Hullo, IMC I am just about to start Drakthar's Way and I have three loyal followers of Heronious in the party. All three of them have started having reoccurring dreams.
The monk is having a dream concerning a war between angels and demons in a celestial paradise setting. The demons start winning and the angels take to the air and blow great horns. When this happens, the whole world falls and when it lands the demons finish off the angels and the paradise turns into a hellish setting.
The Favored Soul has begun having dreams of Occupitus and a ring of fire. When she steps into the fire she burns and dies, but the land around her is reborn as a paradise.
The half-orc barbarian has been having dreams of Skullrot and Adimarchus screaming in rage within his cage and laughing like a maniac.
As the campaign progresses I plan to reveal more details until the story unfolds. But for now everyone has decided to keep the dreams to themselves. It'll be interesting when the dreams are brought out and they try to put the pieces together.
I think I'm going to have Heronious intrested in restoring Occupitus to the Celestial realms and he's using the players to accomplish that goal.
I have been using dream sequences as well but have not shown Adimarchus in any of them up until now. I like your idea of having the dream showing the player sacraficing themselves to provide a clue what to do during chapeter six and the Test of Sacrafice.
I have used Fetor more in my game than what is written up in the AP. One of my characters is a knight of an order that has been sent to track down one of its leaders that disapperaed in the Frontier Lands with all his troops and a sizable portion of the Orders Treasury that was to be used to create a new headquarters. I used Fetor as this figure.
What has this got to do with Adimarchus? Well during constuction Fetor found a strange black stone which whispered to him, plaguing his dreams and driving him to betray the order to follow the secrets of the Smoking Eye.
Fetor had the stone carved into the dark angel he saw in his dreams and sent his follower, also taunted by the visions, to spread the will of the Smoking Eye. Guided by the visions he took the statue to the Soul Pillars.
I used Triel as his cohort in Flood Season (minus an eye) and had a conventient message left behind to explain her actions and connections to Fetor. I have had the party run into other one eyed followers, each with ash rubbed above their eyes to appear like smoke or tatoos.
The search for Fetor will lead them eventually to the Soul Pillars and then the hunt for the statue will lead them to the cagewrights and the true leader of the madness (the head cleric cagewright- sorry I've forgotten his name?) which will also be the High Bishop of the Order!
Anyway I have just tried to link it in with the players and give them more steps/stages to follow along the way other than the one or two provided throughout the AP otherwise.
I'm still tossing up whether to reveal Adimarchus name and state (imprisioned) when they kill Fetor or leave that for later. Any suggestions?
Anyway thats for the idea (Test of Sacrafice dream) and good luck with the forshadowing.
Delvesdeep
Hi! I'm currently up to Flood Season, and was considering having a few foreshadowings of Adimarcus appearing amongst Saven's libraries. Nothing direct, but some side-effects of his fall, battles, imprisonment, connected stories, perhaps odd happenings at about these times. Not enough to give the game away, but enough that they might get linked later on, as part of the story.
The trouble is, that I can't find much in the Hardcopy on when, or how he fell, or when he got imprisoned etc. I'd like to make the story of his fall quite dramatic, and I've got some ideas I'm knocking about, but I'd love to hear what other DMs ran on this, and any info on the timelines.
Thanks
Sorry I just reread ou post. There is a section in the Hard Copy that reveals whan he fell. I believe it is in the history section and off hand I think it was only about 50 years a go so rather recently.
Anyway have a look through the write up at the start of the Hard Cover for more details
Delvesdeep
The trouble is, that I can't find much in the Hardcopy on when, or how he fell, or when he got imprisoned etc. I'd like to make the story of his fall quite dramatic, and I've got some ideas I'm knocking about, but I'd love to hear what other DMs ran on this, and any info on the timelines.
I don't have the hardcopy, only the magazines. There is a lot of info on his imprisonment in the last adventure.
But there is indeed no info on his fall or his reasons for attacking Celestia. I have been thinking about it lately and I've come up with the following (not completly sattisfied yet but), but it is linked to my own campaign world and uses the Book of the Righteous by Green Ronin for the gods:
- A long time ago demons invaded the prime material and took over most of it.
- Adimarchus was an Angel who served Morwyn (Godess of Healing) who joined the humangs, elves, ... in their fight against the demons. He fell in love with a human (priestess of Morwyn).
- During a great attack on the demons, Adimarchus and his love and some others attacked 'The Ice Queen'. The plan was not to kill her but to lock her up in a stone. She managed to kill Adimarchus lover and started to drain her soul just as she was sucked into the stone. Result: his love was locked away with the Ice Queen in a stone. She could not be raised. Adimarchus wanted to destroy the stone again to get her soul back. When his other compagnons tried to stop him, he killed them, took the stone and ran for it. That's when he fell.
- Adimarchus wandered around carrying the soul of his lover in a stone, but was not able to break the stone. Filled with feelings of gilt and remorse he slowly went mad.
- He gathered an army of demosns to attack Celestia thinking that he could force Morwyn to break the stone. His attack failed, but he did manage to get a part of Celestia. But more important, he lost the stone.
- The stone was brought to Morwyn who freed the soul of his lover and made her in to an Angel.
- In my campaign this Angel is called Meto and is a PC. She is more or less a replacement for Nidrama. The player doesn't know any of this since she was punished for warning a cleric of Morwyn and teling her what was going on. So she was sent to the prime as a human with heavy amnesia. The cleric of Morwyn, also a PC, knows she had some visions but just can't quite remember them. So once in a while i let her remember some part of her vision.
- In the end I think I will let it come down to a story about Redemption and Foregiving. Morwyn has decided that Adimarchus has suffered enough. I'm not sure if i'm going to let the players kill him at the end of the campaign or if I will let them kill what's left of the real Angel Adimarchus and let the bad part live on as Demon Lord.