Revelation for RPGs: Bringing Threads Together
Over the course of a multi-year game our players have learned some important information about the world, major actors in it, and what needs to happen to set things right. Most (but not all) of the secrets have been revealed, but the GM still has work to do to tie things together in the final arc. The late stage of a story is all about bringing the various story threads together.
Our heroes have learned some important things. They have learned that they need to take on Garrett the vampire again, killing him and taking the diseased dagger Weeping Wounds, and the sooner the better. Having the dagger will allow them to temporarily stem Agondre’s decline — a band-aid, not a cure, but even a band-aid will help. They have also learned that, to heal the land, they need the Dragon’s Heart.
The Dragon’s Heart, a ruby as big as your head that burns with an inner fire, was sent East centuries ago along with Kotara-Nar, the magical sword also known as the Dragon’s Tooth. Both came from the dragon Agondre. They were to be used to establish another dragon empire, Gorrush-Kar, Turok’s homeland. But the bearer died and the purpose was forgotten. The Dragon’s Heart is now in the possession of the wizard Kepta-Mor, a man known to Turok — but not previously to the other members of the party.
Turok’s player and the GM had worked out Turok’s back-story years earlier, at the start of the game. This is why, we now realized, the GM couldn’t allow Turok to die in a chance encounter. They created a back-story that the character would be unlikely to share on his own, thus keeping the secret until it was time to reveal it to all. A seed planted even before the game began was now sprouting.
Relations between Agondre and Gorrush-Kar used to be better, but the Cataclysm shattered the bond and filled the seas with monsters. There has been little contact since. But Kepta-Mor craves the magical abundance of Agondre, and already his armies are in the flying city of Aulos in the eastern part of Agondre. The party needs to capture Weeping Wounds from Garrett soon, but it must then turn its attention to reclaiming the Dragon’s Heart from Kepta-Mor.
(Well, Larissa observed, at least we know that trying to obtain it through diplomacy isn’t going to work.)
The group first turned its attention to Garrett. Accompanied by Charlos, one of the ghosts of the emperor’s guard, the group made its move. This time they defeated Garrett and Melisande, at least temporarily. During the fight Garrett infected Turok with Weeping Wounds, adding yet more urgency to the situation. During the fight Garrett also struck Larissa with Weeping Wounds — but her body repelled the infection! She attributed this to the power of Agondre coursing through her veins, and also the magic of the unicorn who had provided a strong healing talisman. (Out of character, I had rolled a natural 20 on the saving throw.)
We now had Weeping Wounds. Touching it produced a strong, viscreal reaction, and we enclosed it in layers and layers of protection. We had managed to destroy the vampire Melisande, but Garrett’s body resisted all of the usual anti-vampire remedies — stake through the heart, sunlight, and running water did not cause the body to disintegrate. It seemed that the power of Agondre’s disease was somehow keeping his body intact, though fortunately he did not awaken either. We arranged his body in a waterfall in Oakhame, stake through the heart, with the ghost Charlos standing guard day and night.
After this we were scried once again. We had noticed scrying before and had attributed it to Garrett and Melisande, so who was this? Turok suddenly said “Kepta-Mor??” and the rest of us demanded that he explain himself. The back-story planted at the beginning of the game would now be revealed. Well, most of it.
Turok came from a powerful family, he said. Kepta-Mor was a friend of his father and thus no friend of his; Turok and his father did not see eye to eye. His family had an ancient, magic sword in a museum, and one night Turok stole it and some money and ran off to join the D’Gorim, the royal army. But on the way out he was betrayed by a lady-friend and was captured by Kepta-Mor. One night, mysteriously, he found his cell door open and the sword in the hall; he took it and fled, stealing a flying beast to escape. Though the creature should not have been able to fly that far, it somehow carried him all the way to Agondre, where it deposited him not long before we met him.
Turok somehow recognized Kepta-Mor in the scry. So Kepta-Mor knew about us and perhaps our plans for the Dragon’s Heart. We were going to have to go to Turok’s homeland and fight him. But first we would go to Cardior to bring some temporary relief to Agondre. All the while Turok was growing sicker from Weeping Wounds.
The group returned to Cardior, where the three armies had stopped fighting each other and united to fight the monsters oozing out of the city. We made our way to the emperor’s sanctum and prepared to enter Agondre’s chamber.
There were many monsters there too, and the party took much damage in trying to reach Agondre. Larissa and Liandra got through; as Larissa drew Weeping Wounds (now encased in glass) for the ritual Agondre flinched, but Larissa uttered the words of the spell to transfer sickness from Agondre to herself. She felt an overwhelming wave of sickness and it felt like she’d been stabbed a thousand times with the dagger. As she prepared to do it again Agondre stopped her and showed her a vision of a red gem. Larissa then collapsed.
The emperor had had a magical bed that aided his recovery from the sickness. Larissa woke up in it three days later, still weakened.
Larissa’s health improved with time but Turok’s grew worse, so the group moved as quickly as it could, now joined by an archer friend of Liandra’s named Viggo. We went to the flying city of Aulos, which had been taken over by the D’Gorim, and liberated it.
We learned that the city’s natural resource was crystals that enhanced flying magic; Kepta-Mor was using these to build flying ships and give extra range to his flying mounts (griffins and rocs), in preparation for attacking Agondre. Liandra the druid sweet-talked a roc into flying us from Aulos to Kepta-Mor’s hold.
Viggo joined the party as Turok, our main fighter, grew weaker. This had the potential to feel contrived, but the GM had been developing the NPC for some time and had placed him in a position to be helping in the fight for Agondre already. Earlier planning made this feel natural now.
In Kepta-Mor’s possession we would also find the emerald in which the elf Elys’ was trapped. We had come to suspect that this was where she was; this, too, was aided by introducing the character much earlier, back when we first learned the true nature of the land and the dragon. When planning long-running threads, patience pays off.
Gorrush-Kar was a magic-starved land, it turned out. Spells did not necessarily work, and the wizard Kepta-Mor knew that Agondre was rich in magic. Giving him clear motivations beyond “evil genius, bwahaha” helped make the story feel more natural. Garrett, in contrast, really was motivated by raw power and not much else (bwahaha), but you can’t make all your evil enemies like that. And with Garrett, too, we learned enough back-story to see why he had ended up that way.
Turok led the charge on Kepta-Mor’s keep, unfurling a banner of Agondre that he had taken from the palace. He’d done something similar when attacking the D’Gorim in Aulos. Turok, once from this land, seemed proud to now declare his allegiance elsewhere. This was a recent transformation in Turok, since the Gorge of Fire.
When we met Kepta-Mor he addressed Turok: “You have been killed enough times that I no longer worry about the prophecy”. We had heard of a prophecy long ago, when rescuing the Duke of Drannekin, that one who kills royalty brings three curses: on himself, his household, and his land. (This was why the duke’s son had hired a foreign assassin to go after his father.) This had seemed a throw-away comment at the time, just like some other seeming throw-away scenes that would later produce echoes.
Later we asked Turok about Kepta-Mor’s greeting. Yes, as we suspected, it meant Turok is of royal blood. “Was”, Turok corrected — the thing he had secretly given up at the Gorge of Fire was his royal status.
Kepta-Mor was, as we expected, in possession of the Dragon’s Heart. It floated behind him and he, unlike us, did not seem to be magically hindered. Every time he cast a spell the ruby glowed.
The fight with Kepta-Mor was long. Kepta-Mor’s magic included magical constructs; it turned out he had been either collaborating with or stealing secrets from Theodocius, the mad wizard who had been turned on by his own golems. (Oh, that wasn’t just a side adventure after all!) Kepta-Mor had done this to Turok’s lady-friend too, as we learned when she joined the fight against the wizard. While most of us had only recently even heard of the lady, to Turok’s player this wrapped up a much earlier thread in his character’s development when it was revealed that she had not willingly betrayed him.
During the fight Larissa was able to steal control of the Dragon’s Heart. We found that the artifact enhanced magic nearby; it wasn’t tied to a single person. Our spells were stronger and more effective. The Dragon’s Heart, however, weighed as much as one of us did; during the fight Larissa was polymorphed as a troll and flying, but we would not always be able to so-easily carry it.
The party defeated Kepta-Mor in the end, and found in his possession the emerald in which Elys’ was trapped. Turok crushed the emerald to free her.
(You can read more about the battle with Kepta-Mor and its aftermath.)
Next, the conclusion of the story and some notes on the meta-game.
