EPIC League - An Update on the troubles in Thoroz

EPIC League has been going strong at EPIC Ipswich since it's conception since I last wrote a blog recapping the events of our store-wide campaign in July (You can read that article here) there have been some ground-breaking changes!

The Five Cults Story Line

When venturing around their local area, each township started encountering problems with cults as their towns grew, so too did the attention on them.

Baelfalls encountered the alien/reptilian cult of the Jade Fang - a cult that believes that the world should return to the natural rules of predation.

Saltrock encountered the bizarre divided cult of the Cobalt Claw - a cult consisting of two ideologies, that order and chaos keep each other in check to achieve progress. This Cult loves mutating and experimenting on lesser beings to bring about balance.

Darrohold has encountered the Pale Eye - a cult that always operates in groups of 3, answering to the whims of their mysterious Seer leader without question, they believe that nothing should change and the world should remain as is, no change, just entropy. This cult is particularly fascinated with things known as Soul Gems.

Then there is the mostly unseen Black Wing cult - dedicated like ants in a colony to building monuments for an entity they only refer to as HER. They enslaved Ta'kuru, a town of rock entities centuries ago but were thoroughly defeated. The Black Wing built a huge monument with the power to summon dragons, capturing a Solar Dragon, Kyra to fuel it.

Ravaging the country and surrounding areas is the Red Hand - a cult that has no unity except for its desire to satiate the needs of creatures known as Lava Children.

Many of the towns have felt their presence and in some situations even worked with them as their goals align (even if temporarily), others (Looking at you Saltrock) would prefer to destroy their Cults.

The Shades and The Pillar

Remember those creepy paranormal entities, the shades? Yeah turns out that through various different quest lines, the various tables and towns soon learnt about their true nature. Turns out this world is broken, as such whenever someone is dragged through the multiverse and into Thoroz, they too are broken as a part of their soul is separated from their body. This is the real nature of the shades, why some attack people and why some just observe. Each shade is sentient and its soul purpose (pardon the pun) is to kill its original body/host - that is the only way a creature can return to its original home in the multiverse, to let its shade kill them.

The cult of the Pale Eye has helped reduce the number of active shades in the world by trapping them into the various soul gems I mentioned earlier. 

This also contributes to the increased number of people appearing in the world, it was discovered in this story arch that the world was designed as a prison to house a very powerful entity - Baoti'Amatel. Through means yet to be discovered the world broke and "The Warden of Thoroz" is stopping it from falling apart and freeing Baoti'Amatel from it - when the world broke, so too did Baoti'Amatel.

In the world's broken state, the shades were created and Baoti'Amatel has been absorbing souls upon their death, doing so changes the number of creatures/souls in Thoroz, thumping in a random humanoid to replace the soul or body that was destroyed. In essence, this exponentially grows the number of entities that enter Thoroz as both souls and bodies are separated, generating more souls for Baoti'Amatel to consume and grow their power. It was at this point that the revelation hit each table in the League: DEATH HAS MAJOR CONSEQUENCES!

Towards the end of this arch, players got a glimpse of The Warden and how he was holding the world together. When a shade was killed and got sucked into the Everstorm, a player was still looking through their mind and saw what happened. Arkhan the Cruel, the champion of the Dragon God Tiamat was using the hand of Vecna (a powerful artifact) to absorb souls and channel them into a massive crystal spire that was very fractured. Each soul he channelled repaired tiny cracks in the crystal pillar that he was literally holding together.

The Relics to Mend Thoroz Story Line

After being free from the monument in Ta'kuru, Kyra (the solar dragon) returned to the skies of Thoroz and became the literal sun. Assembling members from each party for a meeting to discuss how to restore the world, Kyra revealed important information, Baoti'Amatel is the Dragons that originally attacked the towns at the beginning of the campaign. 

Bao is the Ancient Topaz Dragon that originally destroyed Baelfalls, Ti is the Ancient Moonstone Dragon, Ahm the Ancient Sapphire Dragon that attacked Saltrock, Ma is the Ancient Amethyst Dragon that decimated Wellshire and left refugees in the pirate town due north, Lastly is Tel, the Ancient Emerald Dragon that attacked the towns of Darrohold and Penheligan at the start of the campaign. They were originally one entity, a dragon avatar for Tiamat herself, made from the hoard of gems the various five cults of Tiamat had assembled for her. And yes before you ask, those five cults from the earlier storyline. 

When they imbued it with her essence, the creature grew sentience and wanted to replace Tiamat, so she had Arkhan and his Black Order imprison it in a plane she created long ago. When the world shattered, it Split Baoti'Amatel into the five separate bodies of the same entity. Each dragon is different from the others but all view themselves as imperfect clones of each other.

When Arkhan was charged to be The Warden of this world, he brought the cults along due to their failure and stole relics of their powers. He ensured each relic could be used to open and close the world when used in tandem. On their own each cult's relic is powerful and they covert it above all else as their key back to Her (Tiamat). Each of Arkhan's Black Order was given a relic and tasked to hide and guard it so Baoti'Amatel and the Five Cults of Tiamat could never get them.

Kiya then tasked the various parties to retrieve a relic of the cult that had been opposing them, these relics in theory can be used in a ritual to repair the world and stop Baoti'Amatel from growing in their power, for if it was to break free from this world, in its original form and with the number of souls it has devoured, it'd surely have enough strength to potentially kill and replace Tiamat herself.

The Reckoning

During a quest to retrieve an artifact from the Cobalt Claw, a Player Character ended up in Baoti'Amatel's seat of power in Thoroz - the capital city of Adalas. After weeks of torture and mind-readingcapital, Baoti'Amatel has learned of the plan to conduct a ritual and are on their way to once again destroy the towns for treason - This time killing as many people as possible to gain as much power and to prevent the organisation of another plan to keep them imprisoned.

THAT'S IT! You made it to the end of the recap! Daniel, the Head GM for EPIC League asked me to let readers know that if they made it to the end of this article, come tell him discretely for League Inspiration.

The DM's have been hard at work behind the scenes to create this compelling storyline for our League and we hope we have thus far delivered. Until next time.

Your Friend and Ally,

Lachy