The Nightmare Crisis (event)
The Nightmare Crisis was a universe-ending apocalypse that never came to be, due to the heroic efforts of a mostly unknown adventuring company.
Origins
Ostensibly, the Nightmare Crisis began as a plot by the Shadovar to craft a weapon of mass destruction. By collapsing the essence of pure nothingness (in short: the energy beneath what is considered zero) into shards, the Shadovar could product a compact weapon that, when shattered, would cause a runaway chain reaction, collapsing all of known space (inside a given sphere) into an infinitesimal point.
It was discovered, in the course of events, that this weapon was not, in fact, developed by the Shadovar. It was built by an ancient, unknown civilization, who had visited many worlds, including Abeir-Toril and Earth. The shards were actually the shattered remains of something much greater, and even more terrifying: a weapon that could end all realities.
The Shadovar happened upon their legacy, and indeed took their name from that ancient civilization: the Shadevari. They admired the Shadevari's dominance of the known universe, and wished to discover why they seemed to have ultimately failed to retain that dominance. They felt they could do a better job of conquering all of Creation.
Forum Dump
OOC (Dorian): Timeline
A brief history of the game:
Tarsakh 14, 1377:On a mission for the Red Wizard Gael Zorn of Bezantur, Dorian encounters Hyacinth. Long story short, she kills him, burns down his house, runs away with Dorian, gets cornered in a bar, and blows another red wizard’s head off. They teleport to Calimport.
Hyacinth tells her story; he completely doesn’t believe her, but it does have that impossible ring of truth. She is concerned about this strange black sword she encountered; it’s likely the reason she’s here. Turning on the charm, she appeals to him to help her return home. Diplomatically, he offers to examine the sword. In the meantime, she is free to stay in his home and explore the town, provided she doesn’t murder anybody or get him in trouble.
He calls in Nerrick Spellchaser, a shadow mage he met 5 years ago in Cormyr, on an adventure he’d rather people didn’t know about. Now calling himself Kage, Nerrick had undergone some changes, but he was still amiable to the idea. After several days of analysis, he concluded that the sword was none other than Midnight, a sword forged in a far away world, long thought to be destroyed. It was an extremely powerful artifact with the power to rend and destroy magic; though none of them knew how to use it, Hyacinth seemed to have some sort of resonance with the thing.
Tarsakh 21, 1377:Kage explains to them that this sword of magic is poorly understood by terrestrial mages; it is Shadow magic, and they must consult the experts in that field. Kage introduces Dorian and Hyacinth to Lucia, a high priestess of the largest temple to Shar in all the realms—right under the Syl-Pasha’s nose.
At this point Hyacinth is growing desperate to find a way home; Lucia insinuates that she can help with that, should Hyacinth help her with some tasks of her own. Hyacinth accepts, pushing Dorian to comply as well.
Mirtul 11, 1377The party slays an elder brown dragon in the Calim desert. In his lair they find a grand statue of Tiamat, and steal some artifacts from it. An earthquake strikes, and they barely escape with their lives.
That night, Dorian consults with Suryn, an elven archmage and scholar of ancient artifacts. She identifies the artifacts of Tiamat, and notes that the goddess of greed might take issue with the party. Dorian tells her of the nightmare shards, and she is intrigued—enough to join the party.
Mirtul 26, 1377A half-elven harper agent attacks Dorian in the night; he is soundly defeated, thanks to the handiwork of Den, Dorian’s newly-hired personal bodyguard. Dorian takes the subdued agent into his lab, and nobody ever sees him again.
Kythorn 15, 1377Kage explains the existence of the nightmare shards. The party ventures to Anauroch to raid a recently-unearthed Netherese ruin. Among rescued texts, ancient treasures, and mythallar shards, they find a nightmare shard. This begins Dorian’s extensive study into mythallar creation and Netherese magic. He has an odd knack for understand the cryptic texts, even while Kage does not.
Kythorn 22, 1377Tensions ignite between Dorian and Hyacinth. A heated argument ends with Lucia intervening magically. Later, Hyacinth thwarts Dorian by befriending his thrilled manservant, Faysal. She tries to heal his destroyed mind using an artifact stolen from Tiamat.
After enduring such an affront, Dorian arranges a traumatic event for Hyacinth. He summons a powerful demon to assault her as she meditates with her new best buddy. Alone, she is powerless against the mighty demon. It attacks and kills Faysal, but just in time, Dorian arrives to save Hyacinth. Defeated and humbled, Hyacinth backs off...
Kythorn 24, 1377Hyacinth doesn’t back off in the slightest. Dorian uses a powerful divination spell to help the Syl-Pasha route a group of anarchists touting a theory about “democratic rule”, which Hyacinth herself fostered in them. He is paid off and the group is captured. She thwarts him by setting them all free; he thwarts her by having them hunted down and murdered. This leads to a greater degree of isolation on Dorian’s part, and staunch independence from Hyacinth.
Flamerule 8, 1377The party journeys to hell to retrieve a nightmare shard from Stygia. They defeat an army of devils at the Pit of Avernus, and bribe their way past guards in Dis. In the third layer, Dorian purchases a fiendish green dragon as a slave from a devil. They breeze through Phlegethon with magical protection (lame Manual of the Planes spells), and in Stygia they find what they’re after. It’s protected by a great wyrm blue dragon priest of Tiamat in a devil city. Great. Anyway, they kill it, and grab the shard.
Flamerule 30, 1377Dorian and Hyacinth embark on a private date to Myth Drannor and other exotic locations, during which they revel in the murder of a bunch of Zhents.
Elasias 4, 1377Dorian, Hyacinth, and Lucia venture into the Forest of Tethyr to seek the ruins of Shoonac, all in the name of Dorian grabbing some super-powerful artifacts. Their plan is derailed by a great wyrm ghost dragon who persists for an unrequited love of Elminster. They travel to Shadowdale to the get the whole thing straightened out. The dragon goes away, but they don’t bother heading into Shoonac. It’s about time for a vacation.
Eleint 25, 1377Far from actually getting a vacation, the party is invited to a gala at an estate on Thaymount. Coming as it does in a time of tension between Thay and its neighboring countries…not to mention the fact that nobody’s ever heard of this guy…it is a rather odd request. Still, divinations reveal that the Count von Durzig has a nightmare shard.
Eleint 27, 1377In Bezantur, the party meets with Sherry, who Kage convinces to join their mission. She isn’t sure why, but she agrees to help.
The party attends a ball at the Estate von Durzig, a very old, very grand mansion which he recently acquired. He is, of course, a red wizard of notable power, on par with perhaps the least of zulkirs. Conspicuously in attendance is Dmitra Flass, tharchioness of Eltabbar.
Schmoozing commences, and Hyacinth tries to charm the shard off of him. Ultimately, in a masterful work of legerdemain, she nicks the thing and attempts to run off. At this point, the silver elf statues in the house come alive and attack. In a bold and rash move, Hyacinth cracks the nightmare shard with Midnight…and it unleashes a terrifying sucking void, a singularity which sucks in everything around it. Many who were fleeing are caught in the vortex and are never seen again, including Dmitra Flass. Finally, Dorian ends the effect with a Disjunction spell.
At this point, von Durzig has retreated into his inner sanctum. The ball is over, and all the guests are gone. The front end of the house is ruined, and silver golems all over the house are chasing down the party.
The party hunts him down, mostly out of anger for putting them in such a situation. They destroy armies of golems, and just barely defeat two gold golems, through which a wizard (von Durzig? or someone else?) is casting powerful spells.
They ultimately encounter him in his tower, and slaughter him easily. At the party’s behest, Kage annihilates the man, body, mind, and soul, using his nightmare shard dagger. Exhausted, they return to Dorian’s villa. (No more golems)
Eleint 28, 1377No sooner does the party arrive in Calimport than Dorian is arrested. He is put to trial for the alleged murder of Prince Rajiv Djenispool, heir to the throne of Calimshan. He acts as his own legal representation, easily outmaneuvering the prosecution, while trying to determine from whence this attack truly came. Ultimately, he traces it to the Twisted Rune.
REPLY
This is where it gets really silly. Did the party really eradicate the Twisted Rune overnight?
There's corrections, then there's just plain revisionist history. I'm not sure how to rectify the Twisted Rune situation without majorly rewriting it.
Suffice to say, the campaign against Dorian was rather fiercer, and the retribution took rather more effort. Ultimately, they reached a truce; with Sapphiriktar and Shyressa defeated, the others agree to lay off. It was all still part of Rhangaun's machinations, and it ended with his demilich-transcendence.
Now as for Faysal...let's just say the demilich ate him properly?
the demilich ate him properly?
REPLY
quote:3edf725e6e="kenjura"This is where it gets really silly. Did the party really eradicate the Twisted Rune overnight?There's corrections, then there's just plain revisionist history. I'm not sure how to rectify the Twisted Rune situation without majorly rewriting it.
Suffice to say, the campaign against Dorian was rather fiercer, and the retribution took rather more effort. Ultimately, they reached a truce; with Sapphiriktar and Shyressa defeated, the others agree to lay off. It was all still part of Rhangaun's machinations, and it ended with his demilich-transcendence.
Now as for Faysal...let's just say the demilich ate him properly?/quote:3edf725e6e
Yeah, we kicked their asses over the course of one session. I forget if we killed Rhangaun before the liches came knocking at the door or not. You know, when Hyacinth began combat with a *BLAMO* during Shangalar's evil speech, and Dorian used his cheese-rod of Absorption to critically hit one of them with Arcane Fire.
Sadly, Mystra was the one who saved us from Rhangaun. He had a contingency to summon the Hecatonchieres. 'Nuff said.
As for Faysal, about the only lasting things he did was lead Sherry to the Fire Weird and give her the Cloak of Titania, which he somehow made. I'm pretty sure he was hitting on her.
REPLY
I seem to remember Faysal and Hyacinth had a date at one point, right about when she was getting really good at perform and she sang in the forest and had sex with Faysal to make Dorian jelous, I think that was when he fed him to the demi-liche...Rangon...yeah that was his name.
REPLY
Not correct, my dear Colehead. Dorian fed Faysal to the demi-lich before he ever met Hyacinth. He fed Faysal's mind/spirit to Rhangaun, Master of the Twisted Rune, in exchange for his own life being spared, then he took Faysal's body and constructed a new mind for him (albiet a rudimentary one) and used him as a manservant.
REPLY
As for the fight with Shangalar the Black and Sapphiriktar the Blue, we began unraveling the Twisted Rune by hunting down the Dracolich (Sapphiriktar) in his lair in the ruins of Calim's palace beneath Calimport proper, then, when we finally fought him three times and beat him three times, we corned him in his final chamber, into which he summoned the nearest Twisted Rune ally he could, Shangalar the Black. The lich brought several Nightwalkers and Deathbringers with him while only fighting casually. While Hyacinth and Den faced Sapphiriktar, and Kage dealt with the minions, Dorian absorbed an Energy Drain and a Finger of Death from Shangalar, got hit with a Horrid Wilting, and returned fire with his rod of absorption, channeling it dry of spell energy, adding a ninth level spell to the mix, and throwing it all into a bolt of arcane fire that critically hit the lich (two twenties) doing over 400 damage.
REPLY
After dealing with the two guildleaders, we decided that we needed to continue the assault on the Rune before Sapphiriktar and Shangalar could reform from their phylacteries, so we tracked them down to Calim's Palace again and found the resting place of not only their phylacteries, but also of Rhangaun the Demi-Lich, who we had to fight (Sherry's doublecast intesified shatters) who, upon death, chained-mazed us. He critically failed on Lucia's SR, and Dorian counterspelled with dimensional anchor on himself. Then the hecatontirexes showed up. And we cried. And then Mystra dismissed the spell, cause Rhangaun was a dipstick who abused Gate, and then Sherry took contemplative cause she met Mystra.