Welcome to our Campaign Coffee. This series of posts, which will be interspersed with regular Monday Coffee posts, aims to look back at roleplaying game campaigns that have shaped the Cosmoneiron into its current state. We will discuss the plots and characters, but also how they influenced the development of the Twin Worlds. I hope you enjoy these. Happy Monday!
In the last installment of Campaign Coffee, we saw our heroes discover the lost ancient city of Nithisis, learn the truth about the Lady of Souls, lose one of their own to divinity, and become more than they had been before. Finding the indestructible bones of Erenthir, Lord of Nithisis, they restored him to flesh, and in so doing, they also discovered the Third Archway.
Crossing the Third Archway sent them from fire to water: the wyldervay found themselves in a world that seemed to be comprised of endless water, with no land or surface in sight. Lost and without clear direction (although Val'Sham's magic allowed them at least to breathe), they soon realized that the water had a current, and, curious, they followed it until it became clear that the current was growing stronger and stronger. Eventually, the waters of this dark, endless ocean began churning, and the wyldervay discovered to their horror that the entire Plane was being slowly but relentlessly devoured by... something, like a hole in the fabric of reality itself. Worse, there were things in the Plane that were sharing its doom: enormous, insectile humanoid titans that appeared to be dead or dormant, helpless to stop their own spiraling into what the wyldervay named appropriately the Jaws of Oblivion. This world was Tiogair, the Dying Sea.
Reaching one of these titans, following the divinations of Val'Sham regarding the location of the Fourth Archway, the wyldervay entered its exoskeleton, and discovered that the creature was in a deathlike sleep, its soft tissues long since dried up, though it was not wholly dead. Within its exoskeleton, someone had built a sorcerous refuge, long, long ago. The place was ancient, and contained many odd items, including a sword capable of embedding itself into the flesh of enemies to continue sawing through them, even if released. But there were also signs of rummaging, as if someone had been here just before, looking for something, disturbing the dust that had collected over millennia.
On their guard, the wyldervay explored the refuge until they came to a gruesome sight. The Fourth Archway lay on a pedestal at the far end of a room, and between it and them was a massive block of ice. Within the ice was frozen a creature with the upper body of a winged woman, and the lower body of a serpent, her expression was one of fear and disbelief; and next to the ice was a huddled, cowled and hooded figure, holding a stone tablet and chuckling venomously at the wyldervay as they arrived.
It greeted them in a sibilant voice, but there was no mistaking it: it was the voice of Koradrane Quinom, their nemesis from Bradal, the same man whom Faelar was thought to have killed in the Thielith. And yet, he had changed. His evil had completed its course, drawing on the powers of the mysterious Vastness it served, and the very worms that had eaten his body had become imbued with his sentience, obeying his twisted spirit's call. He was now The Worm That Walks, a much more horrid - and powerful - creature, and he openly mocked the wyldervay, telling them he would steal the divinity of the Trienorn and use it to tear the veil between the mortal world and the Vastness. He would let his masters come through, bringing madness and insanity throughout the cosmos, and take his place upon their pantheon.
Then he fled, leaving the wyldervay with a quandary: follow him and leave the woman trapped, perhaps to die; or save the woman, and risk giving Koradrane Quinom too much of a head start.
But the wyldervay were heroes, and so they freed the woman from her imprisonment. She gave her name as Lilaire, a guardian of the Fourth Archway (much like the wolf Kharub had been the guardian of the Second one). She explained that Koradrane Quinom took her by surprise, claiming he had entered the Path of Carmad through the counterpart to the First Archway held in the lair of Hethner's Reflection, Hindruukaarg.
Realizing the danger Koradrane could be, the wyldervay wasted no time; Lilaire joined them, anxious to prevent a catastrophe, and they leapt through the Fourth Archway, leaving behind the Dying Sea for a much more dangerous place. Their next stop would be none other than Londìr.
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