Dawn of Magic

[dr_kromm]

This is the recap of what will be the second- or third-to-last session of the campaign. If all goes well, the heroes will prevail and save their world from invaders. At our April 14 meeting, we had Bonnie ("Leif"), Marc ("Mushamee"), Martin ("Kaeso"), Mike ("Rufus"), and Stéphane ("Vinz").

Time: Night, Dva 11, 1003 Imperial Reckoning.
Place: Over Tenosia.
Last Event: Start of the final battle!

The battle to end all battles rages in the fire-lit night, through the blood-red dawn, and well into the day, fought by the forces of every faction with a stake in the outcome – mortal and immortal, civilized and bestial, natural and conjured. Tenosia itself is quickly flattened by an endless rain of Tenosian fire, stones, and purple spheres. Vicious skirmishes in the rubble are punctuated by charges down the widest streets and across the commons. In the faubourgs and fields, tens of thousands of troops clash with such fury that the ground shakes. Overhead, the flying platforms of the Starfish-Men meet the demons and Valkyries summoned to thwart them, resulting in a chaotic, casualty-filled melee for control of the skies.

To understand the greater outcome of all this requires understanding what the world's heroes were up to during the action.

Recnam

As the first stones and arrows are loosed, Patriarch Recnam sets to work. Within the bone cathedral of Necros, he has his zombie legions flay him alive as a sacrifice to become the god. Devoid of flesh, his skeleton merges with the temple. A 40-foot construct made from the bones of thousands rises from the center of the city. In its skeletal hands is a great scythe of blood-edged darkness.

Recnam/Necros commands its undead hordes to charge the leader of the Starfish-Man host: a Dark God that resembles an inky tornado or a gelatinous black tentacle from above, which has taken up a position mere blocks from the temple. The deities' bodyguards annihilate each other – and much of the city's core – in a vicious clash that drives back the lesser forces on either side. Before the battle is more than a few minutes old, Recnam/Necros and the Dark God have locked wills in a cosmic duel to decide which divinity shall see the aftermath.

What follows is an epic struggle at the center of the larger conflict. Each blow landed boosts the morale of forces friendly to the striking deity and inflicts casualties on the side of the receiving god. Give and take in the contest between Recnam/Necros and the Dark God is thus reflected in the fluid fortunes of the battle raging around them.

It's impossible for mortals to see what transpires, but ultimately, Recnam/Necros prevails. The Dark God is cut to ribbons by the great scythe of Death and – isolated from its home realm – destroyed. This bodes poorly for the Starfish-Man legions counting on their deity for leadership. Without their cosmic general, they must mount their final defense with only the strategic skills of their priests . . . clerics whose god was indisposed to share the art of interdimensional warfare, for fear of its own safety.

Its job done, Recnam/Necros withdraws from the mortal sphere. The great bone avatar crumbles to ash, which blows across the final battlefield like foul snow. The last act of the mortal Recnam is to bless his companions in their efforts to attain victory. He petitions Necros and the god – reaching across time as only a deity can – extends holy protection to Kaeso's flying disk, which also bears Hippolyte, leader of the world's armies.

Kaeso

Kaeso pilots his invisible disk back and forth over the battlefield as instructed by Queen Hippolyte, high commander of the forces arrayed against the Starfish-Men. From this wonderful vantage, Hippolyte can direct her troops with ease, her mysterious battlefield telepathy many times more effective than usual when she can see those she's leading. Attending Hippolyte are Vinz – serving as her personal wizard – and some Amazon bodyguards.

This arrangement doesn't work out without incident, however. Kaeso finds himself challenged not once but seven times by enemy flying disks bearing wizards who can somehow see his own invisible platform! Fortunately for those aboard, Kaeso is both a devious artificer and a skilled pilot.

Kaeso evades two of his pursuers through sheer skill, out-flying and escaping them – in one instance by kicking up a dense spray while flying low over the ocean. He copes with another attacker by streaming a dense smoke and yet another by spraying a sticky paint, in both cases causing his blinded rivals to crash fatally. He takes offensive action against two other opponents, dropping Tenosian fire (and a flaming cooking grill) onto one would-be ambusher-from-below (detected by Vinz), and then shredding another with a shower of "aerial caltrops." Kaeso deals with his most deadly challenge – two enemies at once – through cunning use of a grappling line to make a neck-snapping tight turn that leaves his foes to collide with one another.

Thanks to Kaeso's efforts – and, unknown to him, Recnam's blessing – Hippolyte survives all the enemy's direct attempts on her life. This leaves the world's defenders with a legendary general for the endgame, while the Starfish-Men are deprived of their own by Recnam/Necros' efforts. Just to be sure, Vinz adds a little insurance . . .

Vinz

While Kaeso flies, Vinz drinks his remaining paut and starts working the most potent spell of his career: a high-powered blessing upon Hippolyte, calculated to shield her from harm and ensure her victory. This casting takes a long time and is by no means a sure thing. Obviously, should Vinz suffer an accident or an assassination attempt, he might die before finishing. More subtly, even if he succeeds, his charm would avert any mishap that might harm Hippolyte and end prematurely – meaning that the queen must be kept out of danger. There's also the issue of timing: Acting too soon means a magical pulse that the enemy could detect and direct counter-magic toward . . . but acting too late means having little effect on the battle's outcome.

Fortunately, due to Kaeso's brilliant efforts, Vinz is kept out of harm's way during the casting. The spell goes off without a hitch, and Hippolyte finds her already-great insight, leadership, and wisdom further enhanced by magic. And of course Kaeso continues to fly well afterward, keeping Hippolyte safe from mundane and magical reprisals.

His work on the disk done, Vinz decides to lend a hand in battle. He casts a high-speed flight spell upon himself, wraps the Assassin God's cloak around him, and takes his leave of Hippolyte and Kaeso. Shortly after Vinz vanishes, enemy disks start falling from the skies, their pilots' throats mysteriously cut.

Rufus

Early in the battle, Rufus finds the Asok of Kali and gives him the Scroll of Summoning Su so that he may call upon his nation's greatest hero. In return, Rufus asks the Asok for a favor: the service of Faizul and Faizul's flying carpet. The Asok is happy to grant this favor in light of Rufus' gift. Rufus immediately has Faizul fly him to a particular landmark in the nearby countryside.

It turns out that Rufus – with Emperor Nicolai's blessing but without his colleagues' knowledge – passed word through his espionage network that any Imperial citizen or sympathizer in the countryside around Tenosia would be paid and equipped as a fighter if he so wished. On meeting his man Rattus Tigris at the agreed-upon rallying point, Rufus finds a modest legion of farmers, fishermen, hunters, and woodsmen. Most have bows and spears, many are ex-legionaries, and all are wearing camouflage.

Rufus takes formal command of these surprise reinforcements and leads them not into the center of the fray but toward what he predicts will become the opposition's rear area as the battle wears on. His hope is to harass the enemy's wounded and force them to shift some attention to their flank. As it turns out, he isn't alone in this goal.

Mushamee

Mushamee takes direct command of his legion – Legio I Roma – and prepares to lead the fighting on the ground. As he's about to move, however, he sees a band of well-armed fighters approaching, as if in a hurry to join the hostilities. It's Tiger and his Kotanese partisans from Shag! Mushamee greets them and asks them to do what they do best: harass and skirmish. Tiger agrees, his forces link up with Rufus', and the guerrillas provide a credible threat in the enemy's rear areas.

Thanks to his wife, Hippolyte, sharing her thoughts with him and providing him with an overhead view, Mushamee doesn't need stand on a hill and command his men from behind. And due to the power of the Sun Armor of Ré, he can afford to put himself in the thick of things! Taking up the Sun Sword of Ré, the general dashes to the front rank of his legion and personally leads his men. He slays hundreds of enemies with his own blade, inspiring his forces to fight ferociously.

Leif

Leif joins the ogres and trolls from his homeland. Their orders are simple: Hit the enemy hard in order to punch a hole into which can spill the civilian "legions" hastily created by arming angry refugees. This is a gamble on Hippolyte's part; Leif is no tactician, the Northern monsters are hard-hitting but unorganized, and the new recruits are neither trained nor organized. The hope here is to use revenge and major force as blunt instruments – or at least to ensure that the least-predictable elements of the world's armies are all in one place where they can be maneuvered into or out of harm's way as a unit.

Leif moves to the front of his rabble and asks the ogres and trolls to follow him in a tight wedge, with the spear-carriers running behind. He charges the largest targets on the battlefield after the Dark God: the enemy's huge siege beasts. With aerial cover from his ally Kerim Khan, Leif and his monstrous half-brothers actually manage to reach these foes, and they soon cross clubs in a mighty brawl.

What Leif lacks in formal training he makes up for in ferocity, strength, and barroom-brawler's cunning. He takes on not one but five siege beasts, and shows his war band that while these creatures are mightily armored about the head and chest, they're weak in the legs. The ogres and trolls proceed to kneecap and amputate their way through the enemy, leaving their lamed foes to be brutally stripped of armor and stabbed to death by the refugee fighters.

To be continued . . .