Cycle of Millennia 2021 Session 38: Ten Years Later
Here is week 38 of my 2021 Dungeons and Dragons Campaign Cycle of Millennia. Its ten years later. And the world has changed.
Don’t forget that this campaign has been ongoing for over three years. There is a lot of story to cover and I’m writing a book series to document it all. I am adapting this adventure into a book series. The first three are on Amazon.
!!!Trigger Warnings Abound!!!
This campaign takes place in an incredibly unpleasant setting. The party has dealt with Human Traffickers, Sex Slavery, Child Sacrifice, The Apocalypse, Genocide, Wicked Cults, and other related topics.
There is a God of Madness that is fond of causing auditory and visual hallucinations, makes use of psychic gaslighting, commands the literal legions of hell, and all around causes untold suffering in the setting.
Essentially, nothing is off the table in this campaign. If the above ideas are not ones you want to think about, I do not think this blog series is for you. That is not a problem and does not indicate any failings on your part. I am a storyteller that does not shy away from the darkest topics. It would be horrible for me to not warn my audiences of this in advance.
!!!Final Trigger Warning. Past this point there be dark topics!!!
The party returned ten years later to the outside world. Even with Entropy telling them what they would find, it still felt strange that the world had moved on during all that time. But the group would have to deal with all these stunning revelations and the trauma they now carried later.
They stood outside Lord Death’s Necropolis now. And before all the events that led up to this moment, the floating citadel had been attacked. And not by just anyone. Orabaras had struck. One of the few times the party had been at odds with the Goddess. Might that still be true now? The group was ready to find out as they entered the necropolis from the front door.
Devils:
They realized that they were against the Goddess almost immediately. It was not Kranaak’s Demons or Nihilinn’s hordes that ran around the necropolis seemingly unchecked. It was Orabaras’ Devils that now resided in Lord Death’s Citadel. While the group had fought few of these monsters during their adventures, Velkora had once been a leader among Orabara’s chosen. She knew every single creature immediately and how to kill them.
Which is why she told the group to wait a moment when they only saw weaker Demons at first. Lord Death contacted them after they fought through a few enemies and cast a spell so that they could see where all the enemies were. Even walls could not obstruct their view. The Devils didn’t know how the group managed to ambush them, but the party didn’t mind the extra help.
This group had fought through, multiples hells at this point. Some lower tier Devils were hardly worth their time. Naturally as they got near the top floor they ran into something a bit more dangerous.
New Enemies, Old Allies:
Not all the Devils were weak. At least a Pit Fiend, the Devilish counterpart to the Balor tried to kill them. But like on the lower floors, the party knew it was there. And Velkora knew how to kill it. Naturally the Devil was shocked to see the group. There wasn’t a monster in the entire world who didn’t know who they were at this point.
Unfortunately for the Pit Fiend, there was a reason that this group was known around the world. Even a powerful Devil was no match for them. Once the creature fell, there was nothing standing between the party and the top floor. When they reached the top, they were ready for more surprises, but not the one that stared them down.
Even ten years later, and Rose managed to stare at them with the all too judgmental stare. The group prepared to fight her too. After all, she had given her soul back to Orabaras. And it was no coincidence that she stood guard right before Lord Death itself.
But then the unthinkable happened. Another action in a line of crazy circumstances. Significant considering the group had just walked out of a literal realm of chaos. Lord Death himself told them to stay their hands. He claimed that Rose was still on their side. Despite everything.
They conspired with her on his urging. The only evidence that something weird was going on was that the Necropolis had been held down by such weak Devils in the first place. But didn’t Orarbaras find this odd? Rose had betrayed her before. Who was to say that she didn’t already see what was going on.
A Plan:
The party didn’t trust her when she said they needed to trust her. She even openly told them that to keep this masquerade going, she would have to lead them into intentional trap. Why would the group want to walk into such situations.
Naturally, Rose gave them a reason, if not a good one. Apparently, the Dragons guarded the entrance to the other Neutral God’s Domain. The only reason they believed her words at all was because they had traveled just about everywhere else in the world and had not found it.
Velkora attuned her staff and gained the power of the void. She made a pact with Entropy and while she didn’t regain her powers from Orabaras, the witch now had new strength to draw from. The Chaotic Neutral Goddess remarked that she had not had a champion pledge to her in such a way in time too long to measure.
Severing Ties:
Of course such a ritual draw a ton of magical power. And Rose rushed to investigate what her former ally in service to that Goddess was up to. Now that Velkora had forever separated her soul from her former Matron, there would be issues if too many people or even divine entities were aware. Velkora erased Rose’s memory with her approval. For their goals to both come to fruition, the two would need to once more play dangerous games with even more dangerous Goddesses.
The party prepared to set out and go to the land of Dragons. But to enter, they needed to find a second Dragon. Belwyn was the only other person they knew that fit the description. And Rose claimed she knew how to find her. Not sure if she could be trusted, Grez, Hadron, Caic, and Velkora set off to a place that had not visited in a long long time.
Wrap Up:
Ten years later in the world feels like a passing moment to the group. What will the future hold for them?