Beyond The Blade: Part One
Four heroes, each killed by a mysterious black blade, awaken in a dark chamber before a floating black sphere. They meet technomagical scientists who warn of a failed mission in the astral void, and they are helped by a portal-hopping mage who looks like a modern pop star. Battling demons, they find a journal, poems, and instructions on "transit spheres" used for teleportation and time travel. Traveling through these spheres, they encounter various "vestige" realms, including a demonic attack on a space dock, a goddess trapped in a mana dome, and a council of deities. They help rescue lost souls of the dead. They face memory-eating creatures, losing personal memories. Their journey leads to a planar outpost where many forbidden books have been hidden among the Guild of Everywheres' mundane records. A demonic mutant catches up to them, seeking to end their new lives and steal their souls, but they escape to a magical underwater city in a land of Celtic myth and magic...
Weekly game notes...
SESSION 0
Four heroes, all from different points in time, recount being killed by a mysterious black blade wielded by an unseen attacker. Just as each falls dead, they awakens on a stone floor of a dark, silent chamber. A strange 10-foot-diameter black sphere, glowing with blue arcane light, floats a few inches off the ground in front of them. The heroes slowly rise back to new life...
SESSION 1 (MAY 28, 2024)
Our heroes Elora the Darling Mage (scribe wizard), Jervis Chevalier (warlock of the undead), Li Bai (drunken master monk), and Pernicious Periwinkle (hexblade in a pact with rival Norse deities) awaken on a huge rock floating in astral space as demonic figures charge screaming out of a nearby angelic idol made of stone hands.
A terrified human man identified as Lt. Kyle Dix, wearing some sort of strange uniform (a 20th century flight suit), is found hiding nearby. The crazed Dix rambles on about "the Hawking-13 mission being a trap" and that the promised destination of "Utopia" did not actual exist, and that "Subject 23566 had been lying to us all along." A battle against the attacking demons begins...
From out of the floating black sphere steps a yellow-cloaked sorcerer (who looks much like Bauhaus frontman Peter Murphy) and a 5-year-old boy in green pajamas. (The pair are later identified as Cipher, a mage and member of the Guild of Everwheres, and Wora the child.) Li Bai is almost fatally wounded while fighting off the demons that explode into elemental energy and profane debris when killed.
Quickly gathering up bundles of papers found scattered on the stone ground, the group finds the writings to be a personal journal. The second set of papers list names and poems about a group of people. The third bundle has arcane instructions on how to work something called "transit spheres."
The Journal: The first set of papers are a rambling journal by an unknown author who sought sanctuary for a child named either Maura or Moniver. The author claims to have suffered some misadventure along with (or caused by) four others: Willow of the Black Blade, Brithel of the Vale Technocracy, Sariel of Toril, and an elemental descendant of Eldrell Yeni Surinen. The author also writes about researching "The Dooms" after the murder of magus Harland Payne and the awakening of the great vampire worm, the fall of a place called Elsehaven, the death of magic on the world of Adeus, opening the "Vault of the Progenitors" on the world of Ocdae, and creating a deity through a time paradox - each apparently a different kind of world-changing apocalypse involving the balance between Law and Chaos. The final note mentions dungeon explorers looking for a place called the Afterwhiles of Otherwhere following the assassination of its heir apparent royals.
The Poem and the Names: The second set of papers appears to be poetry (or prophesy?), along with research into a lineage of mysterious providence:
Within all thoughts and silver void
creation's forgotten mote hides a guide;
Across many ages, to doom avoid,
seize wonders where destinies collide.
Cast well, cast wise, for natures near,
be evil or lucky or good,
be chaos or dreams or trickery,
make your wish understood.
Count them once, count them twice,
and again, three three three;
By childrens' blood, at creation cast,
the universe reborn shall be.
Aethon, son of air
Annira, daughter of sun
Asera , daughter of healing
Balir, son of animals
Bellavel , daughter of travel
Calarith, daughter of trickery
Dardan, daughter of water
Devina , daughter of luck
Esus, son of chaos
Fanar, son of death
Ganiel, daughter of music
Gisin, son of destruction
Helgeth, daughter of shadows
Hemir, son of evil
Kawina, daughter of dreams
Lahan, son of good
Loifur, son of fire
Moniver, daughter of mechanics
Ralad, son of strength
Runnigan, son of earth
Sawen, son of law
Tolf, son of knowledge
Vala, daughter of war
Varan, son of plants
Wora, son of magic
Zaha, son of protection
Zoi, child of madness
About Transit Spheres: The third set of papers describe "transit spheres," floating black globes of variable size (5 to 20 feet in diameter), each surrounded by a nimbus of blue light. The text refers to these spheres as "holes left over by those who built creation" and "backdoors between space-time realities."
By quickly expending magical energy (read: use a spell slot) or performing a short ritual (read: a 10-minute Intelligence (Arcana) check), the sphere may be "awakened" as either a teleportation circle or planar gate to another transit sphere - and possibly used as a means of time travel should one know how.
SESSION 2 RECAP (JUNE 5, 2024)
After a quick ritual and stepping back into the floating black transit sphere, the group transports onto the deck of some sort of space dock in the midst of a crisis. A craft that looks like a small NASA space shuttle covered in blood and red ichor sits docked on the floor of a closed room full of terrified scientists. Something huge inside the craft keeps pounding to break out, and moments later two demonic tentacled horrors burst from the ship's hull. The demons' rampage smashes high-tech equipment in the room, causing one of the scientists to yell about damage to "the conceptual stabilizer" - and immediately the chamber itself begins to discorporate into the void of Astral Space beyond.
Lt. Dix grabs an electronic data pad displaying "Machinelander Map of Transit Spheres in the Vestiges," a bunch of lines and circles showing the group's starting point as the forbidden "idol hands" of Vestige 324-D and their current location as Vestige 325-E, the Dimensional Exploration Research Program (DERP) Launch Complex for the Hawking-13 mission. The map's next stop on the network of transit spheres is shown to be Vestige 314-A, the Dimensional Harvesting Refinery.
Dix also grabs a complete medkit backpack before fleeing the doomed launch complex. The chamber and its space shuttle craft transform into silvery light, leaving the pair of tentacled demons and remaining scientist staff to drift off into the nothingness of the Astral Plane.
SESSION 3 RECAP (JUNE 12, 2024)
Our heroes Elora, Jervis Chevalier, and Pernicious Periwinkle took an inebriated Li Bai, wounded Cipher the mage, wide-eyed Wora the child, and panicked Lt. Kyle Dix away from a rapidly discorporating space shuttle docking bay under demon attack onto the top level of the Dimensional Harvesting Refinery, a technomagical machine platform in astral space where a goddess figure was found trapped within a mana-draining dome.
After smashing a few attacking utility robots and breaking the dome's power mechanism, the freed goddess figure telekinetically sent a giant mana vampire hurling into the astral void and blessed her saviors with an instant rush of vitality (free Long Rest benefit) before flying away. Afterwards, the party find Lt. Kyle Dix had been killed by robots, leaving behind the medkit backpack.
SESSION 4 RECAP (JUNE 19, 2024)
The next way out was an elevator ride down into the Dimensional Harvesting Refinery's operations center below the top level platform, which turns out to be taken over by more of the demonic humanoids encountered earlier. In the one of the main ops center rooms, the heroes find and defeat a demonic wizard who was monitoring the party via security cameras and triggering trap-like malfunctions in hallways.
The corpse of scientist Dr. Gideon Halverson is found in the Dimensional Harvesting Refinery operations center, at the center of a summoning circle. He appears to have died due to gruesome self-inflicted wounds to his eyes and stomach. The group also finds a cavern-like chamber fill of hallucinogenic fungi spores that cause living beings to see visions of a beholder-like monster guarding a transit sphere.
The group also find a set of baseball-sized glass orbs called scholar orbs. (These are basically fantasy smart phones, a MacGuffin to allow player characters to share information with each other and recall past game session notes.)
The heroes rested, attuned to their scholar spheres, and figured out how to unlock the transit spheres (much to the annoyance of Cipher who insisted such work should only be left to professionals - namely, his Guild of Everywheres that charges 90 gold pieces a trip for such services).
SPEAK WITH DEAD ON THE CORPSE OF LT. KYLE DIX
Question 1: "Can you hear me?" (Cipher, failing a Wisdom check, makes a simple mistake immediately after casting the spell...)
Answer 1: "Yes."
Question 2: "How did you come to possess the journal pages?" (keyword: Journal)
Answer 2: "Stolen by Xardorok Sunblight for his infernal master, but fell into DERP's hands when the immortal guardian returned his charge to Otherwhere."
("DERP" = Dimensional Exploration Research Program. Also, "Xardorok Sunblight" is a duergar royal name, from a race of gray dwarves known to use psionics and thus possibly connected with the Astral Plane.)
Question 3: "What do you know about Subject 23566?"
Answer 3: "The demonic wizard gave us coordinates to Utopia, a land that granted wishes, but it was a vestige that did not really exist. Instead the ship went through a color pool into the Abyss."
Question 4: "What do you know about the tampering with the (transit) spheres?"
Answer 4: "Nothing."
Question 5: "Who is the celestial entity caught in the collection array?"
Answer 5: "No idea. That's not what the refinery was designed for, only collecting ambient magical energy - never anything so specific as a creature... or whatever she was..."
CONVERSATIONS WITH CIPHER
Cipher mentioned the transit spheres showed signs of tampering, something only high-level members of the Guild of Everywheres should be able to do. He also tried to pass off Wora as just "the nephew of a friend who wanted him to travel and job shadow a bit," but after being shown the journal's poem, the list of children's names, and asked about Moniver, his demeanor changed, and he muttered something about "the Archqueen of Machines."
Wora, as the primal son of magic, had been "brought home by his immortal guardian," presumably the author of the personal journal the party found (in Session One). Cipher implied the Guild of Everywhere knew about such lore but had locked books about it away from public view into a hidden vault somewhere to prevent such knowledge from falling "into the wrong hands."
SECURE TRANSMISSION
A communications log found in the complex describes the sender as first warning about the failure of the Hawking-13 mission, but then the sender slowly succumbs to seemingly meaningless madness. The final entry reads:
"Free our flesh for the master. Haaarve5t xxxxxxxxx. Harvest the souls. Build the legion. He is coming. He is coming back. ALPHA TO OMEGA. HVS RSAWIFUS WG FSHIFBWBU!"
Cipher expressed concern about "Secure Transmission Protocol #452-H" as being written by "Scarecrow" to "Tin Man" and "Director Gale." He noted something about a city-state within the Machine Lands called New Oz, ruled by Executive Director Dr. Dorothy Gale. Scarecrows are the state's secret police (always gathering intelligence), while its Tin Men are part of the land's soldier corps (the heart of their defense).
JOURNEY THROUGH THE FIRST TRANSIT SPHERE
The heroes found the secret coastal lair of Leto, former lover of Zeus and mother to the deities Artemis and Apollo of the Greek pantheon. Leto fears assassins sent by Hera, the vengeful wife of Zeus, and her last guardian's corpse lay rotted away in the shallow shoal. Leto, wrapping a golden thread around her finger, also seemed to recognize the heroes:
"The girl of two worlds, the hexblade of three souls, the cursed poet of the immortals, and the vanguard of tomorrow's dead. The gods of your future already remember you."
She mentioned the gods never came to Otherwhere, making it a good place for her to hide... until now. She retreated back into her stone temple home as the group returned to the DERP operations center. Elora took away a feather from the slain angel's wing, while Li Bai took a scale from the angel's armor.
JOURNEY THROUGH THE SECOND TRANSIT SPHERE
The heroes found a gloomy vestige barely holding itself together and filled with forsaken souls begging to be judged, freed from their state of limbo, and told the news of events from their former lives (which sounded scattered across many points in Earth's history). Pern led the party in a ritual petition to Hel, the Norse goddess of the dead, but each hero intuited the true judges of the dead were "too far away" to help. One spirit, a ghost woman with yellow eyes, incited the mob of ghosts to possess the heroes as physical vessels for escape, but only a few put up the weakest of fights. The yellow-eyed ghost did manage to possess Jervis just long enough to come back through the transit sphere, leaving his body to pass intangibly into the walls of the DERP operations center.
SESSION 5 RECAP (JUNE 26, 2024)
The heroes return from the vestige of lost souls to the astral refinery ops center. The ghostly spirit that possessed Jervis Chevalier escapes, and Li Bai decides to once again get blackout drunk on plum wine. Cipher the Guild mage negotiates a deal to provide help with the tampered transit spheres in exchange for news about what lies in the unexplored realms beyond, a role he suggests the party may take up while working for the the Guild of Everywheres once the current adventure is over. Wora eats snacks and plays with machine controls. Elora the Darling Mage, Jervis, and Pernicious Periwinkle carry on exploring.
Beyond the next transit sphere, the group finds a disorientating and bloody scene. The floor, walls, and ceilings of a stone chamber twist and fold at improbable angles (akin to an M.C. Escher work). Smears of gore and red ichor stain patches of surfaces everywhere, evidence of recent battles with the strange mutant demons the heroes have fought before. A 14-foot-tall angelic figure, wielding a massive sword and wearing armor covered in blood, challenges the trio in order to protect a glowing doorway of pure light. This celestial guard, named Aphessuel, soon recognizes Elora, Jervis, and Pern. The angel says the heroes have been "expected in the Court of Heaven" beyond the doorway, and the heroes travel through.
In the next realm, a series of ornate gilded platforms in astral space serve as a meeting site between the astral projections of five deities associated with the dead and afterlives - Anubis, Asase Afua, Asmodeus (in the form of Led Zepplin's Jimmy Page), Crow, and Baron Samedi - and the nine Archqueens associated with settled lands of Otherwhere (each in the form of a 1970s/1980s female music star: Cher, Diana Ross, Patti Smith, Debbie Harry, Stevie Nicks, Siouxsie Sioux, Donna Summer, and Betty Davis, plus one disco-esque chrome figure). A mortal woman named Haldo serves as moderator, and three more Guild members stand as witnesses: Exemplar of Allwheres (in the guise of Prince), Beacon of Allwheres (looking like Bruce Springsteen), and Weaver (as a rather disinterested Jimi Jendrix).
Exemplar the Guild mage says the Archqueens once appeared as ancient goddesses, and before that as spirit animals and even as sacred plants, but popular modern consciousness on Earth now casts them as famous pop stars ("worshipped goddesses of the new age"). He notes Guild of Everywheres mages use spells to change their forms in order to match the Archqueens as a sign of respect, but it is suggested Weaver might be the actual Jimi Hendrix of Earth (who, when asked about the black dagger, mentions his own trouble with Dolly Dagger).
Jervis, Elora, and Pern explain their "deaths" by a mysterious black blade, something all the beings present seem ignorant about except the Archqueen Eternal (who looks like Patti Smith), a being that clearly is hiding what she knows from others - especially her fellow Archqueens. Exemplar, Beacon, and Baron Samedi go off to investigate the vestige of lost souls and try to find the dead whose absence had not gone unnoticed in their intended afterlives.
Asmodeus implies Elora was "not due to appear before him for at least a decade or two," and he tempts her with promises of helping grow her magical power. Pernicious Periwinkle claims to have become "a hexblade without a patron" and asks if anyone knows of the celestial being called The Traveler (shapeshifter and trickster deity worshipped on a few D&D worlds). Jervis, ostensibly a warlock to the Egyptian goddess Nephthys, is told by Anbuis (mythical son of Nephthys) that the goddess makes no such pacts with mortals, implying whoever or whatever is giving Jervis his powers is only pretending to be Nephthys.
Several Archqueens expressed praise or animosity toward Jervis, Elora, and Pern based on deeds they have not yet done but may do in the future:
* The Machine lands considered Elora a great aspirational youth and model of magical study, but the Stone Lands accused Elora of being "a binder who steals magic and brings sorrow."
* The Fire Lands praised Jervis as "an icon of justice between the living and the dead," but the Machine Lands marked him as "a dangerous icon of non-conformity and mad science."
* The Stone Lands called Pernicious Periwinkle "the ultimate shaman," but the Wind Lands saw her as "an icon of careless cruelty, seeing humans as disposable."
After some discussion, it becomes clear some lands in Otherwhere lean toward Law (such as the restrictive society of the Machine Lands), while others tend toward Chaos (the mercurial fey realms of the Dream Lands).
A quick take on Otherwhere's known history as told to the group...
1,800 years ago ... Mages from Atlantis of Old Earth colonize Otherwhere.
1,400 years ago ... Atlantis on Earth falls, and direct contact with the mortal homeworld is lost. The Otherwhere colony breaks into rival baronies located within a ring of mountains.
700 years ago ... "The Bloom," a magical jungle, consumes all baronies in a single day. Survivors escape over the Boundry Peaks to settle eight new lands past the mountains.
700 years to now ... Linked to something called Echo Stones, the eight lands evolve into mythical derivatives of places and times from Old Earth:
* The Dream Lands (faerie kingdoms of endless childhoods, mythic age)
* The Eternal Lands (the Temple of Everywheres within a mad primeval jungle)
* The Fire Lands (ancient Egyptian/Nubian theocracy along a river, ~2000 BC)
* The Machine Lands (New Oz, modern metropolis of technomagical fascism, ~AD 2000)
* The Shadow Lands (savage post-apocalyptic wasteland ruins, ~AD 3000)
* The Stone Lands (Norse clans, dwarves, half-giants, drow, ~AD 1000)
* The Tree Lands (magical Celtic town surrounded by dark forests, mythic age)
* The Water Lands (heroic ancient Greek sailors seeking gold and glory, ~1000 BC)
* The Wind Lands (Han Chinese sky wizards on mountaintops and cloud islands, ~AD 0)
FYI, zoom in/out on this map for reference: https://epicsavingthrow.com/0th3rvvh3r3/map0th3rGAME.html
The group agrees to move to Tir Na Drayocht, main city of the Tree Lands, once they find their way out of the unstable vestiges and into the populated areas of Otherwhere. The Archqueen of Trees agrees to introduce Elora to their Merlin (or several Merlins, as the term is a title and not just a name).
The heroes return back to the DERP ops center and update Cipher the Guild mage who worries they should be gone from there before soldiers of the Machine Lands arrive to investigate. Attempts to return to the "Court of Heaven" find the way blocked, but whatever lies beyond a fourth and final transit sphere is yet to be explored...
SESSION 6 RECAP (JULY 3, 2024)
While shaking off a day and night of drinking, Li Bai learns from Cipher the Guild mage that Machine Lands military from the city of New Oz could show up at any moment. While the heroes are innocent of any wrongdoing, he notes the disastrous loss of everyone associated with the Hawking-13 mission and all staff at Dimensional Harvesting Refinery #314 being dead would not be "a good look" for four strangers found as the only survivors. A squad of uplifted simian soldiers in battlesuits ("flying monkeys") and an assault android (a "tin man") would likely arrest everyone and take them back to New Oz for uncomfortable interrogations.
Upon Elora, Jervis, and Pern returning to the refinery ops center, Pern finally began getting answers to her previous prayers made to the Norse death goddess Hel, who acknowledged lost souls were at last arriving to their afterlife domains thanks to intervention by the loa Baron Samedi. When asked for help about Loki, the voice of Thor joined in Pern's mind, and soon her thoughts were overwhelmed by divine voices endlessly arguing with each other.
The heroes compared their points of origin prior to meeting their "deaths" by the black blade: Elora came from 1987, Jervis from 1980, Li Bai from "the year 26 of our Emperor Wu," and Pern from "1358, the Time of Troubles" (which had nothing to do with Northern Ireland).
The remaining unexplored transit sphere took the group to Vestige 384-C, a broken realm nicknamed "the Memory Yards" where pieces of shattered clock towers drifted through astral space. Translucent figures flickered all around, which Cipher explained were emotional moments coming from the thoughts and dreams of mortals currently on Old Earth of the prime material plane. Such phenomena were common in the Astral Plane.
Each party member also saw their own memories: Pern witnessing a teaching moment with Santa Claus, a healer; Jervis reliving a "really big score" stealing a file from someone's office; Li Bai revisiting his first childhood crush, putting a plum into the hand of a sleeping woman who immediately transformed into a dragon; and Elora using magic to terrify Elisa Porter, a "mean girl" rival from high school.
Such notions attracted the attention of a dozen memory eaters, pale humanoids with paper-like bodies whose touch caused psychic damage and the loss of memories:
* Li Bai: "You learned how to fluently speak the difficult Asquali language to better communicate with traveling Asqual merchants you used to visit for some personal need. You will never again remember a single word of the Asquali language, nor anything about the Asqual people, nor what you once purchased from them."
* Jervis: "You recall heartfelt conversations, hugs, kisses, and expressions of affection that strengthened your bond with a cherished loved one. You will never remember the person that caused you to feel this way."
* Pern: "The voragax dreadmaw is an extremely dangerous monster that almost killed you before you defeated it by exploiting its only weakness. You will never again remember anything about this creature other than its name."
* Also Pern: "One of your favorite holidays involved preparing special meals together, singing festive songs, and wearing specific colors to honor an annual rite of passage. You will never again remember anything about this holiday."
* Cipher: He appears to have lost all memory of working with transit spheres.
After deciphering the portal key and escaping the "memory yards," the group appeared at the unused back entrance to Vestige Transit Hub 7 (aka "Avalon Station," per the Roxy Music song). A vault door facing into astral space had been blasted down, and in the chamber inside, a second vault door stood closed.
A sneaky tabaxi thief named Searchworth attempted to take Elora hostage, but he was soon calmed by Li Bai's offer of wine and encouragement that the heroes were not there to stop his heist-in-progress. (Jervis' intimidation also helped.) Searchworth asked the group if they were Wardens or Apostates, terms meaningless to the heroes. Apparently, Searchworth and his partner in crime, a wizard named Alastir, had been trying for days to figure out the passcode to the inner vault door that held "the secret treasure of the Guild of Everywheres." (The password turned out to be "PATIENCE.")
The group also figured out Alastir was the demon-corrupted wizard called Subject 23566 they killed back at the Refinery ops center, but Searchworth says the wizard was an average human when he left wandering across the local transit spheres a couple of days earlier. What might have caused the wizard's monstrous transformation remained unknown.
Inside the vault, the party found neither gold nor jewels but just piles of old books. Most were transaction ledgers of Guild business (client receipts, training certifications), but Elora's spellbook quickly alerted her to 20 books that could prove valuable to the group. (How Elora's book "recognized" the other books is as yet unclear.)
The Library Vault of Avalon Station:
https://epicsavingthrow.com/0th3rvvh3r3/infoCVB329.html
Just then, a bloody rift opened behind the group, and a demonic flying polyp monster tethered to the corpses of two Hawking-13 "astralnauts" emerged and spoke to the party:
"You were all chosen to be free. Why do you deny yourselves? Why do you keep interfering with the reunion of what was broken? You must now be broken. You must be freed..."
A retreating battle into the vault drove the party back as spell after spell failed to slow the advance of the huge demon. Slipping through a hidden back passage, the heroes emerged onto the Guild of Everywheres' public transit platform where they were greeted by their recent friend Exemplar of Allwheres (in the guise of Prince), along with Guild mages Luminary (Gary Numan), Shaper (DJ Kool Herc), Proteus (Iggy Pop), Watcher (John Lennon), and Welcomer (Jerry Garcia). These mages later opened the vault door and discovered the demonic horror had fled into astral space after the heroes got away from it. The Guild mages also did not seem to notice Elora's Unseen Servant carrying away books, but they did take Searchworth the tabaxi into custody for the crimes of attempted larceny and property damage to the rear vault door.
The heroes were given free transport to Tir Na Drayocht, the underwater town that serves as the capital center of the Tree Lands.
A Guide to Tir Na Drayocht:
https://epicsavingthrow.com/0th3rvvh3r3/info.tirnadrayocht.html
Game Map of Tir Na Drayocht:
https://epicsavingthrow.com/0th3rvvh3r3/maptirnadrayocht.html