Aubrey's Eberron campaign. (Inactive)

Game Master Aubrey the Malformed


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The Exchange

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No peeking, please Rarely Accountant 2/Auditor 4/Waster 30

Dear reader

Because life has rather caught up with me after eleven or so years, I can no longer sustain my games here on Paizo. So this game (and the others) will henceforth be closed.

However, in case you are wondering what actually I had in mind, I will provide a brief synopsis of what might have happened if the campaign had progressed. It will get vaguer as things go on, as the details haven’t been worked out in advance, only the overall themes. So…

Our heroes are currently battling in Newthrone to find Trinkis, the pilot for the Crimson Eagle, as the population’s brains have been fried into homicidal mania by an overloaded Inspired monolith. However, assuming they overcame their adversaries (possibly including Helkashtai lurking by the monolith) and got Trinkis back, they could leave Newthrone and head on to Port Regal. There they would be able to pick up a chart, possibly paying for it with a favour, that would let them navigate their way to Sarlona. This would be a cross-polar trip, with possible attacks, unpleasant weather, and awesome views, to the northernmost tip of Sarlona. There they would re-provision and consider the trip southwards to Adar at the opposite end of Sarlona. Quite how that would pan out would depend on which way they decided to go – I had nothing planned other than a very vague notion of travels through hostile territory while being hunted by Inspired deaths squads. This section would probably have been quite lengthy, even if I pass over it here in a paragraph.

Assuming they reached Adar, by hook or by crook, they would be taken to one of the monastery-fortresses to consult with the kalashtar elders. The dragonshard fragments the PCs hold contain the fragmented mind of Goshasanan, the lost prophet of the quori who joined with the Adarans to become the kalashtar. But in order to find out what he may know, he needs to be freed. Because his mind is mixed up with several others, it needs to extracted separated and then put back together. The kalashtar elders have a way of doing this via the Sensorium, a demi-plane/mental projection construct, accessed via psionic ritual, into which the various personality fragments can be placed, filtered and sorted (I had something a bit like the Matrix from Dr Who in mind). However, it requires minds to enter the Sensorium, where thought is made real, to carry this out. This would be the PCs, who would encounter both the fragments of Goshasanan and those of the other personalities mixed in there – an angel and a rakshasa (it was these three personalities which were imprinted on the three warforged – Faith, Darkheart and 773 – in the original Project Prosper experiments). They would need to defeat the rakshasa and free the angel and Goshasanan. Goshasanan would then be able to meld with a willing Adaran volunteer outside the Sensorium and finish the journey he started thousands of years previously.

Once freed and reassembled, Goshasanan would be able to impart the knowledge he has held. Dal Quor goes through various cataclysmic changes every few thousand years which destroys and completely reforms its inhabitants. The quori are keen to avoid this fate and have been planning an invasion of the Material Plane for thousands of years so they can escape. These plans are now well advanced and would be very hard to stop at this point. However, Goshasanan has discovered a way to trigger the cataclysm early. This would require the PCs to enter Dal Quor and slay the Dreaming Dark. But how to reach Dal Quor, which is supposedly cut off from the Material Plane so that planar travel is impossible? However, the kalashtar and the quori first manifested in Sarlona for a reason…

Mount Korrandar is the tallest mountain in Adar (and possibly the whole of Eberron) perpetually shrouded in a magical storm and guarded by blue dragons who repel all attempts to reach the summit, and marks the site of imprisonment of a rakshasa raja. This raja slumbers and dreams, and the power of its dreaming mind acts as a conduit to Dal Quor. Hence the mountain conceals a portal, via the rajas dreams, to Dal Quor. Of course, to use the portal means that, first, the mountain must be climbed – no small matter given the storm. Then, the guardians must be evaded – blue dragons (plural) and their lightning elemental servitors that attack from the cover of the rain, snow and gales. Then, finally, the summit is reached and they find the portal.

On entering the PCs find a sort of antechamber, a reproduction of the Cloud Citadel restaurant plucked from their minds, where they find a facsimile of Karile d’Cannith eating from an empty plate. This is the final guardian, a blue dragon spirit bound to the portal, who explains that to enter Dal Quor they will need to enter the twisted mind of sleeping raja and traverse that semi-real landscape before they reach Dal Quor. If they are willing and understand the risks, they are simply permitted to enter. The mind of the rakshasa conjures a hideous version of Sharn, filled with traps and monsters and lit by a perpetual blood-red sunset. Eventually they would face the avatar of the raja itself, a hideous child filled with malice. Defeating it unblocks the route onwards to Dal Quor.

Here things get really sketchy, as I hadn’t thought this bit through in any real detail. However, I had in mind the PC recruiting an army from the dreaming minds of the Material Plane, perhaps including NPCs and PC from the earlier parts of the campaign. It probably would have included a final reckoning of some sort with Fourgri, their quori nemesis. This army would clash with quori armies, driving towards the centre of Dal Quor and the final confrontation with the Dreaming Dark, a creature/thing of vast size and evil. Its defeat (hopefully) would cause the turning of the cycle of Dal Quor and the destruction and renewal of the plane.

One last thing – would the PCs be able to get out of Dal Quor before its destruction of would their heroism save Eberron while at the same time dooming themselves? I honestly never really decided, and would have wanted to take the temperature of the feelings from the players before making that decision. But part of me thought that everyone in Eberron dreaming the same dream, with the PCs deeds perhaps imprinted as half-remembered memories when they woke, and perhaps shaping the new Dal Quor to be a less hostile place, might be a fitting end to the campaign.

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