The Nightmare Crisis: Continuity

In Brief

This is meant to be a long and involved article.

Here's the short, short version:

Prologue

• In the beginning, Nerick makes contact with Kage and forms a pact relationship. Likely, he does not realize what this portends.
• At some point, Kage schisms himself one too many times, and the left hand truly begins to forget what the right hand is doing. Think somewhere between Pain of Salvation's "Be" and "Memento".
• Meanwhile, on Earth, Hyacinth's crusade against the evil Paradox, Inc. is interrupted by her transit out of space and time. Luckily, she latches back onto the universe and arrives in Toril in 1372.

Season 1

• Hyacinth arrives in Thay, gets enslaved, meets Dorian, etc.
• Details are very sketchy on this time period. Mostly, it involved some random adventure, using Nightmare Shards as MacGuffins to journey around the Realms and to the Planes.
• A second thread involves a plot by the Harpers to stop or destroy Dorian Adricus.
• Ends without any kind of satisfying climax.

Season 2

An ill-conceived attempt at a backstory for Dorian and co. This is one of the only areas in serious need of retcon. Let's just say this:

• Shortly after the Time of Troubles, Dorian becomes a freelance adventurer. His first few forays go south, but he eventually finds himself in an adventuring group in Cormyr with Faysal and Kage.
• Nix Sherry and Hyacinth. The former hadn't even met Kage yet, nor had left Thay at all (edit: Sherry appeared adjacent to the Temple of Old Night just before Von Durzig -Dan). The latter ought to arrive in 1372 as planned.
• He met Kage and Faysal during these adventures. This explains why they appear later (you know, "later", in Season 1).
• No Kasylwen. While it's perfectly feasible that she might have been out and about at this time, she just doesn't belong there (edit: for continuity with my Elfgame, she hadn't left Evermeet until 1368-ish to look for Elaith -Dan). However, I'll give him Rialla. I like the fact that they hate each other.
• I also like how, while the party succeeds, it's basically a disaster, and Dorian doesn't give a shit. The characterization of young Dorian in this period is actually believable, and contributes nicely to his future temperament.
• The "salvation" (read: nigh-annihilation) of Dhedluk (or was it Waymoot?) makes a fine climax for the season. Dorian gives up on the party, though Faysal stays with him, and they both eventually end up in Calimshan (but not before Dorian sells him out to Rhangaun).

Season 3

The epic game proper.

Here, I have at least some sort of records indicating the order of events.

• Episode 1 is the Count von Durzig adventure. Pretty straightforward.
• Episode 2 is the Mechanus adventure. So far, so good.
• Episode 3 is the whole Dorian trial, Twisted-Rune-ass-kicking adventure. No shard here, but we do begin to hint at Dorian's madness.
• Episode 4, "Facing the Monster", is all about Dorian going crazy, against a backdrop of filler adventures (which I don't remember at all, it was very sandboxy). It ends with the party getting all The Cell on him.
  • The episode also contains Lucia's revenge on Irtemara, and the beginning of her split from the faith of Shar.
• Episode 5, "The Sleeping Dragon", is ultimately about the party's feud with Tiamat.
  • It begins with the party being employed to help stop a coup in northern Thay; Homen Odesseiron had suddenly acquired great power over dragons, and was ravaging his foes with them.
  • This is somehow tied to Tiamat. Here's the back story: Previously, the party had slain an old red dragon to harvest some component for an epic spell (probably a mythallar). The dragon was the offspring of Marukkuchellan and Tiamat. The former had sought vengeance quickly thereafter (and lost); the latter was now making her move.
  • Plot-wise, the best guess is this: they fought Odesseiron, won, realized it was party of a larger plot by Thrul and his allies to seize power (they had delayed this ambition somewhat, but it will pop up later). They then fought Szass Tam for some reason (fuckbats and smellies), and ultimately did battle with many zulkirs. The Simbul was involved.
  • After that, the dragon stuff happened. They realized that Tiamat wasn't going to back down, so they had to take her out. They weakened her by committing genocide against the greatest chromatic dragons, before attacking her head-on on her home plane.
  • The rest is history: they slew Tiamat, absorbing her divinity. I think Mystra may have helped, since most of the power went elsewhere, and two party members became her exarchs.

Season 4

The other epic party.

• Episode 1, "Running Errands", involves the new party's first quest: gathering epic spell components for the higher-level party.
  • The key component was the pituitary gland of a Tarrasque. They traveled to the Beastlands to find one. It was intelligent. They killed it. The end.
• Episode 2, which has no name, involves a mission to Westgate.
  • Meran pantsed the local guards.
  • The party fought Orbakh and routed him.
  • They defeated a priestess of Shar. They probably claimed a nightmare shard.
• Episode 3, "Chronomancy", involves time travel.
  • Details are sketchy, and accounts are contradictory. Here's what I do know:
  • At some point, the party happened upon the Timepiece of the Chronomancer, possibly in the treasure haul of the previous episode.
  • At some point, they did battle with a hyper-dragon. This would be the 58-HD ultra-advanced dragon that Veldarin famously pantsed in one round with Devourers. It may have been the Purple Dragon of Cormyr, or his ancestor.
  • The original destination of the party's time travel was 1377 NY (-2482 DR).
  • Early adventures involved the Twisted Tower. There, they fought some high-level drow. They encountered their first Leshay. They met Layla, a human druid of some kind, and Layne of the Starym clan. Not sure where that went. They fought a guy named Zorim'kalur'tebrus. Sounds like a dragon, but his treasure seems kind of drowy. I've got his treasure haul. Also fought Durzambrash and Melierrush. I remember them as a drow brother-sister combo the party hated.
• Episode 4, "Pharaohs and Princesses", involves the goings-on of El-Rashan.
  • The party finds themselves in El-Rashan, once a far-flung colony of Old Kingdom-era Imaskar, now still surviving with an Imaskari level of civilization, but on the brink of collapse. I actually have detailed information on this; the gist is that El-Rashan was granted independence in 1322 NY (-2538 DR) from Imaskar, and, at the time of the party's arrival, was ruled by the Low Imaskari (aka Mulan) Pharaoh Hatschepsut. The episode concerned her succession, and the fate of El-Rashan.
  • Hatschepsut's daughter, Sekhnefer, was a student of Imaskari artifice, Netherese magic, and whatever else she could get her hands on. At a young age, she was seduced to the worship of the dark goddess Sekhmet by Shathor Thaymath, a mutt-Imaskari wizard/priest with a taste for stepping outside the traditional bounds of magical research.
  • Together, they planned a coup; Sekhnefer would succeed her mother, and Shathor's cult of proto-Red-Wizards would transform El-Rashan to their liking.
  • I don't remember how exactly this was resolved. I remember an assault on a tower with weird dimensional properties, and a ridiculous battle with The Undying Man. I'm pretty sure the whole thing ended with the entire city being threatened to be swallowed up in a black hole, but the party saved it by teleporting it forward in time. Either that, or by saving it, they changed the future so that El-Rashan would still exist in their time.
• Episode 5, "The Land of Night", is a confusing mess.
  • We know that the party went to Coramshan. Not sure what they did there, but Asier ended up "borrowing" the Azure Phoenix from his ancestors and bringing it forward in time.
  • They presumably journeyed to Maztica for some reason, and there encountered Night Elves. Pretty sure that went nowhere fast, and the whole episode just evaporated.
• Episode 6, which has no name, involves the party's trip to Netheril.
  • Since they were in 1377 NY, they were about 2100 years too early for Karsus. Presumably, they traveled forward in time.
  • They met Karsus. Not sure what, if anything, they really did while they were there. They witnessed his Folly and the fall of Netheril. Mariel saved the weave by filling in for (and becoming) Mystra after Karsus killed her.

Season 5

The combined party, using System 4.

Details from this area are pretty thin on the ground. The combined party now has godhood, lots of shards, the Azure Phoenix, etc. They go into all-out war against the Shadovar, and at some point get sucked into the future (sans Hyacinth), whereupon they defeat the City of Shade, then go gallavanting off to Earth, then back again, then to Shadowheart or something, and finally realize the truth:

Palpatine's behind it all! Er, I mean, Kage's behind it all.

So they kill him and go their separate ways: Dorian and Hyacinth to Earth, the rest back to Toril.

Okay, that's the gist. The episode structure seems to be:

• Episode 1, "The Red Tide", is the big, climactic battle for Thay. While this boasts some hilarious imagery (the Sathanas used as a WMD to create a tidal wave, destroying Thrul's navy and base), it is also impossible in the current continuity.
  • I suppose they could have squared off against Thrul and taken down his airship and his fleet of ironclads, leaving him weakened for his later conflict with Zahl. Why? Who knows. Maybe she paid them.
  • An important detail: it was during this episode, in a battle with Zulkirs, in which Veldarin became a Duke of Hell, and exited the party.
• Episode 2, "The Last Sunrise", involves a full-scale war with the Shadovar, in which:
  • The Azure Phoenix does battle with a Flying Fortress over the Trackless Sea. Templeton's gravity attack destroys the fortress, but causes a local distortion in spacetime that sends the Azure Phoenix 25 years into the future. Hyacinth wasn't there, because she was sick that day.
  • In the future, the Shadovar had won. Those who hadn't resisted were now their slaves. Shadow mythallars dotted the landscape (spires building on the design of the mythallar-hotel), spreading the shadow magic of the Shadovar to every corner of the land.
  • The party met up with Dorian's child clone, now all grown-up, in the free city of Polaris. From there, he resisted the Shadovar, countering their shadow magic with his mastery of the Weave.
  • A campaign of swift destruction followed, culminating in an attack on the City of Shade (utilizing the famous "gate trick" to redirect their own death beams back into themselves), which inflicted such damage that the city was forced to flee to the Plane of Shadow. Telamont stayed behind, as it was necessary for someone to remain to re-summon the City, should it ever wish to return. However, the party defeated and destroyed him in battle, banishing the City forever.
  • In vengeance, Shar herself attacks them. They stave off her ability to simply annihilate them with a thought by using the ultimate magic-negating power of Midnight, and inflict non-trivial damage with blasts from the nearly-completed Nightmare blade, all while doing battle with an army of the Dark Stars, her exarchs, any two or three of which might have been Tiamat's match. Eventually, they prevail, driving her back--but just as they are victorious, and before they can possibly recuperate from such a draining battle, Special K arrives, easily overcoming them, and steals Nightmare.
• Episode 3, "The Eternal Dream", involves the party discovering the final truth of the whole Nightmare matter.
  • They discover that Nightmare was forged on Earth, in the magical kingdom of Atlantis, far in Hyacinth's past. They realize they must go back to that place to understand why it was built, and just who built it, so they can figure out how to finally destroy it. Special K is invariably on his way back there to finally re-forge it, and presumably destroy everything everywhere once he's done with that.
  • They use a stargate buried in a Mulhorandi pyramid to reach Earth, emerging in Egypt, before ultimately re-basing in Hong Kong (presumably because it was fairly easy to purchase identities there).
  • Shortly, they determine that, to reach the ruins of Atlantis, they must journey to Antarctica, beneath the vast glaciers covering the South Pole. They do so.
  • Beneath, they find the ruins, including some sort of magical effect that re-enables their spells and items. They do battle with Special K, defeating him once and for all.
  • At this point, things get sketchy. I do have monster stats for the three battles that followed: Wraith, a master of Higher Magic, Gaius Excidere (some sort of ultra spellcaster with earth magic), and The Eternal Dream, which looks preposterous. To put it in perspective, Special K had 1680 hp, Wraith has 4680 hp, and The Eternal Dream had 98,000 hp.
  • I can't even be sure if you actually fought all 3 of those, and I surely don't remember the deal with the last two. What I've been able to piece together is this: Wraith and his party were adventurers from old Atlantis, presumably the very same who managed to save the multiverse by destroying Nightmare the first time. The party did, in fact, encounter them at some point in the mid-epic game (seemingly near or after beating Tiamat, or perhaps it was the new party who met them), and didn't much care for them. Not sure what was going on, but presumably they were on the trail of whoever was reassembling Nightmare (you know, Kage).
  • My best guess is this: just after reassembling nightmare, Special K was defeated by the party. However, at this point, Nightmare was whole again, and had to be destroyed. Wraith arrived, wielding The Eternal Dream, having presumably reassembled it from its shards in parallel to the party. They did battle, knowing the blades had to destroy one another. Perhaps it had to be hostile, as the blades and their wielders (Wraith and Kage) were somehow one in the same. Or something. Anyway, they succeeded in re-destroying the blades.
  • And then something was unleashed. Not sure. If the other two fights happened at all, I really have no recollection of them, or what my intent was.