Elandria Campaign Transcript Snippet I: ASCENSION
CAST:
Hannah - Dungeon Master Fen - Andrew, human fighter, lv 19 Nola - Emily, half-orc barbarian, lv 19 Kestriel - Chloe, tiefling paladin, lv 19 Ronyo - Connor, drow rogue, lv 19 Tachi - Paige, half-elf bard, lv 17, cleric lv 2 Vessago - Jesse, high elf wizard, lv 19 Yuumi - Steven, halfling cleric lv 19, paladin lv 1
DM: So that’s it, all of you are incapacitated in some way?
PAIGE: Or charmed.
DM: Okay. Well. One by one, all of you are incapacitated, but Suthis doesn’t stop raining the blows down. So, eventually, it all just… ends. And time… stands still. And for a moment, you are suspended in a place beyond your bodies, all except for you, Vessago. You see your fallen forms, limp on the surface of a shining silver sea. You see Suthis, merged with Solaria, your old enemy, laughing horribly as she shifts back into view. And, all of you… lifeless.
Then, all six of you ascend.
Your souls begin to float upward, like shooting stars in reverse, rocketing past stars and planets, nebulas and black holes, past creatures that lurk in the infinite darkness, and the celestial beings that keep them at bay. Your minds blur with the encompassing strain of trying to process eternity as it stretches behind you, your souls leaving trails of light in their wake. And after a time that feels like eternity and only a moment, you find yourselves standing in a field of silver grass. Before you is a white tree, towering as tall as the Cerulean tower, its trunk wide and massive. Its silver leaves rustle, although you feel no wind, and then you hear it… a Song.
It fills you with… something. Longing, and hope, and sadness, and joy. And… beneath the melody, you can hear a rhythm like a heartbeat. The heartbeat of the universe. Suspended in the sky above you, you can see a scene similar to the one you saw in Sigil: the entire universe sprawling above you. And, from where you stand, before the Tree of the Universe, the seat of creation itself… It all seems so small, so distant. Somewhere out there, a war is being waged for all of existence, and here you are, in the quiet, surrounded by the Song of all time and space, so far away from it all.
As you catch your breath and you drink it all in, you hear a voice… or, you feel it more than anything else, echoing through the stuff of your souls. It is genderless, and eternal, and it feels like a warm fire on the coldest of nights, like an embrace from the person you miss the most. And it says:
ISINDRÏL: “My children. I have waited so long to meet you.”
STEVEN: Do I recognise the voice?
DM: It’s the voice of Isindrïl. Do you respond?
FEN: “What’s… going on?”
ISINDRÏL: “You’re all… not quite dead, but almost there, in a manner of speaking.”
PAIGE: Only mostly dead! [All laugh]
ISINDRÏL: “Here, you are caught in a place where life and death merge, where neither has meaning. As long as a soul still exists, death can never be final, and this is the place where you are suspended. At this moment, standing before Isindrïl: the Tree of the Universe, and the Creator of All Things.”
FEN: “Why are we here and not just dead?”
ISINDRÏL: “I asked myself that as well, for some time. But you have spent some time with some of my dearest, brightest stars.”
DM: And, at this, a sad inflection rings out through the Voice, and you can sort of feel it tugging at your heartstrings. It continues, and it says:
ISINDRÏL: “They were the ones I set to guard this universe. They are no longer capable of that, it seems. Tell me… what do all of you think it means to be a god? As those who have watched them, and studied their ways.”
DM: And, Kestriel and Yuumi, you feel a thrill of warmth in your chests, like a spark of that holy energy that’s been missing since you both felt Alyzar die. The voice continues:
ISINDRÏL: “Or those who have understood them, those they would have trusted with their mantle.”
DM: And Tachi, Nola, and Ronyo, you feel the same thing: a strange warmth coming to life within your ribcages.
ISINDRÏL: “Or, even those who saw what the gods offered and for a time, doubted any but yourself.”
DM: And Fen, you feel that warmth, too, but despite these words, you don’t feel any scorn. And the Voice says:
ISINDRÏL: “What does godhood mean to each of you?”
YUUMI: “To protect the weak when no-one else will. To be kind to all of creation. To be a source of good for the world.”
KESTRIEL: “To seek the truth in the hardest of times.”
NOLA: “To lend strength to those who don’t have it.”
RONYO: “To have the wisdom to lead the unwise toward their ultimate goals.”
TACHI: “…Nothing but a bit of age and power.”
FEN: “To lift up those who have been beaten down.”
ISINDRÏL: “All excellent answers, in their own ways. May I show you what I have learned of godhood?
My nature, the nature of the universe, is that of growth. As I reach toward my Creation, so the trees stretch toward me, yearning to understand. And, this is what my understanding has led to.”
DM: Your vision shifts. Suddenly, you see around you the darkness of space, and one by one you can feel the stars themselves stirring to the Song of Isindrïl and beginning to pulse with their own life. You watch as these new beings stretched and grew, tasked as guardians of Isindrïl itself, protectors against those who would use it for ill, protectors against Suthis, the Destroyer. The scene shifts again, to another world, one far away from yours, unfamiliar to you, where humankind was persecuted by cruel gods.
Designed to be protectors, the gods—gods you recognise as Visoren, Alyzar, Kadathez, and Vasha—turned their attention to this world and requested to leave their stations, and protect this world instead. And they did… for a time. But slowly, you watch as the same black, corrupting veins take hold of this world, as over time these gods became lost in their squabbles: vying for followers and power. And Suthis’ presence consumes this world.
You watch Kadathez and the other gods trying desperately to fight the darkness back, but to no avail. Kadathez gives up and calls a retreat, and they try to save as many people as they can before leaving this world forever to be consumed by Suthis.
They found another world, a world that you recognise as Elandria… your own world. And you watch as the Dawn War follows, and Suthis is sealed away in her prison, and the gods make a new home for themselves, finding peace with their new world with new followers, and they begin a new. You watch these gods—your old gods—fail, once, and lose a world they once called theirs, as they have failed once again.
And Isindrïl speaks, and it says:
ISINDRÏL: “When the universe was younger, this is what it thought a god was meant to be: a protector, strong and bright and eternal. But, the universe found a new sort of god in the most unexpected places.”
DM: The vision shifts again. And this time, you are seeing… familiar faces. You see Ronyo’s sister, Reyva, gathering people in the bunker that used to house her rebellion as the same horrible thunder that you heard in Eldoran rings out in the city of Tyvris, and darkness encroaches on Elandria.
Next, you see the town of Devil’s Crest, the very first assignment you were given a year prior. The Weeping Woods shift ominously with shadows just yards away, and they begin to coalesce and crawl from the depths of the woods. The people of Devil’s Crest are armed with pitchforks and torches, anything they find to stave of the creeping darkness. There is a sudden light from the midst of the woods, and from that light is a roar. Bursting from the trees there is the form of an enormous bronze dragon you recognise as a polymorphed Rasden who swoops down and lands on the outskirts of Devil’s Crest, placing himself firmly between the sleepy town and Suthis’ darkness.
The scene that follows is one of the Spireling Tavern. You see Dierdre, nailing wooden planks to the windows as you hear banging noises from outside. You watch as Orn, the half-orc bouncer, braces himself against the door, straining against whatever is trying to get in. The tavern is filled with people: families, young and old, all packed in with the sort that frequent the tavern. You see Koriss there, the dwarven blacksmith, also helping to shutter the windows, and Kairi, the gnomish bard, is standing on her usual table, playing a lullaby for some crying children.
The scene shifts again to the streets of Eldoran just outside of Morlan’s shop, Dresvus’ Arcane Wonders. The sign hangs crookedly from its post above the door, singed from magical fire, and in the streets you see Morlan and Cassandra, accompanied by some of the city guard, Captain Rusill Bray among them. Morlan casts a bright flare of magical light into the sky, and Cassandra shoots a shadowy creature with her bow, Peaches at her heels. Morlan shouts for them to run inside the shop as he urges civilians to go ahead of him. A little girl drops her doll and pulls free from her mother’s grasp to reach for it as one of the shadowy forms takes shape from the darkness and slashes at her. Morlan throws himself in front of her; the shadow creature’s claws rake across his chest and he cries out in pain.
Another shift, to another familiar location. You can now see within the Cerulean Tower, where Yusuf Saldar and Cyran direct civilians who are crowding the inner foyer of the Tower. Cyran hands out blankets to Tachi’s family, and Hope, the tiefling girl you liberated from Emberfell, is also among them. Torick Windsong rests a hand on his wife’s back as his son, Soren, clings to his hand. Riella, his wife, places a gentle, guiding hand on Hope’s shoulder as she tries to comfort her young daughter, Valenna. Valenna clutches at Riella’s skirt, her other hand worrying fretfully at the braids in her hair… braids done to look a lot like yours, Tachi.
You can gather that the Tower is sheltering people in Eldoran, making them refugees in their own home.
The scene moves upward, up through the Tower, to Lady Sariel Goldvein, standing at the very top and staring into the infinitely dark and cloudy sky, her expression equally stormy. Her normally neat hair blows wildly around her as the wind tears at her robes, and she takes a deep breath, and raises her staff toward the sky as the sky reaches down at her in turn, shaping itself into a hand made of the same black tendrils that you now recognise as Suthis’ corruption. Sariel shouts an arcane incantation, and a blast of sunlight splits the air before everything goes dark.
Finally, you see your own broken bodies lying on the Astral Plane in a moment that time can no longer touch. Suthis stands above you and laughs, and in this moment, you can hear the Voice of Isindrïl. And it says:
ISINDRÏL: “What do you see in these small moments of humanity?”
RONYO: “Bravery.”
NOLA: “Love.”
FEN: “Compassion.”
KESTRIEL: “Selflessness.”
YUUMI: “Sacrifice.”
TACHI: “Action.”
ISINDRÏL: “There is something godly about this, too, or perhaps this is what the divine was lacking in the first place: the ability to lose, to self-sacrifice, to be selfless. The truth of mortality is that you have so much to lose. Loved ones. Lives. You cling so hard to that which is temporary, and you fight against whatever threatens to wrench it from your grasp. There’s a beauty in that. Mortals can be so willing to put their short lives on the line for love, for light, for anything that they believe in, and they must be willing to lose it all to do so. And, sometimes, like in your cases, they do. There is a sort of humble divinity in that, is there not?
People need something to believe in. If there are to be gods, why should they not understand the weight of sacrifice? Why should they not comprehend what it is to risk everything if only to save that which they hold dear? What say all of you? Are you willing to take up that mantle? For the world you love?”
FEN & RONYO: “Yes.”
TACHI: “That’s why we’re here.”
ISINDRÏL: “Does the same go for all of you?”
ALL: “Yes.”
ISINDRÏL: “I am going to present you with a unique opportunity. I will allow you to take on the mantle of a god: permanently, or temporarily. You may bear that mantle for eternity or until you fall to Suthis, or you may hold the divine for only long enough to see Suthis sealed away and then choose to pass on into the afterlife. I cannot restore you, as a mortal mind would break under the memory of my gift. Either way, you will not be who you were when you began this journey.”
KESTRIEL: “If there’s anything I have learned from Solaria’s treachery and the bravery of many others, it’s not to rely on the gods for everything. It’s to find that resolution in ourselves. And… I believe in us more than I ever have in anything else. So, I’d like to let it go after this. I’d be nothing without the memories I have. I think it’s okay to let go.”
NOLA: “I… my entire life I’ve watched lives come to pass and pass on. I know the nature of things. I honestly didn’t think I’d make it this far, do so much, and… I’m satisfied with my life. And I’ll give it to save the world. But I don’t want to live past this. I want to see my mother.”
FEN: “If I don’t have my memories… The old me would have done anything, just made the same decisions over and over again. I’m happy with my choices. I’ll go quietly.”
RONYO: “I would likely choose to give up my power after this conflict is over. I don’t want to return to who I was, and I don’t want to lose the memory of all of you. So, I will give myself for forfeit if we can destroy Suthis and put an end to this cycle.”
DM: With your choices made, for the second time today, you… ascend.
Warmth floods your souls, and you feel Isindrïl’s power pour into you, invigorating you and filling you with power. And you hear the voice again, and it says:
ISINDRÏL: “To you, Fen, I grant the Boon of the Warrior, and the weapon Devilcleaver, that you may strike down your enemies and lead your allies to victory.
To you, Kestriel, I grant the Boon of the Magistrate, that you may see truth in the hearts of others and enact justice based on what is true.
To you, Nola, I grant the Boon of the Protector, that you may defend those you love and their love make you strong.
To you, Ronyo, I grant the Boon of Remembrance, both a blessing and a burden, that you may remember what the world has forgotten, and with it remember what you stand for.”
RONYO: “One condition, Isindrïl, is that if I were to give my life at the end of this… I want… I want Reyva to forget I existed.”
ISINDRÏL: “We may discuss terms afterwards, if that is what you wish.” [beat] “To you, Tachi, I grant the Boon of Eternal Hope, that you may be a light to your allies when they need it most, because as a bard it is your job to inspire hope and give it in the darkest of places.
And finally… to you, Yuumi, I grant the Boon of the Faithful and the Shield of Divine Retribution, that you bring not only justice where it is needed, but healing as well.
Now… go forth, my children, and be divine.”
NOLA: “Okay!”
DM: Vessago, you suddenly come back into consciousness, shocked, astounded that you are actually alive in all of this. Then, you see all of your companions around you, fallen. In front of you, Suthis is laughing.
SUTHIS: “I wish I could say crushing you would bring me any pleasure at all.”
DM: And she takes a lumbering step toward you, and then you hear a loud sound, a sound that all of us would recognise as something breaking the sound barrier, and bright light crashes down all around you as the ground shakes. You watch, stunned, as the fallen forms of your friends stand to their feet. They’re different, now. Their eyes are pure light, streaming from their sockets, and they glow with a radiant aura Yuumi now holds a shield of pure white light that crackles with electricity, and both hers and Kestriel’s holy symbols have flared back to life. Fen now holds a halberd with a golden shaft, a blade of light cleaving out of it.
And all of you have your hit points and spell slots restored instantly, and you level up to level 20.
VESSAGO: “Well, it will bring me great pleasure to crush you!”
DM: And it’s time for a REMATCH!