The Lich Lords are drained of some power.
Skulls with blazing eyes stare down, boring into you, spinning in a circle around you. Your neck, your wrist, your thigh, all your veins carry the power through you. You feel the blood pulse and the hunger of those gazing down on you, thundering in your head, turning cold inside you. Suddenly the light of that hate is slightly diminished, you feel your blood flowing free and despite the hate in the gaze, there is no more pressure.
- Lichlords cannot make/create any more vampires themselves.
The Mercy of Aerna will fail.
You see a comfy hearth, a family sitting in front, cheer and warmth and a sense of rightness. Suddenly, a chill blast whistles down the chimney, shrieks fill the air as the mother shields her son and daughter from the cold biting wind. The two children turn blue and then black while the mother wails. She reaches into the embers of the hearth and pulls for a tiny flame. Sparkling before her eyes, she coaxes it to a flame, and uses its power to restore life to her children. To no avail. Time and again, until the children crumble to dust as she holds them, weeping.
- Resurrection of any type no longer works + raise dead fails unless con dc 10 save on target.
The Masters of Ados defy the Lich.
A chain is spinning in the distance, hanging from darkness with a weak light below it. Closer your vision draws, a corpse is entwined in the chains. Closer you are drawn. Figures in black come from the left, and surround the corpse, which begins to spin. A shadow blots out the meager light, and flashes of power reflect contests of magic as the single shadow stretches out and engulfs those surrounding the corpse. When it’s done, a large human hand stops the spinning corpse and reaches into its mouth, pulling a pulsating black orb from its shredded gullet. It raises it up and the vision falls upward into blackness.
- Animate Dead becomes a 4th level spell, except for Wizard Necromancers.
The souls and memories are unleashed.
You are cold. Sunrise suffuses the air around you. Warmth, wind, and peace. Shadow shortening stops. Snow falls on the ground. Freeze frame. An icicle drop is frozen mid air. Wings flapping, a powerful breeze stirs the air. You look up to see nearly 2 dozen celestials with animal heads holding glowing green weapons. Looking down, the view changes – and then 2 views merge. Gaia and Darupet merge and the pulse of the earth and currents of wind is in your chest, and deep in your gut. They are both inhaled by a great maw, consuming the gods and ripping your belly. An eruption of maggots spews like a volcano out into the horizon. The celestials add their chants and earth and air carry it north into a vast empty valley, desolate and worn. The stench of death and sounds of violence fill the air. The restless souls in this valley answer the call, and try to fill the hunger of the swarm. They batter it down, overwhelming its hunger with burning hate. The celestial beings struggle to control the restless souls as the voices of command echo in your ears and the vision fades.
- Dancing Lights is added to Druid spell list.
The final event preparation.
You are standing above the equator of Helca. Green motes of light swirl over multiple places. They move, the planet rotates, and you hear whispers and the faint sound of all manner of artisan tools, academic discussions, family activities. One place you are pulled towards, after surveying for what seems like hours. You rapidly fall into a place you sense is dangerous to the being you seem to be. A massive valley you set down in is vaguely familiar. You are immediately overwhelmed with screams of agony, lament, and terror. You are searching, but you know not for what. You cannot withstand the sounds of a billion souls who skreik in utter despair and rage. You feel like a vacuum is pulling you back to the valley, you cannot overcome it. The world is gone in a flash of blue light.
The Event
It is nearly high noon, the crowds are full of mid-day meal seekers and shoppers. You are running some errands and picking up some clothes when the entire world stops. Everything is frozen where it is at, and from the sky down the colors are drained from your vision. Were the sun was is an eye. It is stylized with makeup around it, and at its center in the pupil is a white human skull. A massive worm rises up from the ground and swallows the eye, but the eye grows and the worm is lost in its vastness as it stretches from horizon to horizon. The eye is gone and other other people remain. The memories of thousands of lives pour through the minds of every creature on Helca. The memories of billions of deaths rip through your mindscape, tearing at your very identity. Silently, the people around you scream as they experience the same thing. The barren vastness of the thought-scape echoes momentarily after the wave of violence and powers unleashed a millennium ago in the Valley of Sighs ripple across the world. The thoughts and memories swirl all around you -filled with violence, hate of the living, and long forgotten knowledge. You can let in the intrusive thoughts, in the hopes of learning something from them, or clamp down and and shut their screaming voices out.
A billion souls shrieking in their death throes. A spike of white hot pain in the center of your brain. The souls want in, to feel life again. They carry memories long forgotten, pain long endured, and the full force of their will is like a battering ram on your psyche – do you resist? Or share with them in hopes of gaining something, their memories as they would from yours?
You awaken and now everything is different. Screams, crying, and confusion is all around you. One quarter of everyone you can see is stuck in a rictus of death.
10% elon, only a few dozen of the eldest bronzemen (really, just from the terror of it),
The world will be quiet for a couple days, as everyone is hoarse. and try to block out the intrusive thoughts… or lose their identity.
When he unleashes the consumed memories of Mog Creoch, he allows them all in. It will drive him mad, but will make him the undying Lich he desires to be.
+1 SAn for those that resist
- DC 5 Sanity: Fail = damage in DC, role a new personality trait (Bond, etc.) and must go on.
Success: Prestidigitation (# times per day equal to Intelligence bonus/min. 1) + swap a skill if desired, can choose to stop
- DC 10 Sanity; Success: Thaumaturgy (# times per day equal to Wisdom bonus/min. 1); -1 CHA, +1 INT + Must go on
- DC 15 Sanity; Success: Guidance as a bonus action – roll d4/uncontrolled (# times per day equal to Charisma bonus/min. 1); -1 Cha; background feature + level 1 Lore + Must go on
- DC 20 Sanity; Success: Sanctuary (# times per day equal to Sanity bonus/min. 1) as a bonus action; – 1 SAN, +1 Wisdom + 2 level 1 Lores + Must go on
Writhing, twisting, you feel as if there are hands around your throat squeezing the life out of it. You cannot see this enemy, you are confused and trying desperately to wriggle free. Voices are all around you, echoing in your ears. You are thrown aside, rolling into a pit. The dirt collapses on you, the light is gone. You answered the call, a lone voice that promised you an exchange of power. Your hunger drove you, and hate kept you going while you clawed your way for days out of the earth. You find your enemy is gone, but the voice is still there. You follow it, feeling your power grow.
The power fades, not as if its getting further away, but as if it were diffusing. A voice whispers: “Another knife has been created! A knife that will be set to stab the backs of the enemies of the Gray Shroud. But it is from my memories that the earth has been remade. It is from the unleashed memories of all that I have freed those seeking to hold in check the power of the world. But with those memories I now see all that has come before. And I see how it will all play out. Who now but I am your father? Remember that I have given you this will. This power. This knowledge. And you will do great things, unexpected things though ye be but pawns in a larger game. The gods will tremble. A man is now become as a god, I can see the Celestine aura all around me. Know that I hold nothing against you and your allies. And you are not those who have come before – but there are those that would use you against me. Humor them, take their confidence, and come to me in time as they wish. They will build you up first. Set thoughts of greatness in your mind. Seek me out, and I shall teach you how to ascend as I did. We will join the ranks of those that truly make their own destinies. From Bannermen of meaningless material to Heralds of Change. Seek me… in your time. Time has no meaning like it used to. I will abide, and they will send their hordes at me. To aid you in this, when you are ready, I return this to you…”
bird skull belt
witch of dwindor
Patron/agent:
i and my kind are the only ones who know the true danger here. there are safe ways to ascend, and unsafe. he will not be embraced by the celestine host. he will be feared. they will manipulate others to keep him contained – for he is the result of the Great Experiment gone wrong. He is wrong. It is wrong. At least we have never seen an Ascension like this that did not end in tears – no matter the intent. And that wrongness will spread. Many will seek its power. Do not, it is a power that corrupts.
she seems really to want to dissuade you from pursuing this
she was once a celestial, but now is something else
she will be evasive
Summary of all Changes
All powers as
Actuated Aegis – no expressive (verbal, somatic), or materials needed.
- The Cantrip Spare the Dying does not work any more (except necromancers and nature and death god clerics + White Sisters of Aerna
- Lichlords cannot make/create any more vampires themselves.
- Resurrection of any type no longer works + raise dead fails unless con dc 10 save on target.
- Animate Dead becomes a 4th level spell, except for Wizard Necromancers.
- Dancing Lights is added to Druid spell list.
- POWER 1 = Prestidigitation (# times per day equal to Intelligence bonus/min. 1)
- POWER 2 = Thaumaturgy (# times per day equal to Wisdom bonus/min. 1)
- POWER 3 = Guidance -roll d4/uncontrolled (# times per day equal to Charisma bonus/min. 1)
- POWER 4 = Sanctuary (# times per day equal to Sanity bonus/min. 1)
life span descreased by 10%; disease saves are at disadvantage
if Bella takes power and survives, the witch will automatically sense it.
any players seeking to become a warlock of the witch of dwindor
ashfall is drowned, an earthquake on the apshai temple
feather loses 7 essence