All Good Things - Paragon Tier

I started Paragon tier with no real idea of where I wanted to go with the campaign.  I gave the characters a few months in game time to sort out their new holdings or businesses and wondered if I could tie in anything from their character backgrounds.  All the players had provided me with background material, some of it very extensive.  Each player had provided at least one interesting past event, contact or location; it was more a case of narrowing stuff down.

Tol’s player asked if he could set up a Frost Fair on Lake Windrush north of Threshold.  He wanted to run events that would help bring the peoples of Karameikos together.  I thought this sounded promising; it allowed the players to have some social interaction, emphasised their importance in the land, and could be a smooth introduction to Paragon tier.  I designed a map of the various stalls and tents on the ice and a timetable of programmed events that was based around Tols’ player’s suggestions of groups to invite.  The programme divided each of the seven days of the fair into four (morning, afternoon, evening and night).  Each block of time had at least one scheduled event and many had events that provided adventure opportunities.  A lot of the events were simply to enrich the background, and allowed the heroes to catch up with various groups they had met before, such as the Galeb-Dhur of Gorion.  There were also incidents that played on tensions which needed the heroes to address them if the fair was to be a success.  This included elves and dwarves, and Thyatians and Traldar.  There was also a list of interesting visitors, including a being from a realm of extreme cold, and the Thyatian emperor.

Alongside this was a plot line of young children going missing.  This was a hark back to the hags of Heroic tier to indicate that the less active members of the Karameikan coven were still active.  A powerful hag like creature (the Ice Queen) periodically took young girls from the surrounding settlements to train as apprentices.  She always left a substantial reward with the families, part bribe, part exchange.  Ozzie was able to use an Object Reading on a child’s doll to reveal something of the nature of the abductor. 

By the end of the fair the heroes had ensured its success, enjoyed a romantic entanglement in the case of the ranger, had met the Emperor of Thyatis and the Grand Duke, had driven off a vampire feeding on the fair-goers, and had a mystery to solve.

The frost fair was a great example of how my players were good at giving me ideas to work with.  Tol’s player had a lot of input in setting up the Frost Fair, I came up with the mechanics and the various elements that made it a fun adventure.  Furthermore, we did this during a short break form D&D which allowed us to surprise the players, just as Tol surprised the characters.

I think the adventure nicely transitioned into the new tier, with the heroes able to explore some of their new abilities and responsibilities.  Memnon was able to promote Eltan’s Spring Ale, while Switch sold pipeweed and met up with various traders to make deals.  Ozzie led a school trip and got his apprentices to provide magical services and act as general goffers.  Kathra organised a team of dwarves to fix any structural issues, essentially a maintenance team for the fair.

Once the Frost Fair was over the heroes wanted to rescue the missing girl.  A bit of investigation revealed a pattern over the years; the winters would get colder and longer, then a girl would go missing.  I had already dropped hints about the more severe winters during Heroic tier (though without a specific reason other than to increase a sense of menace and to explain why certain monsters were moving out of the mountains) so the players accepted that this was the pattern repeating itself.

The tales led them north into the debatable land between Karameikos and Darokin.  Here a small village of dwarves welcomed them, and further investigation turned up the tale of a dwarf prospector, long thought crazy, who claimed to have found a hidden valley of beautiful women.  They welcomed him, but when he stole from them they turned him out.  The dwarf had since vanished, but Ozzie was able to use a ritual he had learnt to work out where items the dwarf had stolen had come from.

The Valley of the Frost Witches was a fairly straight forward adventure.  The valley had several opportunities for adventure, including the tombs of Frost Giants, now inhabited by the Undead, and a tribe of yeti that could perhaps be swayed to the heroes cause.

Inside the Frost Witches’ ice caves the heroes battled through various cold creatures, some of the apprentice frost witches, and also encountered the souls of past victims.  The Ice Queen was willing the talk with the heroes and explained something of her history.  Ozzie realised she was a childhood acquaintance, and begged her to return with him.  She rejected his offer, and said she would allow the heroes to leave, provided they kept the valley secret.  The young girl, she said, was happier with her that she would have been with her parents.  The heroes refused, and after a long battle (including a ‘time out’ thanks to a powerful ally they met at the Frost Fair) felled the Ice Queen, though at the cost of Kathra and Ozzie’s life.

Memnon brought Ozzie back quite happily, but Kathra’s player was uncomfortable with the ease with which the spell worked.  He also was unhappy with the party killing off one of the apprentices, who was, in effect, only defending herself and following the orders of her mistress.  As a result of conversations about this I decided that the Heroes of Dymrak might be ready to face the consequences of their actions. 

The heroes returned to Knosht, location of Ozzie’s magic school.  The first bit of bad news was that Kathra was unavailable for Raise Dead, her soul refused to answer Memnon’s call.  The second was the appearance of Bargle, acting on behalf of both Baron von Hendricks and the Grand Duke.  He had a warrant for their arrest.  Switch, Tol and Ozzie agreed to accompany him, but Memnon, stung by his failure to bring Kathra back, snatched her body and fled, now an outlaw.  The three heroes found themselves well and truly under arrest.  The charge was murder, that of one of the Ice Queen’s apprentices who had been knocked senseless by the party before being dispatched by Tol and Switch.  To make matters worse, although as Court Lords they were allowed to be tried by nobles, the judge chosen for the initial hearing was von Hendricks (though he was later replaced by the Duke’s son).  With Bargle assisting the Baron was able to prove that the crime had indeed taken place, the girl was defenceless when slain.  Switch’s player found this hard to accept, after all, Switch was a tax-paying resident, whereas the girl was a monster (it was pointed out that one of the rewards the Duke had given them was exemption from tax for a year).

After much interesting and tense verbal exchange, the heroes (along with Memnon, who had surrendered himself) were found guilty.  There were extenuating circumstances, and they were punished by being given a task to perform; slay a Black Dragon that was menacing the Black Eagle Barony.  To ensure the party’s compliance, they were accompanied by an elven woman who had been one of the witnesses.  Kathra’s player brought in another character, Althea, who happened to have been the nursemaid of one of the girls taken by the Frost Witches and then killed by the heroes.  Knowing that the heroes were responsible for her charge’s death she was happy to help in their trial, and at the end agreed to try and keep them on the straight and narrow.

The next adventure involved the heroes travelling to Fort Doom and encountering Falorax the Black.  Their interactions with von Hendricks and Bargle didn’t make them change their minds about the Baron, indeed they disliked the pair even more, but were forced into compliance by the terms of the verdict, and Althea was there to keep an eye on them, though she did begin to wonder about the motives of the Black Eagle.

There was much to-ing and fro-ing with Falorax attacking Fort Doom apparently after the currently absent Bargle, then the party rushing to Knosht to defend it against Falorax, as that was where Bargle was currently dwelling.  The attack on Knosht cost the heroes Ozzie (again) and Memnon’s father, this time the wizard’s body was carried off by the dragon, preventing Memnon raising him.

Francesca, a wizard acquaintance of Ozzie’s was enlisted to help find Ozzie’s body, and take down the dragon.  The heroes traced Falorax back to his lair and fought him, eventually slaying him after learning that the dragon was in thrall to Trinkla the Black (another reference from the module AC11), a legendary, and apparently Undead, wizard, who also now was in possession of Ozzie’s body.  Falorax wasn’t finished however, his flesh sloughed off his body, and a skeletal dragon stood where he had died.  Trinkla’s voice taunted the heroes as it flew away.

Chasing the undead dragon to Trinkla’s lair, the heroes were forced to entertain the lich; this deadly game included fighting the now undead Falorax and Ozzie himself.  Once both were defeated Trinkla allowed the heroes to depart, taking their slain wizard with them.

The fights with Falorax proved exciting and suitably climactic.  The heroes faced him four times, including his dracolich form, and the first couple of times he escaped them to face them again.  I had to handle the fight against Ozzie carefully; there is a danger with putting characters against each other that the group can fracture.  For this the players were in no doubt that the Ozzie they faced was not their friend, and that they had to defeat him to get him back.  Full marks to his player who played him pretty deadly, though the combined might of the rest of the party proved too much.

Although Heroic Tier marked the end of the Eyes of Traldar campaign arc, the end of this adventure marked the point where the heroes moved away from Karameikos and became more wanderers in the wider world and beyond.  There were plenty of plot threads left dangling, some of which we returned to, but the main focus of the campaign shifted.

The newly raised Ozzie proved a darker and more sinister person.  His light-hearted approach to life seemed to have died in the swamp.  He was more driven, and had received disturbing news about his father, long thought to have died defending Knosht with Ozzie’s mother when Ozzie was just a child.  Now is seemed that what all thought was his father had in fact been a shape-shifting serpent folk. 

Ozzie wanted to trace his father’s movements and seek out his goal, the Lost Library, but he still had sufficient loyalty to want to find Kathra.  His time in the Veiled Lady’s court (my version of the Raven Queen) revealed that Kathra’s soul was not in the Shadow Realm or the natural world.  Travelling to the Shadow Realm to find out more, the heroes thwarted plans to create a powerful shadow creature that would have threatened the rule of the Veiled Lady, Immortal ruler of the realm.  In return she revealed that the dwarf's soul was elsewhere, and sent them to the Fae Realm to seek it out.  Here more of Kathra's strange backstory was revealed, and two warring tribes were reconciled.  The dwarf was once more one of the Heroes of Dymrak, though now inhabiting her sister’s body, but Althea mysteriously failed to travel with them to the Fae Realm.  The heroes learnt many things about the nature of the different realms, including the (later very significant) fact that time moved differently in each realm.

Once more reunited, the heroes traced Ozzie’s father’s travels.  In Thyatis City they became involved in the unrest of the times and uncovered a nest of serpent folk who were working to somehow take over the world.  The serpent folk answered to a larger group somewhere beyond Sind, a long way to the west.

The heroes took ship to Sind and travelled through the country to the deserts beyond.  Here they found an underground civilisation of elves and gnolls (or beastmen as Memnon insisted on calling them).  They learnt to trust these strange allies and fought a beholder for them, learning more about the threat from creatures ‘beyond’ the normal world.

The beholder lair was great fun to do, as I wanted to give a feel of something truly alien.  Given that beholders hover through the air, and have the ability to disintegrate, I thought they would have no need of flat floors.  The lair consisted of circular tunnels that connected spherical chambers.  The heroes struggled to simply get around, and it was obvious they faced a very different foe to the norm.

They were then taxed by a huge Blue Dragon who took magic items off each of them, and found an old fort now inhabited by the Serpent Folk.  In the caverns beneath they found a whole city of the creatures, and rescued many prisoners, including Ozzie’s father.

The quest for the lost Library continued, and the heroes eventually found it and discovered that it had been overrun by creatures from beyond the natural realm.  Many of the staff were still there, though now warped into hideous forms, and definitely hostile.  The heroes eventually triumphed and took control of the Library.  They continued to use it as a hide away and treasure store for the rest of the campaign.

This was perhaps the most epic looking adventure.  The set up (see here for more details) encouraged the players to see the site as truly three dimensional.  Lots of flying monsters helped.  I was also influenced by a feature in many video game dungeons; that of the large central space that has to be revisited several times to progress ever further into the complex.  The ever present threat of fiend (demons) in this space meant that careful mapping allowed the heroes to prepare for expected encounters and the repetition helped them learn and develop tactics.  Shutting the doors would have helped too.

They learnt enough in the Lost Library to drive them on to the end of Paragon Tier.  An ancient evil, the Carnifex, had lain various plots against the world as they seemed to worship powerful beings that dwelt Beyond.  It seemed as if there was a threat mounting now, and the heroes learnt of a ruined Carnifex city in the southern continent of Davania that might provide more clues.

I took the development of the Carnifex from various writers on the Piazza Mystara Forum.  The creatures appear in one module, M3 Twilight Calling, where they are described thus; The Carnifex are an ancient evil race, kin to both lizards and dinosaurs. Long ago they developed a civilization based on the darkest exploitation of magic. Their lust for power became dangerous but one experiment that went wrong left them trapped in another dimension. They have been developed by various Mystaraphiles, notably Geoff Gander, as a race connected with and subservient to a powerful group of entities, effectively a Mystaran version of the Great Old Ones.  As a fan of the Cthulhu Mythos, this works for me as an ultimate evil for the heroes to struggle against.

Back in Specularum the heroes met once more with the Duke and explained their theories and fears.  After discussion with Teldon, head of the Wizard’s Guild he agreed to sponsor their expedition to Davania.  A ship was chartered under the guise of a trading expedition, but even as they set out it was clear that enemies were on their trail.  The Cult of the Ebon Key chased them out of the harbour, and it seemed that even the Wizard’s Guild had been infiltrated. 

Various plots dogged the heroes’ journey.  Machinations in the Minrothad Guilds ensured that a Minrothadi agent was hired as part of the crew, pirates attacked, resulting in some fun ship to ship action, and a cures placed on the ship required a stop-over on an island for repairs.

On the island the heroes investigated a recently exposed underground complex where they uncovered evidence of the Carnifex, including something foul that they may have worshiped, and a map of the ancient empire.

They also explored the remains of a doomed Thyatian settlement and fought of undead while they discovered the tragic tale of the settlement.

South again to Davania and the Thyatian city of Ravenscarp.  Here the Ebon Key again tried to disrupt their plans; then on to the ruins of the Carnifex city. This city is mentioned in one of Geoff Gander’s stories.  There is a suggestion that a strange effect takes explorers back to the time of the city’s grandeur.  I borrowed this idea to demonstrate the evil of the Carnifex and to foreshadow some of the future events in the campaign that I had in mind.

To make the trip into the past really different I had the heroes’ souls inhabit the bodies of just sacrificed victims.  I also used 5^th edition rules, with the characters being first level.  I’m not sure how well this worked; perhaps I tried to be too clever and the new rules were one too many things to keep track of.  I think the general feel of the city in the past came across well. There was a lot of information provided that would help with the heroes’ exploration of the ruined city and its catacombs, I think some of this was lost.  Anyway, everything ended with a bang as the heroes sabotaged a nasty Carnifex device that collected and focused ‘soul energy’ from mass sacrifices.  The heroes were contacted by the Immortal Proteus who explained a bit about the dangers the Carnifex posed, and that he had sent their souls back to find out more.  They then awakened in their present, in their own bodies, and could explore the ruined city. 

I hoped that their experiences in the past would have given them some insight into the layout of the complex.  To some extent this worked, and the players enjoyed revisiting areas they knew from the past.  The dungeon ended with a boss fight against a Carnifex lich who they were sure was following some complex Carnifex plot.  Once it was destroyed the dungeon collapsed around them and they beat a hasty retreat.  They hadn't found the lich's phylactery, and could only hope it was buried under the rubble.

Above ground they walked straight into an ambush.  The Ebon Key had followed them and were out for vengeance.  As the battle started, help arrived from an unexpected quarter; an Alphatian sky ship was overhead and signalled to the heroes to come aboard.

Apparently Ozzie was a Prince of one of the Alphatian cities, though not close to the throne.  The ship was sent to inform him of certain duties he should undertake to ensure his place in the line of succession.  However, more important events overtook this.

On the voyage the heroes were once more contacted by Proteus who had a plan.  He believed that a great danger existed in the past.  If the Carnifex were able to rip open a series of portals in a city known as Lhomar, they would weaken the fabric of reality enough for that which exists Beyond to smash through.  It didn't matter that history said that they had failed.  History could change, as the heroes had seen for themselves.  Proteus wished to ensure that the Carnifex failed, and the heroes were his tool to do so. The heroes requested they be taken straight to Specularum to prepare for the next phase of their adventures.

Paragon Tier ended with the players and heroes poised to begin the arc that would see them try to save reality itself, a suitably epic storyline for Epic Tier. The story so far seemed to have worked.  At times I was unsure quite where to go to.  The Obsidian City of the Carnifex was a fun end to the tier, but I think I would have been better off not changing to 5E.  There was enough going on without the intelectual load of trying a new game system.  I suppose Basic D&D would have been a more appropriate system, given that we were supposed to be harking back to the past, but I wanted to introduce the new system and some of the players hadn't experienced it.

I also had a suitable climax planned with the heroes once more confronting the Blue Dragon that had taxed them in the desert.  While not a fully designed adventure, I had roughed out a series of encounters and developed suitable creatures for the dragon's servants.  However, once I started bringing a reality threatening danger into the picture the players decided, rightly, that nothing else really mattered.

You can find out how we fared with Epic Tier here.