Centrum Glacies Session 84: Druid Lich
Week 84 Dungeons and Dragons Campaign in Centrum Glacies continues with the party trapped in a dangerous jungle. They tried their best to fight off a Druid Lich.
Like my other campaign, I’m turning this one into a book series. You can check out the first one here.
Anyway, just like my other campaign, there is a whole lot going on and I don’t want to elaborate on every moving piece in the story. You can see the whole thing in the book series.
!!!Trigger Warning!!!
This story deals with a cruel world with some horrific twists. So far, this campaign has featured: Animals getting killed, Genocide, lots of body horror, evil cults, brainwashing, torture, psychological warfare, child abuse, slavery.
One of the party members had an eye gouged out and lost an arm. Not exactly the way it happens in Berserk, but that might have been the inspiration for it. The group was incinerated in lava. But rather than die, they were transformed into Demons. They might be free from these transformations for now, but only time will tell what this means for them.
!!!Final Trigger Warning!!!
Trent realized how desperate their situation was. They were fighting a Druid Lich, a monster far more powerful than anything they had faced. So he did something risky. Jyona had given him an item that could petrify a creature with flesh. And although the Lich was Undead, it currently inhabited a body that was quite fleshy.
As luck would have it, the spell managed to hit. The rest of the group struggled against the hordes of dead that swarmed them, but Trent did everything in his power to maintain concentration on the petrification spell. Even when he was knocked out of his Elemental form, subjecting everyone else to toxic spores, he held fast.
As the spell took hold completely and turned the Lich’s current body to stone, its spirit fled to find a new body to inhabit. And although it released the party from the cave it had snatched them into, it whispered into their heads that it knew where their friends were. It left with one final ominous warning: “I will be coming soon. To erase the Druids and you from my Jungle.”
Return to the Enclave
The party made it back to the Druid Enclave. They immediately reported to Archdruid Rothomir. Trent and Obrom took turns explaining what they found, and their fears about the durability of a Druid Lich,
Rothomir was apprehensive about Trent being in his demon form. Even knowing that Trent was in control, it was not a simple matter to ignore the entire purpose of their Druid order. The barrier let them inside though, and so for now, the Arch Druid would stay his hand.
Still, Trent explained that given the circumstances, they all needed to use any and all tools available. The Cult of Obsidian and the Druid Lich would not hold the same reservations.
Unfortunately, the Druid Lich had escaped. The party had not found the phylactery. They had only destroyed the Lich’s current body. the corruption hadn’t starting fading. And now they had succeeded in pissing it off.
The Plan
Rothomir came up with a plan to destroy the Druid Lich. He seemed to have figured out where the phylactery was. The Circle of Cleansing and Trent with them needed to freeze the forest. Fire had only made things worse. And the phylactery was somewhere in the jungle if not the entire jungle itself. Destroying it all was the only way to be safe.
Jyona reassured Trent that he could shift back out of his demon form. The Druid Lich wouldn’t attack them immediately. They could rest and recover from all the fights of the day.
The party licked their wounds as Trent followed Rothomir to a secluded spot in the Druid Enclave. The Arch Druid had a lot to explain to Trent. And some of it involved how he could be reinitiated to the Druids.
Rothomir offered Trent an apprenticeship with the Druids of Cleansing. He would learn their types of Druid Magic which would immensely help given that they specialized in slaying Demons and Undead.
And the Arch Druid gave the final piece of the puzzle. Trent would regain his Druidcraft as he helped channel the purge spell against the Jungle. Such a spell would contain immense power and permanently change every person that helped cast it.
Wrap Up
The rest of the party does not know about what the Druids truly intend. Despite this, for them to escape this cursed jungle, they will need to protect the Druids and once more fight the Druid Lich when he attacks.