The Fall of Throm Zar

Throm Zar was not the largest of the cities built by the Veilborn. But it was first. Before Septarchs, before Veilborn were the dominant faces of Asterta. Throm Zar, built in a place too arid and dry for any but those gifted in the incredible command of magic that the Veilborn had.

In the years since the Sundering began, and the Betrayer began this campaign of genocide, more and more people have flocked to Throm Zar. Seeking guidance, seeking assurance, protection, resources.

Whole nations have been shattered in your conflict with the Betrayer. You started in the wake of the Fallen Entity, you gathered all the arcane might you could muster. You sent legions of Warforged to slow them, your future- your eternity, now bent on killing your past. You unleashed coruscating waves of fire, frost, great storms, beasts, even the power of the planes themselves. And all you bought was time, at the cost of every land you called home, and the very people you swore to defend and uplift.

Rumors say the Betrayer had found allies now. Seven of them. An irony that has not escaped some of you. They kill and destroy all your monuments, all your great works, all of your peoples. Death follows them, and none more than the Betrayer himself. Any attempt at parlay has been rebuffed, asking for reasoning is out of the question. What reasoning could there be to justify the deaths of 300,000 brothers and sisters. What insanity would quiet 300,000 minds, all of whom could feel the death knell of the others? What justification could be made for this violence? What can stop them?

The scene before you reminds you that the Sundering as people have begun to call it, is not one event. It’s many. The dangers and problems abound, aftershocks from the implacable foe that hunts your blood and commits genocide against your people.

Ash and smoke choke the air over the spires and rooftops and floating gardens of Throm Zar. The sky is a burned red. A purple wound ripples in the air above the city, an open gaping gash in reality, it’s tattered edges crumbling open further and further as the wound grows. Within, something writhes. It’s pressing outwards, spilling, like malignant blood into the streets below. It’s all too familiar to the night it all began. With one difference. This time you’re going to stop it.

Author Note: This is the opening to a session I ran a few months ago. In this campaign, the Eldritch Soul Campaign, my players have two characters. A high level group from far in the past, whose memories live in the bodies of their primary characters. In this way, they are both experiencing and creating the history that effects their current troubles and circumstances. Being able to tell stories within stories and find places to allow the narrative of my games to shift between timelines or away from the main heroes to provide my players a broader and deeper understanding of what’s happening in the world and the far reaching effects that have reached them has been an incredible challenge but also an incredible boon to the way this game has been played. My players have created circumstances in one shot games that connect to the main plotline- that their characters rediscover in the main plot. The effects of what the Septarchs have done resonate in the world 1000+ years later. It’s like… deconstructing a mystery from both ends. I’m going to try to post more like this soon.

Sending much love to you. It’s always a joy when I see your blog become active again and I love seeing your posts. I hope you’re keeping well

It has been a while since I’ve talked about it or asked you questions in regards to Zagähk- the Goliath oath of the ancients Paladin being played in the campaign I’m running - much has happened and both the player and I are super pleased with his character growth and the things he’s undergone. He’s gone through trials I will detail a bit more below, and come out stronger, more confident, capable, and “has begun to embody the spirit of a great tree- not only shading and protecting others from the harsh storms of evil, but also altering the world around himself to manifest and environment of kindness and growth.”

Having come so far and experienced so much I find myself unsure where to direct Zagähk - what awaits him? How do I challenge him? The party is pretty varied in their moral stances- and there are story beats coming up that will likely bring characters into contention (though maybe not- they endlessly surprise me) Zagähk has undergone Proabably the most personal growth as we head into the second half of the campaign.

So, how do I keep my paladin invested in the story, and continue to make his story interesting, even though he has achieved much and experienced a satisfying level of character growth?

Context:

Zagähk has been through a lot- discovering his god Mirandi was not a true god, being forsaken by her but choosing to turn away from her himself in order to protect the people close to him even as an Oathbreaker.

Wielding powers foreign and sickening to him he fought the embodiment of an Elder Evil seeking to smash one timeline into into another, preventing that evil from gaining a foothold and at the same time learning the origins of Mirandi and her compatriots- the Seven Bonds of Throm Zar.

He connected to the soul of the Veilborn Septarch that has ridden within him since childhood, and that Septarch taught him to embrace the inexorable power of change, and to use it as his own.

He caught the attention of a new god, Resha, the goddess of balance, and swore an oath to become her champion in service of the worlds natural places, his friends and to stand against the existential threats of the Elder Evils hunt his party.

He died, facing down the servants of the Worm Hunger in their plot to obtain an artifact of the Veilborn hidden within an elven Archive. And the Veilborn soul was lost forever to give Zagähk the chance to live again.

He healed the mother tree in the elven city, and is grappling with his reality as no longer having dual souls within him. Standing between his fears and his hopes he is facing the future, ready to fight for what’s important to him

Could have sworn I answered this. Thank you for sharing your work and the continuation of the story.

I can empathize a great deal with it honestly. That lul when you finish one part of your life, and the wind lacks guidance on where to go next.

Frustrating as they are, Lulls have their uses. If nothing else; there is value in introspection. In my case, it led me to realize I was ready to try out a new career in voice overs/audio narration that I’ve been sort of quietly thinking about for years; but now I’m saving money to really buy equipment and training for it and I’m excited to really get into.

Sorry, I’ve made this about me, but I think the same lesson applies. A bit of quiet thought can reveal answers and that has a value all its own.

Remnants

“You meager souls, devoid of the touch of the Veil, bereft of your gods, Sundered and Shattered- you eke out a paltry existence in the wake of the grand civilizations that came before.

You look to the eternal cities and edifice of the Eldritch, the magic and might that astounds your greatest arcanists, champions and celebrants, and marvel in the eternal wonders of such a civilization. You wonder at how wise were their people, how enlightened, how advanced?

Your Museums display the potsherds of the ages of divinity, when your ancestors walked by the feet of the gods and you wonder at their nobility, their unbreakable spirit, their great strength. You look back at the heroes who rose among the gods to take their place in legends and wonder if such a halcyon epoch is possible again. I tell you it is not.

You forget that through it all there were people: both simple and complex, of every race and oath and creed, who watched on the sidelines and fought on the frontlines, who pioneered and were lazy, who took advantage and betrayed trust, who sought redemption and just to be comfortable in their own skin, who cared for simple things and demanded recognition, who hated themselves and who hated each other. Bigots and saints and champions and rogues, and between and around them all. People. Kith. Kin. You forget, what the humans call their “humanity”- these people of the past. You look to history and are lost in the golden gleam of greatness, you care not for those who simply lived.

So lost are you in the grandeur, so lofty are your visions, You forget that these great demigods and ascendants were people among people. And they are as liable to their mistakes as anyone else. There were days before they were challenged and faced with the ending of their era. There were grey and golden days. Their enlightenment did nothing to prevent all suffering, their advancement was unequal in its distribution, their good intentions were as deficient and harmful as the schemes and plots of the great leaders of today.

Looking in the eternal and eternally shattered ruins of the Veilborn, that even in ruination hint at a potential that dwarfs your own-it’s impossible for you meager souls not to wonder at the greatness there, at the knowledge no one knows. Their grand structures, their portals and artifacts. How many died in pursuit of their gain and creation, how many were lost?

I tell you now the Veilborn are hardly worthy of admiration and wonder, the Septarchs even less so. Their world ways developed magic too quickly, they earned not and felt not the consequences of the fell powers they unleashed. Your gods and heroes are to be even more scorned and loathed- abandoning you on this shattered world after their Conflagration and Wars. Leaving you to pick up the pieces as the Veilborn did after them.

They tell you they entrusted the future to you- do not believe them. When their greatness could no longer be sustained and they looked at the destruction of their creation around them, and fell to solipsism. The gods creating their own worlds to retreat to; to hide from the disaster and crises leaft in the wake of them. And what about when it came turn for the Veilborn and their Septarchs? They visited ruination upon themselves rather than deign to allow their destruction at the hands of any outside force. So great was their pride and arrogance.

And now look at you, you and your ilk, a new civilization scratching in the junkyard shantytown left in the wake of what came before. Pitiful, untouched by Grace of Divinity or Veil. You call this the Age of Progress. How laughable. You pale in comparison to even the ruin of the past. Your folly is greater still than those who came before, trying to rebuild some semblance of civilized society. Your world has long ended, and unlike those who came before, you’re too stupid to abandon it.

I come with fire, to burn away the last vestiges of what was lost, to scour clean the remnants of this world. It will begin anew, seeded from the space beyond the stars, with life born of the final wastes. No more ambition, no more folly. No more picking up the pieces and wondering at what came before. I will raze it all. I do it for you, for once I am done- no more people must suffer at the hands of those with grand ambition. No more will the people of the future feel the weighty consequences of the past. I will free you all. This is my love. This is my beneficence. Submit and be destroyed.”

— Wriglth Nhegal, the Worm Hunger, the Writhing Decay, the Lord of Carrion

I’m running a campaign with a Paladin - oath of the ancients. Though we are still relatively near the beginning I’m working on building a narrative around the Paladin that his goddess in fact *fears* him. She has feared what he will do once he has both the knowledge of her origin and the power she has slowly granted him over time. He is steadfast in his faith and devotions and believes that the challenges and quests and things she has placed before him are his chance to do good. While this isn’t necessarily untrue - she has also been setting him on the path of correcting imbalances of the natural world she intends for him to die to. He has survived and succeeded where she expected him to fail, to quit, to be killed.

Millennia ago this goddess along with six others, were born as reflections of seven incredibly powerful individuals who ruled over an arcane society known as the Veilborn. That society fell in a thousand year long apocalyptic event brought on by the foremost among the Veilborn choosing to bring an old one from the depths of the dark tapestry (EXU calamity has been giving me an ulcer as more details get revealed). And from that time of chaos the Paladins Goddess and Six others rose. She fears him learning the details of her ascension as he is the mortal reincarnation of the Septarch she is a reflection of. She fears him coming into his own power, what he will do with his knowledge and his connection to her, but he is steadfast and good and devoted and is trying his best- she views him as one of her champions, one of those most worthy of wielding her power.

I guess my question is, does this sound interesting? Do you have ideas or thoughts I should consider in making this narrative a satisfying arc for my pally player?

It does sound interesting, and no matter what direction the Paladin goes, they have a story worth exploring. One of cycles or of them breaking, Of the weight of our choices and how we might see our descendants or even other versions of ourselves rise where we fell. Do we help them, even if it exposes our failings to the point of their anger, or do we choose trust and forgiveness, for ourselves as much as them.

Stories like these tend to have those themes, even if on the surface it’s about paladins and their gods.