DM Carbide's Through a Cracked Mirror: The Dark Road (Inactive)

Game Master John Woodford

As the myriad potential Golarions collide, a small group of heroes is charged with setting things right.


Background:
It all began with dreams.

At first it was just dreams of fire, of bright lights followed by darkness. Then it was dreams of screams, of terror, feelings of loss and entrapment, of peril and pain. The thing was, EVERYONE had the dreams. Even the elves, who sleep only rarely and never for long, had the dreams.

Then came the sound. Every day, a long drawn out keening sound, as if the sky was being rent in twain. It happened at the same time, everywhere, echoing from here and there.

Then came the dragons. Flights of dragons, all converging in the sky to talk. Deadly enemies, longtime foes, all came to speak on the omens it portended.

Last came the rips, tears in space that vomited forth strange creatures and strange men who spoke of other worlds and other places, of things that had never been and places that no longer existed: of Azlant Victorious, of the flying cities of Garund, of the lost city of Absolom, or the Disappearing Trails of Old Cheliax. Of cataclysms, catastrophes and things even worse.

The world began to buzz with talk of the ending of this age and whether a new one would arise. The fey began to speak of the Third World, a refuge to flee to when this world was no more. In the midst of all this talk, a meeting was convened by a little old man who called himself Prester Gallowsmith. You've been a message, delivered by a thrush, that invites you to come to Absolom, to the home of Prester Gallowsmith in one month's time to discuss the end of the world. The letter is signed with a signature and a sigil: three interlocking circles with a spiral at the center. It's not a symbol you're familiar with, but it seems to evoke a sense of familiarity none the less.

Against your doubts, or perhaps because of them, you've decided to attend. You choose your travel methods carefully, but you know that you may never pass this way again.

In the year 4712, in the Age of Lost Omens, on the leapday of 32 Arodus, a gathering was held in the home of Prester Gallowsmith in the city of Absalom. It was attended by men and women of all races, of all walks of life, with no particular connection. It begin with an argument and ended with the everything changed. It began a new age. - Book of Endings, author unknown

Prester Gallowsmith: "I am a member of a brotherhood of men who study the planes and the stars and the space between. For many years we have met quietly to share our insights and to speak of the knowledge that we have gathered. The death of Aroden changed everything. Suddenly all the omens and prophecies ceased to function, and even basic divinations could not be trusted. It was in that moment that a brother of mine observed a strange occurence heretoforth unknown to us. During a simple teleportation effect, he observed that the Golarion of his destination was not the Golarion of his departure. Fortunately he was not stranded on that strange shore and was able to return to us with his findings. From that moment, we were able to make several discoveries. Bear with me; the path ahead is not a clean one."

He pauses, gathering his thoughts. "We have discerned that every major event in the history of our world holds a certain temporal energy. It permeates the planar boundaries and as we found out, alters them. You see, every major event or keystone moment creates a potential for an equal and opposite outcome. The very energy that causes history to hinge upon that moment creates its opposition. When this occurs, a new Golarion is produced, divergent from our Golarion in that moment. If the event is strong enough, that Golarion continues, evolving in its new path separate from our path, spawning its own alternates. If it is weak, it will die, usually within a few days, but we have seen such realities persist for longer before fading. Indeed, in Pharasma's Boneyard, there may well be a graveyard of such realities. But I digress. In this garden of forking paths, there is a always a prime path, a Golarion from which all others sprang. Our world is that world. However, it seems as if the weight of these other realities is becoming too much for this world to bear. The rifts are the result of this stress. They are the tears where one reality intersects with another, and if they are allowed to continue, they will eventually cause all realities to collapse in upon each other, destroying them all. We know not why or where this threat comes from, but we believe we may have a way to stop the collapse."

Gallowsmith pauses and the mosaic tiles composing him rearrange to form a sort of network of roots. "In each reality, we have identified a keystone, a place or person or thing upon which that reality rests. These things have become lacking in some way and must be rectified if that reality is to be shored up against the collapse."

The Current Goal:
As before, the mosaic swirls and reassembles as a picture, this time showing an island in the midst of a vast oval lake, surrounded by scorched and blasted rock. It is night. There is a circle of stones on the island, and from the center of the circle a faint line reaches skyward; the line is a black so intense it stands out against the night sky.

Gallowsmith's voice comes from all around you. "This is the Dark Road, a tangle in the fabric of reality that, when combined with the rest of what is happening, threatens to tear all apart if it is not destroyed. Break the terminus before the Road is strengthened by the conjunction. Again, fare you well." With that, the mosaic swirls and becomes only tessellated stone again.

Further commentary from Gallowsmith: "In that place, a star fell from the heavens onto Kyonin. Other things came with the fallen star...one in particular was a creature from the planet called Aucturn. At the last conjunction between Golarion and Aucturn, it built the Dark Road, and before the conjunction ended other beings of Aucturn were able to traverse the Road to that Golarion.

"Now another conjunction approaches, and with it the Builder of the Road will be able to...I suppose the best analogy is that it will be able to widen the Road it has built, making it easier to travel. For the inhabitants of this other Golarion, the consequences are grave enough, a swarm of Aucturn's dark spawn pouring from a riven sky, but for the wider constellation of branching paths the consequences are immeasurably worse. The Road is, as I said, a place where reality is bent, and even in its current state it distorts the branches around it in a way that promotes rift formation. If it is strengthened any more, the distortion and rift generation will be that much greater. However, killing the Builder before the conjunction begins will end the Road as well."

Recap:
Your Golarion is plagued by rifts into other versions of Golarion where history developed differently (I assume you got that part :-).) It is not clear what is causing the rifts, but Prester Gallowsmith has recruited a number of adventurers in an effort to repair them. His research has shown that in each of the alternate Golarions that can be accessed there is a key...something about that world that, if changed, will work to restore the balance and close the rifts. He has no idea how many worlds must be entered and changed before this will occur. It could be one; it could be ten; it could be "many."

The world you are in was apparently identical to yours up until about sixty years previous, when a falling star wiped out a fair chunk of the lands north of the Inner Sea. No one you've spoken with there knows how or why it happened, but according to an old druid the party met in the ruins of Almas the point of impact was Kyonin. Odd things came with the falling star: Versey's ship was out in the Diaspora and wound up being pulled along with the star, crash-landing after Starfall and releasing a lot of weird plants. Akata also came, and spread across much of the land devastated by Starfall. And then there was something else....

A being of peculiar capabilities also fell with the star and survived. From the impact crater, it has created something that Gallowsmith described as the Dark Road, leading off into the heavens. Other things have come along the Road. In this particular Golarion, the Dark Road is the key. What you've been sent to do is journey to the Golarion terminus of the Road and kill its maker, which should destroy it. However, the clock is ticking. When the next conjunction with Aucturn begins (in a few weeks, of course), the Road will be strengthened, and will become much harder to destroy.

The party has made its way north from Almas along the Sellen River, fighting akata, hostile beetles, things that looked like wolves but weren't, a creature of the Darklands that left a couple of party members mentally scarred, and now feral flora. The reason you fought the feral flora is that 1) they're in your way, and 2) Versey's ship has a device that can call them back to the ship and pacify them. Once, that is, the device has been repowered by the odd little metal cylinder that you're pulling well behind you wrapped in armor.

At Versey's ship, he was able to repower the device to not only end the plant menace but bring through more reinforcements. Versey then dropped the party off north from there, in Five Kings Mountain near Elistia. A fight soon developed between the party and more of the wolf things, a bear thing, and something that looked human.