A little history: a long time ago, Kiaransalee killed the intermediate power Orcus and adopted his portfolio as her own. Kiaransalee wasn't as strong as Orcus, though, and had only managed to defeat him with the unwitting aid of the mortals who `distracted' him, and managed somehow to get him away from his Wand. The Wand of Orcus was somehow instrumental in his rise to godhood, and contained a good deal of his personal power. After he was defeated, Kiaransalee had two of her loyal followers take the Wand and hide it someplace very, very safe.
Having separated Orcus from his source of power, she was able to kill him `permanently' -- or so she thought. After pushing him from Thanatos (his domain), she attempted to wipe out all mention of his name everywhere (flexing her deific muscles a bit). To make sure that he would never be revived, she took the two loyal followers and drowned them in the River Styx, so Dead Elves really would Tell No Tales. These followers were Kestod and Erehe, and they arose on Thanatos, totally mindwiped. Kiaransalee then consolidated her power over Thanatos, assumed Orcus's former portfolio of Death, Undeath, and Vengeance, and went about trying to see if she couldn't make the jump from Intermediate Power to Greater Power by pushing out the `old and complacent' Lolth (thus the war in the Vault).
Unfortunately for Kiaransalee, she managed to get herself distracted, and herself became a little too `old, fat, and complacent', and she eventually let allowed Verdaeth to convince her that it would be ok to resurrection Erehe to help Verdaeth take over the Vault.
Around this same time, a Very Strange Thing happened -- the dead God began to stir. A shadow of his former self, Tenebrous, as he was now known, began to search the cosmos for his Wand. There's actually a long and detailed adventure involved in how Tenebrous went about gathering this information, but I'm leaving the details out for now. To summarize: Tenebrous succeeded more than he had ever imagined at gathering information, but couldn't find his Wand. One thing that he *did* find, though, was the Aleph Tower.
Some of the players know roughly what Aleph (also called ``the Language Primeval'') is -- basically, it's a myth about an ultra-powerful language that is used to express the universe itself, lost for longer than anyone (even the gods) can remember. Aleph was made of words that expressed concepts so powerfully that merely uttering them can alter reality directly, without limit -- some believe that Aleph was used to construct the Multiverse itself.
Through his extreme efforts, Tenebrous learned of the location of the Aleph Tower, a long-forgotten shrine to the Language Primeval. Tenebrous found the Tower, defeated the guardians, and mastered one of the words, called `The Last Word' -- the concept of finality so strong that it could be used to slay *anything*, including Gods. Tenebrous had his weapon.
In one of the optional runs, Yoav, Nopalzin, Jerrod, and Michael visited this Tower, with characters from very, very far in the past. They explored a bit, and eventually met the Tower Guardians, who very politely told them that they were about 65 levels of Deity shy of being able to hope to understand any of the Words (``were you to gaze upon them, you would cease to have existed anywhen''). Had we had more time, there were several clues that would have led you, in your current characters, back to the Tower before your confrontation in the Astral. There you could have learned from the one surviving guardian about Tenebrous' coming, and his mastery of the Last Word, and the downside that even Tenebrous hadn't known at first -- there are no entities still alive capable of wielding Aleph -- even a deity like Tenebrous would eventually be consumed entirely by his own knowledge of the Last Word.
So, Tenebrous set about searching for his Wand yet again, this time aiming his sites a bit higher. Amongst the ensuing carnage, Tenebrous tracked down, interrogated, and slew several greater beings, including:
O'Theran - the first one killed. O'Theran was Magalin's god... ...an intermediate power of Solace and Vengeance. Orcus slew O'Theran with the Last Word in an attempt to regain part of his portfolio (for use on Kiaransalee later!)
Bwimb - Tenebrous followed a false lead to Bwimb, the Ruler of the Quasielemental Plane of Ooze. Bwimb knew nothing (although it's a good place to hide things, as the Elemental planes go). No one *wants* the Plane of Ooze, so Bwimb is a relative lightweight. There were several rumors about this that you could have followed up on to get a hint that Bad Things were happening, but you were pretty sure of that already.
Tomeri - Greater Godess of Love and Wisdom, who died without ever giving anything away to Tenebrous (although she didn't know anything, she never let Tenebrous know that).
Maanzecorian - Illithid god of hidden secrets. (Remember the Illithids with the exploded heads and the happy Beholder?) From Maanzecorian Tenebrous was able to peel the information that Kiaransalee had had Kestod and Erehe hide the Wand, and then had them drowned in the Styx.
After Tomeri, Tenebrous had suspected that the Last Word was taxing -- after killing Maanzecorian, he knew that it was slowly eating him away, and that if he continued to use it, he would be hastening his own destruction. Instead, he used his old power to bring back some of his servants in the form of the Visages -- undead Tanar'ri followers -- although he needed to gather the spirits of mortals to accomplish this. The Visages are from the module, a new Tanar'ri type, and they serve Tenebrous directly. They have two major powers: mental domination and lucidity control. As written, it's basically ``save v. spell or be totally controlled''. They used this ability to force people to do things, as well as to distract and confuse (Slade's `beach scene' in the Vault, controlling Oliver and making the Temple seem `alive' in Ranais, etc. Tenebrous set up camp on the World Ash (he needed a good way for his agents to get around, and since his power was waning, he couldn't just *send* them around the way he used to), and sent out the Visages and his Chosen to find his wand. He was the `evil taint' that the Ratatosk felt. The ratatosk, along with Yarral's (incarnation of Life) communing with the Tree (of Life) eventually got the Niborg and the Mimir involved.
While the party wandered onto the World Tree and into some of the plot, Madreus and the Visages managed to sneak into Set's realm (from Yggrdrasil) and steal a very rare flower known as _midnight's blossom_ that only bloomed there. _Midnight's Blossom_ had two very powerful effects, although neither was well known -- they could be used to prepare a potion that would return someone's memories that had been stolen by the river Styx. Madreus was rebuffed by Nekropthetis (he had recently gone through a portal on Yggdrasil that the party found, stepped through, and then backtracked from, deciding (correctly) that Set's realm was scary), and retreated to the World Ash to raise more Visages - this is what happened to the first set of elves Madreus was sacrificing on the World Tree. This is also why Madreus was both prepared for your attacks but not prepared to attack you effectively. With Madreus forced to retreat, Tenebrous flew into a rage and violated Set's realm and took the _Midnight's Blossom_ from Nekropthetis personally. This display of power kept Tenebrous from creating more Visages for quite some time.
Meanwhile, Quag and Malazar, with another group of Visages, snuck into Thanatos and kidnaped Kestod, who had since become a Vampire (hey, he hung out in Thanatos -- it happens). They transported him back to Tcian Sumere, an old stronghold of Orcus' in the Negative Energy Plane (that nasty place made of the connecting spheres with the really pumped undead) to await Madreus's return with the _Blossom_. Instead, Madreus was forced to retreat, and Tenebrous was off retrieving the flower, so they locked him in the dungeon and held him there. The standoff that you witnessed was the only way that they could keep him -- a Visage would use its mental abilities to keep Kestod from transforming into gaseous form, but it required constant concentration. When you eventually got past the Visages who were guarding the portal on Ranais (the lucidity-control was what caused Corum to get fireballed 3 times by his own party), into the citadel, and into the dungeon, you broke the Visage's concentration long enough for Kestod to escape, deliver his soliloquy, and die, forever removing his ability to divulge his secrets (yes, he was quite a devoted follower). You then beat a hasty retreat from the citadel without finding any of the spiffy stuff therein -- which made a lot of sense, since the citadel was a really nasty place.
One aside: the module I pilfered had no concept of `the Other' or `Incarnations' or any of that -- I'm all to blame for those things. The one method that the module has for destroying the Wand requires that you investigate more of the citadel, eventually finding the Throne Room of Tenebrous itself, and find there a magical circlet that's linked to the Wand (the Circlet contains the spirit of the warrior whose skull is used to top the Wand). *If* you find the circlet, and take it with you, *and* manage not to be totally twisted by it into an NPC, *then* you could try to touch the circlet to the skull (in fact, you'd be mildly compelled to do so). If *that* happened, then the circlet, the skull, _and the character_ are gone *forever*, no hope of return. Unfortunately for the party (or not), you guys got scared of the fortress and headed out as soon as you found Kestod. The rod remains, is indesctructable, and is really all Quag needs to complete the ritual at the end. Anyway...
So, the pace picks up from here... ...you meet the Niborg (being about the only mortals to do so, although you didn't know that you should have been impressed), get the Mimir, and accelerate a bit on the quest. You begin to hop around somewhat on the `filling the Voids' quests.
Oh, yeah: each characters had an Incarnation plot (`Filling the Voids'; some particular quest that was related both to the Incarnations in general and to your aspect in general), a family plot (Tierok's is mostly explained above, Rasputin and Quag were half-brothers from the same breeding experiment, Slade was the Athas-born son of a minor godling from Asgard, Yarral actually *has* no parents -- members of his tribe just spring to life spontaneously etc.), and a background/history plot (Tierok's a priest but doesn't know it, Slade's dealings with the Githyanki, Oliver's choice between Light and Darkness, Corum and Sha'lath were actually hand-chosen to be Incarnations, Magalin's actually *two* Incarnations, etc), and a `personal-plane' . Not all of these were filled out, obviously; and Slade's came into play well before I'd expected it to, at the beginning of the game when Joe was in Atlanta).
Sha'lath and Oliver are `activated' in the Heart of Light after the battle with the DarkLights (undead Radiance elementals) with the nasty prismatic abilities, suddenly taking a large leap forward on the `power curve' that people have been erratically walking along, both as foreshadowing for what's to come and to convince the party/players that Bad Things are on their way. Corum spends a lot on a special request for a way to stop Madreus, and a somewhat-surprised party manages to kill off Madreus, mostly a surprise to me but something I decide to allow, since I'd already decided that Madreus' backup (yes, of course he had backup)was busily being suicide-killed by the Rangers, Marlus (the Priest of the Tree), and the Ratatosk. The party takes the bodies of the Rangers back home, sort-of meets the Elves, and eventually heads to the Vault of the Drow which mostly catches us up to the last run.
The last run basically consisted of a brief `chat' between the party and Tierok's parents -- the drow Matron of House Tormtor Verdaeth and her consort Erehe. In the conversation, Verdaeth revealed that she had had Tierok changed into a human male and sent off to your world ``for her safety, and so that she might stand a better chance of Ascending'' (yes, you could hear the Capital Letters). Verdaeth was a specialty priest of Kiaransalee; she and Erehe were leading an alliance of several houses in a holy war against the forces of Lolth for control of the Vault of the Drow -- but this isn't why she sent Tierok away. Rather, Verdaeth had discovered (separately from Kiaransalee; you can't trust those drow for *anything*) that a great enemy of Kiaransalee had arisen, that the Vault would be plunged in chaos and death, and that she, her consort (Erehe), and her daughter (Tierok) were going to be at the center of it all (ok, so the drow are also a bit egocentric. What a surprise.) What she had detected was actually the stirring of Tenebrous - `He Who Walks Again'. She sent Tierok away for safety, and to increase her chance of become an Incarnation (Kiaransalee filled her in a bit). She then set about regaining her consort's memories (Erehe didn't really care, but Verdaeth really disliked it that her consort didn't remember their past together, and managed, with the help of a very skilled Githyanki psi to `read' enough of the story from a ring that Erehe still had from his drowning to figure out what Erehe had done, and why it would be better if no one knew (incidentally, Tierok now has this ring).
When Tierok finally showed up, and the Visages attacked, *and* Sha'lath and Oliver `Ascended', she knew that it was getting close to the end time. She prepped up the party and sent them to Limbo (although I don't think anyone in the party actually ever realized where they were).
You found yourselves in an abandoned twisty cave system, and proceeded to try to find the wand. Unfortunately, Verdaeth was correct when she said that she thought that the transportation would be noticed; Quag astrally projected himself after the party, arriving about 10 rounds after they did. He hunted around, found the party, and proceeded to harass them when they split up, (nearly managing to kill Tierok in the process). When faced with actual combat, he would `disappear' shortly after being hurt; he was breaking the astral contact. Eventually the party finds the (sealed, walls of force) area, figures out how to unseal it (beat on the walls with bones), and eventually gets the Wand. In preparing to leave, though another fight breaks out, and Tierok (no longer protected by `Mind Blank' because of her near-death experience) gets thoroughly controlled by the Visages (``roll 5 saves v. spells a round until you fail''), grabs the Wand, and takes off towards Quag. Hilarity ensues wherein Melanie convinces me never to allow the Tome of Magic into a game again, but eventually Quag manages to grab a hold of the Wand -- he immediately disappears, along with the Wand, and Slade.
Mimir speaks up, urges you to hurry, you prep a little, and he takes you.. ..to the Astral Plane. People readjust to the Astral (ability scores work differently, no gravity, etc) as Annubis and intones ``It is not yet over.'' He gestures you `over' to `the right', and you begin flying quickly there. You see a large rocky `island' that you will eventually realize is the body of Orcus himself, about 4 miles `long' and 1.5 miles `wide'. You sweep into a landing on the chest, seeing as you do a figure that you take to be Quag, standing on the forehead, performing some ritual. Making your way forward, you see that the one side of the head area has about a dozen skeletons and about 8 Visages guarding the bound-and-gagged bodies of Slade and Rasputin. Quag-Namoth seems to be standing directly between the eyes of Orcus, with the Wand of Orcus in one hand and a scroll of some type in the other. The ground at his feet is littered with the remains that you will eventually recognize as being a Book of Exalted Deeds, a Holy Avenger, a Mace of Disruption, a Talisman of Pure Good, a Holy Orb, and some other stuff. A fight breaks out, wherein Tim toasts most of the monsters, Yarral disrupts the ritual, Magalin frees Slade and Rasptuin while Tierok distracts Quag. Rasputin and Slade move in the engage Quag while Magalin once again convinces me to not allow the Tome of Magic spells, and Corum winds up for his final, maybe-sacrificial death-blow ``Boot to the Head''.
Unfortunately for *me*, this last bit is happening at about 3am, after 14 hours of continuous playing, after my third day of `not enough' sleep, so I'm basically too exhausted to do the ending right. So, since we were all tired anyway, I'm going to attempt to describe the ending over again, and hopefully it'll be better this time.
Corum is preparing himself for his final, sacrificial blow, when he feels his prayer answered: ``Wait a moment.''. Looking around, he sees Master Fu standing behind him on the rocky outcropping that makes up the dead God's jaw.
``Your foe is defeated, although he will not surrender. He waits for death, but is it yours to give?'' says Fu.
Corum and Fu walk over and rejoin the group. Quag-Namoth is down on one knee, unmoving, having dropped the scroll, holding tightly on to the Wand of Orcus. Tierok calls out from a short distance away, ``He's given up. He expects to die, and he wants to die fighting, but somehow he can't make himself do so.''
``I have bound him against acting.'' says a silver-white ghostly Magalin - fully visible in the Astral plane. Her words ring strangely, as if she's speaking with two different voices at once. ``I have judged him, and I will hold him bound until he receives Justice.''. She nods towards Rasputin.
Rasputin, Slade, and Yarral are circling nearby, swords ready. At this, Yarral and Slade back off to either side, and Rasputin, a noticeable silver glow emanating from his body, moves in front of Quag-Namoth. ``Brother,'', Rasputin says, and Quag's eyes lift, kneeling now in front of your huge friend, ``Your threat is over.''
Rasputin swings, and Quag-Namoth's head severs cleanly from his shoulders, and falls to the ground.
Silence, and then Quag's body slumps, and begins to glow a bright green.
``Do not worry'', says Fu, ``they are returning to where they belong.''. As he says this, the glow increases, then pulls away from the body, resolving itself into a stream of roughly two dozen small balls of green light that you recognize as Incarnations. ``There won't be time for them to make this crossing, but there will be others.''
The ground, as it were, begins to tremble under your feet. As suddenly as before, with a calm swiftness that makes you feel as if *you* had been moving towards *him* at incredible speeds, The gigantic jackal-headed man appears in front of you again. The voice: clear, cold, says ``Go now. His death is not for your eyes to see.'', and you find yourself floating up, away from the body of the Dead God, as the rumbling increases, and cracks begin to appear. As you move, seemingly back the way you came, you can see what seems to be the face of Orcus contorting in pain, and a deep red glow appear from the eyes. Cracks are appearing now all over the body, and red light is streaming forth. The remains of Quag-Namoth bounces, tossed, and falls into a crevice, out of sight, as the clouds of the Silver Void fold themselves around you, and the scene fades from view...
``You've done well. Very well, considering.'', Master Fu says warmly, as he pats Corum on the shoulder. ``I've certainly never seen a group deal with it in so little time. Unfortunately, I cannot offer you time now in exchange; you have already begun to ascend to the Other.'' He looks around the group, floating in the Astral, looking at each in turn.'' He chants lightly:
``Wisdom Insight Perserverence Life Death Heart.
Fortitude shall be your anchor.
Soul shall be your Start.''
``Already Soul has gone, and Fortitude begins.'' Rasputin's silvery glow is noticeably brighter now. ``If you wish to say goodbye to the others, I can send you to another where, but I cannot change the when of it happening, and I must caution you that those you speak with will not remember any details you try to give them of the Incarnations or the crossing.'' He looks at each briefly, in turn, and then says ``Very well. Soon I shall send you each off, and you will have to meet again under different circumstances.''
Yarral still has his bright glow, and Tierok's dark aura is plainly visible. Rasputin's glow is noticeably stronger, and Slade has begun to glow as well.
``One last thing to do, young Corum. I ask, but do not demand, a consideration,'' Master Fu says heavily. ``although it may confuse you even further. When last I stood Here, I did so not as Two, but as Wisdom. Two stood Where I now stand, and spoke unto me as I speak unto you:''
``If you would be Wisdom, then be Kind, and be Just, and be Reverent, and be Free.''
``But if you would be Wise, well, then be sophic, and be perspicacious, and be sapient, and be gnostic, and be Three.''
As he speaks, you notice he's starting to shed a soft golden glow from his skin, and his eyes shine more and more brightly until they are simply glowing gold orbs. And then, as if they'd always been there, standing behind him, to either side, are the figures that you recognize as One and Two. One is shedding a soft blue light, similar, while Two is glowing silver. One seems to be smiling.
...and the view fades away...
You each find yourselves in the places that you'd like to be to say the *important* goodbyes, even though for some of you you feel like you're in more than one place at a time. You say goodbye quickly, but not hurriedly, and for each, as you're nearly done, you seen a figure glowing softly silver a short distance away, standing in the background, and then, again, it all fades away...