on the ground under the protection of three warriors. Nothing could be discerned of the bodyguards' identities under their heavy robes and cowls, but they were capable enough to hold the Legend Breakers at bay long enough for Kharebutu to complete his ritual preparations. Then, by a single accord, all three made prodigious leaps to land inside the circle along with Kharebutu and Anriel, and the four mysterious villains and their helpless captive vanished in a flare of red light.

While Imno was unable to identify the ritual from the sigils left behind, he produced a drawing of the circle in hopes of finding a mage more versed such things. The heroes' first stop in search of enlightenment was the High Energy Magic department of the University of Varen, but following a (for Brandis) pants-moistening encounter with a surprisingly well-spoken gibbering mouther, the head researcher there could only shrug and direct them to the College of Astrologers and Diviners in - where else? - the Temple City of Hennes. Frustrated but determined to find answers, the Legend Breakers set out on the month-long journey back to where their quest had started.

This time, the trek across the Plain of Bones was unmarred by violence; the quartet traversed the Via Mortis without incident. Upon returning to Hennes, they immediately sought out the College, but the diviner they spoke to was only slightly more helpful than the theorist in Varen. He recognized the party, however, and strongly recommended they show Imno's drawing to Wayfarer Scanvio. Clangden was reluctant, thinking that perhaps Scanvio had orchestrated the whole sequence of events, but finally relented.

Scanvio was profoundly disturbed by the Legend Breakers' tale. He said he had to report the attacks and Anriel's abduction to his superiors, and offered to have his hirelings quartered in the temple of Anathor's spare but comfortable rooms for the night. They accepted, and the next morning Clangden received a personal missive from no less an individual than the High Warfather, leader of the church of Viridex. It contained instructions to Clangden and his comrades to attend a meeting in the Ur-Cathedral, meeting place of the Apostolic Council. The junior warpriest who had delivered the scroll led the heroes to the meeting chamber, and then retired.

Here, in a room filled with the heads of most of the major churches as well as the more prominent wizards' guilds, the Legend Breakers were made privy to awesome and horrific secrets. First, Wayfarer Scanvio told them that Kharebutu's magic had carried him and Anriel beyond the borders of the world, to another plane. Then, it was revealed that eons earlier, on the night of Sirrenar's death, His high priestess, Magistrix Lilah, had uttered a prophecy. She spoke of a being called the Dweomerchild, who would be born in the closing years of the Fourth Time, and whose life would herald the return of the god of magic. Finally, it was explained that Anriel's abduction not only imperiled the fulfillment of the prophecy, but the life of every living thing on the planet. The Arcanum, Wayfarer Scanvio explained, was continuing to decay, and within less than a century its dissolution would render the world a barren and lifeless rock. The only way to regenerate it was to ensure that Magistrix Lilah's prophecy was fulfilled and the god of magic resurrected; Anriel must be rescued at any cost.

Now knowing the true stakes, the Legend Breakers bravely volunteered to venture into the unknown in pursuit of Kharebutu, and to rescue the little girl upon whose fate their entire world turned. They were given powerful arms and armor, artifacts of magic hoarded from the time of the Spellwars and earlier, far more potent than anything that could be crafted now. The heroes were also given a small but thick magic tome, the Manual of the Planes, and a brass disc incised on both sides and around the rim with runes and sigils, the Sextant of the Planes. With these in hand, they were taken to a river outside the city, where they set sail in a small boat. Activating the Sextant's magic, they saw the river turn to blue fire, and the land phase from one shape to another, and thus passed into another world.

Experience rewards:
Fighting Kharebutu and his bodyguards: 1,000xp
Learning about the prophecy and Anriel's importance: 2,000xp
Departing your home plane: 3,000xp
Total: 6,000xp
Per character: 1,500xp
Current status: 27,350 + 1,500 = 28,850xp
To next level: 32,000 - 28,850 = 3,150xp

Treasure rewards:
Your "going-away gifts" from the Apostolic Council.

Next time, in Sailing the River of Worlds:
The Legend Breakers find themselves in (literally) a whole new world. Where have they arrived? Are the natives (if any) friend or foe? How will they ever find Kharebutu's trail when they must search, not just a world, but an infinity of worlds?

Prologue: The Legend Breakers, pt. 2

After the ambush on the Via Mortis, the journey to Varen passed without incident. The Legend Breakers arrived at their destination at the onset of winter, took rooms at a student hostel called the Red Banner, and set about locating their contact, the sage Kharebutu. A little legwork earned them the knowledge that Kharebutu was employed as a professor of divinity in the University of Varen, for which the city was named. Curiously, although Kharebutu claimed to have been educated in the Royal College of Ronon, this point appeared never to have been verified, despite the University Chancellor's claim to the contrary.

Soon after speaking to the Chancellor, the heroes had their first hint that little Anriel might not be entirely what she seems: when discussing the Chancellor's obstinacy, she seemed altogether too adult for the eight-year-old she ostensibly is. Brandis, in particular, found this troubling.

Kharebutu happened to be away from Varen when the Legend Breakers arrived, and Heinrich took the opportunity for a little leisurely drinking. Unfortunately, he happened to order "potato wine," not knowing that this was the local euphemism for "rotgut moonshine that kills anything less hardy than a dwarf." After a deeply regrettable incident with the Red Banner's groom, in which Heinrich attempted to heave his 500-pound bear into the hostel through a second-floor window, Clangden and Brandis managed to subdue the (literally) blind-drunk dwarf.

Upon finally meeting with Kharebutu, the heroes discovered him to be a frail old man with wispy white hair and a scrupulously polite demeanor. He used divinatory geomancy to examine Anriel for some time, and finally announced that he would need to keep the child overnight for further observation. This occasioned some debate from the heroes, but in the end they agreed to return for Anriel the next day.

That night, while Brandis infiltrated the campus to discover more about Kharebutu, Clangden, Imno, and Heinrich were apprehended by the overzealous City Watch on suspicion of kidnapping. It came out that Kharebutu and little Anriel were both missing, and had been seen leaving the University in the company of three robed and cowled men. Examination of Kharebutu's quarters revealed that, although considerable effort had been expended to make it look like the place had been ransacked, the most likely culprit was Kharebutu himself.

Just then, a Watch sergeant burst in with the news that Anriel had been sighted leaving the city half an hour earlier by the north gate in the company of Kharebutu and his... partners? ...accomplices? ...minions?

Experience rewards:
Averting disaster at Heinrich's drunken hands: 1,000xp
Skill challenge - Kharebutu's quarters: 2,400xp
Total: 3,400xp
Per character: 850xp
Current status: 26,500 + 850 = 27,350xp
To next level: 32,000 - 27,350 = 4,650xp

Treasure rewards:
None this session

Next time, in Sailing the River of Worlds:
The Legend Breakers pursue the absconding Kharebutu, and learn the true nature of the child Anriel. What secrets does she hide? Why does Kharebutu want her badly enough to abduct her virtually from under her guardians' noses?

On Viridex

The Warmaster is a complex figure. While many simply equate war with violence, and Viridex certainly favors those who perform acts of glory on the battlefield, He is just as much (if not moreso) the god of strategy and tactics, of waging war as distinguished from personal combat. Priests and followers of Viridex frequently play games which encourage strategic thought, such as chess or go. While soldiers and warriors from the lowliest private to the most exalted warlord revere the Grey Knight's teachings, His priests actively discourage berserkergang, the battle-madness.

Viridex teaches the importance of honor among warriors. Although His scriptures place no particular emphasis on protecting the weak as a moral imperative, a warrior who assaults those who cannot defend themselves is seen as a blot on the escutcheon of all who follow the way of the sword. Such individuals frequently find themselves on the wrong end of an inquisitorial unit dispatched by the church of Viridex.

In addition to serving the spiritual needs of Viridex' followers, His church also serves as a broker for mercenary units, putting those in need of professional soldiers in touch with soldiers looking for work. Contracts obtained in this way have certain limits: ten percent of the fee is tithed to the church, and the actual services contracted for may not go against Viridite scripture. Even with these constraints, however, virtually all mercenary outfits do their contracting through the church of Viridex. The church takes great pains to maintain its position as an honest, impartial go-between, and maintains meticulous records of each contract. Employers who do not pay in a timely manner or who expect their mercenary hirelings to perform unsavory acts quickly find themselves unable to hire anyone at all, as the priests of Viridex noise their reputation about. By the same token, sellswords who bring shame on themselves, their profession, or worst of all, the church, find that no one will hire them.

Open-endedness, or the lack thereof

I'm not sure I've ever explicitly articulated this to any of my players, so let me take this opportunity: "Sailing the River of Worlds" is a limited campaign, which is to say it has a definite beginning, middle, and end, and when we get to the end the campaign will close. I haven't actually plotted every single step along the way, but I know how the campaign will end (in both the case of player success and the case of player failure), and once we reach that point, that's it. That will be our curtain call.

I'm sorry if this clashes with your expectations; I just don't want anyone to feel like I'm springing this on them at the last second.

On the Raven Queen

The goddess of death and fate is a figure of mystery, even to her own clergy. Unlike other deities, She has never revealed Her name. She is known only by a series of epithets: the Raven Queen, the Veiled Lady, the Mistress of Bones, the Judge of the Dead. Her church treats ravens as sacred, believing them to carry the souls of the dead from the material world to Mortuus, the Raven Queen's fortress in the Shadowfell, to be judged. The Raven Queen's scriptures emphasize acceptance of mortality and death as an integral part of the natural cycle. While ordinary worshippers are few and far between, the church sponsors several monastic orders and an order of paladins, the Harbinger Brotherhood. The Raven Queen's church is also notable for having the largest single plot of consecrated ground in the world: the Plain of Bones, the entire vast necropolis, is holy ground to the Veiled Lady's priests and other followers.

The goddess Herself is unusual in several respects, most importantly in that she was challenged only once during the wars of the gods. Lolth, the then-goddess of fate, craved the portfolio of death. Her power extended over mortals only during their lives, and by becoming the goddess of death She hoped to become absolute mistress of all mortals. Thus it was that Lolth marshaled Her angels and other servants and came against the Raven Queen. The two goddesses met on an astral battlefield: many-eyed Lolth, Mother of Spiders, patroness of seers and oracles, wielded nets, whips and chains in each of Her many hands, and Her fangs dripped corrosive venom. The Raven Queen stood calmly in the face of the Fateweaver's charge, seemingly making no move to defend Herself... but when Lolth was nearly upon Her, She stretched forth Her hand and a sword made of roiling darkness appeared in it, and the sword's name was Nightbringer. The Veiled Lady raised Nightbringer and smote Her enemy once, and without so much as a single cry Lolth was blasted into nonexistence by the dark sword's power, and the Raven Queen absorbed the portfolio of fate.

When word of this reached the other gods, they all took pause. None had previously had the merest inkling of the existence of something like Nightbringer. Duels between two deities were normally lengthy affairs, with each struggling to penetrate the nigh-impervious defenses of the other. For one god to dispatch another with a single blow was unheard-of, and horrifying to contemplate. Though the other gods bent their wills and their servants to discovering the nature of the sword Nightbringer, none succeeded. Even the wisest could not say how, or even if the Raven Queen had created the blade, or if She had summoned it from somewhere... else, a place somehow beyond the reach of the other gods.

Thus, Lolth became the first and last deity to challenge the Raven Queen for the portfolio of death.