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2025: #3-The Adventure Continues 9…

The Adventure Continues is a series detailing what happens in the D&D campaign that I am the Dungeon Master for. Currently we are following the last adventuring season of a character named Olorin. Olorin is a 27th level, chaotic good, wild magic-user who is one of five dukes of the country of Oldive. Olorin is an magically-evolved faerie elf known as a Tritopian. Tritopians have a third forehead eye often involving psionics. He has many children he magically spawned, a palace, everything. But Olorin plans on creating a new druid-like shaman class, and he knows that will require going to the mysterious 13th Dimension for an extended period of time to achieve that. So he has one last adventuring season, and Olorin has set his priorities for specific missions, following up on known major issues.

His first adventure was “Olorin in Space.” He knew of other adventurers who were last seen investigating a far away planet in a distant galaxy. So he took one of his family-owned spacecraft and went there, but he took the long way. On the way there he discovered Ultraworld, a huge space station that acted as a dungeon for alien races run by alien space clowns. He came into contact with an ancient intergalactic alien robot species that are few in numbers but are very powerful. And then he followed the path of the missing adventurers to an alien spacecraft, and then to the planet Hali. On Hali he found the missing adventurers, but he also found the home planet of Hastur, the Yellow King, a power equal to the vanquished Cthulhu. He rescued the party from being trapped in a perpetual timestop, and took them back to their home planet of Terra.

After Olorin’s relatively easy space vacation, he wanted to follow up on a random wild magic surge he had produced years ago. Being a wild mage, his magic tends to be slightly stronger but produces bursts of magic, like errors that have random effects. The wild surge he once had which he wanted to follow up on involved a fungus that was created and shot into the Astral Plane. There was an awful lot of the fungus created by the surge, so he wanted to see what happened to it. His second adventure was then “The Astral Plane.” He travelled to the Astral Plane and was able to take his same sleek, black spacecraft since it operates in different planes of existence. It was a far journey through the gray foggy Astral Plane in which he encountered pools of color and psychic storms like hurricanes. He occasionally saw astral travelers. He investigated a huge warped skull, and discovered it belonged to a dead god, with their dwindling energies in their remains somehow recently consumed.

Olorin had travelled the equivalent of halfway across the galaxy in the Astral Plane until he homed in on the location of the elusive fungus. As he approached it, his spacecraft was attacked by an Astral Dragon with Githyanki and Slaad strangely working together as pirates. He defeated them, and continued on without the spacecraft. He then found the fungus, but it was not fungus any longer. The fungus was turned into rock fashioned into the form of a mountain. On this floating mountain in the Astral Plane sat a small military base. It was a Githanki hive floating in the Astral Plane. At this point the adventure transitioned into “ The Citadel of Gith Reborn” adventure in the D&D book, The Vortex of Madness. The floating mountain was covered with iron spikes imbued with magical electricity. Olorin learned that Githyanki rebels built the base out of his fungus by magically converting it into rock. There is no natural matter in the Astral Planes to build things. However, something took possession of the base away from the Githyanki.

The base now served as a headquarters for pirates. The pirates were composed of Githankyi and Slaad. All of the pirates had glowing red eyes. Olorin delved into the base and understood that all he encountered were under the domination of a powerful force, hence the red eyes were a sign of being controlled. He floated down through the gravityless shafts in the base, encountering such things as aggressive Grey Slaad, a Githyanki lich, and finally the boss. The boss was an albino humanoid crocodile-man, a Mysterian, a strange species of very powerful aliens who live in a planet in the Astral Plane somewhere. This Mysterian was the only evil member of his species, and he had special powers. He not only controlled this dirty gang and just about anyone he looked at, but he derived his power from devouring the energies of dead or dying deities and demigods. Olorin met this “Godeater,” who escaped. Those he controlled were freed, and Olorin quickly left as they regained control of their base.

Olorin’s next adventure was “The Underworld, 2135: The Shadowdark.” In this adventure he hoped to locate a powerful mage who had been kidnapped ten years previously during a war. The mage, Subdominus, was particularly important since he was the Lord of Dreams. He was not dead, nor could he be found. Olorin consulted with the highest of mages, and learned that Subdominus was probably hidden somewhere in the Shadowdark. So that is where Olorin went, to a place he had never heard of before. He had been to the Underworld or Underdark before, several times. These were areas under dungeons, tunnels and caves that ran over the whole planet. These areas were called the Shallows. Under them were the Deeps, miles below the surface where some stronger species lived such as Drow Elves. But there was an even lower area, the Shadowdark. The Shadowdark on planet Terra is accessible via one location. It is a pit, 10 miles in diameter, descending deep into the planet. It starts at 5 miles below the surface and descends to an unknown depth. That is where Olorin had to go.

To get to the Shadowdark, he started by visiting the Magnarock Pitstop, an adventurer’s shanty town within a vast cavern in a location similar to the Grand Canyon. The mage, Stengel, appeared who knows Olorin and owns the Magnarock Pitstop. He had his apprentice, a Tabaxi catman named Maximillian, take Olorin to the Shadowdark. Maximillian took him there via flying carpet down through the chasm. Upon entering the cave tunnels, he created a magical carriage and the two of them travelled through Underdark tunnels and caves rapidly. Maximillian knew the correct route, and they had minimal difficulties with monsters. He took Olorin as far as he could, to the entrance of the Deeps. They made their farewells, and Olorin proceeded through the Deeps where it was more dangerous. He met Krizor, a goblin wizard mapping the area, and they proceeded down together. But soon they began to hear howls and sounds of being pursued, and they found that they were traveling though extensive Grimlock territory. Krizor quickly escaped by teleporting away just after they discovered an abandoned dwarven town.

Olorin continued on alone, skipping the town and finding a dark underground massive sea, the Spire Sea. He invisibly flew over it for hours, seeing scouting ships of undead Wight Warriors. He flew past islands of Duergar and sometimes fishy Kuo-toans. Following directions for hours, he eventually located a shore with a cave and tunnel. After a few more miles he ended up at the edge of the vast pit that is the Shadowdark. After defeating a huge Primoridal Troll, Olorin found a descending ledge, a path that ran around the pit ever descending, never stopping, generally 30-50 ft wide. Flying straight down was not an option since in the pit there was what appeared to be upward moving purple rain. This purple rain was not water but was really some form of deadly negative energy. And then, an Olorin descended he began seeing ghosts flying in the purple rain.

Olorin started finding caves and unusual ledge areas to investigate. He descended miles and the temperature oddly dropped continually, to the lower 40’s. The rock started being comprised of increasingly more “dark rock,” a type of super black rock that absorbed light that is only found in the Shadowdark. He also found that a purple crystal with strange properties was mined from the Shadowdark known as shadowcrystal. As he descended, he started finding secret bases hidden in the ledge rock wall. He first found a lawful evil temple for Mephistopheles. When investigating it, Olorin found Bone and Ice Devils, and then Mephistopheles himself appeared. Olorin ran out as he was cursed out by Mephistopheles since Olorin slew his son, Arawn, decades earlier. He then found a large Drow elf base which was inhabited by a few Drow vampires which he easily dealt with due to his proficiency with positive energy spells, some he created.

He continued descending down the ledge, finding the Vault of the Inculubulum, the entrance to Glimmer City. The Incubulum were a humanoid race previous never seen before: horned, mysterious, often wearing bandages or scarves, and using undead helpers. Olorin kept away from them. Further down he found a high tech secret Mind Flayer base. Even worse, it was inhabited by insane, Far Realm corrupted Thoon Mind Flayers. He defeated them, their beastly Thoon Hulk, and saved a Duergar from having his brain devoured. Olorin descended miles further and located a small base run by a dark wizard working for Beholders. He then discovered that their torture chamber was an elevator leading to a much larger secret base, hundreds of feet below. The Beholder base was a façade for something worse.

Olorin found a dungeon-like home for “Phantoms”, a Beholder and a Mind Flayer Phantom. “Phantoms” as they were called, were very old chaotic evil former Cthulhu worshippers who caused WW4, and of their few survivors, these two were the only two non-human Phantoms left. Olorin explored their base and found an area with weird, perfectly black, shiny walls. This was a magical darkness wall, behind which was a psionic, heavily-armed, Roper. By the time Olorin defeated it, the two Phantoms escaped long before Olorin found their quarters. So he left this area and went back to the descending ledge. This far down in the Shadowdark, the temperature dropped into the upper 30’s. All of the rock was now dark rock. Ghosts and shadows were everywhere. There were even greater ghosts, giant ghosts with wings, and multiple ghosts combined into one horrifying monstrosity.

Olorin continued walking down the ledge and found the Vault of the Phaerimm. It was an entrance to a large area, the city of the Phaerimm. It was guarded by a non-humanoid purple shadowcrystal golem made by the Phaerimm. This intelligent and powerful golem had brief and unfriendly words with Olorin before he continued on. He then was approached by an Mind Flayer greater ghost who made a deal with him. He would lead Olorin to whatever he wanted in exchange of getting him a robot body he could inhabit. Olorin promised him magical resurrection, and he led him to a nearby Rakshasha base which Olorin cleared. Using Wish level Wild magics, Olorin resurrected the Mind Flayer. The Mind Flayer made plans with Olorin that he would retake the Mind Flayer base above and that Olorin’s forces could use it in the future. He also gave Olorin information where he might find who he was searching for.

Olorin continued down and soon found a large cavern where he was immediately attacked by a Shadow Dragon. Olorin eventually banished it back to the Plane of Shadow before taking its treasure. After descending beyond twenty miles down, in the freezing Shadowdark, he found a large cave system. It was the largest cave system he had found in this adventure, and it had been heavily mined for shadowcrystal. He battled an undead purple worm and several skeleton warriors. The cave system also had some roughly humanoid shadowcrystal golems appearing like elementals. Olorin got past them and found a purple shadowcrystal sarcophagus. Inside it he found Subdominus, the person he was searching for. He had been aged to 120 years old, appeared close to death, and was frozen in a stasis. Olorin retrieved Subdominus and rushed him to the equivalent of an elven hospital. Evidence showed he was kidnapped and hidden there by the oldest lich on the planet.

Olorin then started planning his next adventure which was supposed to free a Drow vampire city. The city need to be freed because Drow vampires had massively multiplied and taken over Drow territory in the Underdark a few years back. Instead, at the planned briefing for his attack, he learned that kings may be visiting his palace, dozens of people, and that this was going to involve attacking all of the Drow vampire held territories. Olorin realized he would soon be embarking on his latest adventure, and it would be called “The Vampire War...”