Warcry 2023

Friday Night, August 4th, 2265

Our adventurers left the decaying Celestial Realm of Sabrina and into the frigid and grim Celestial Realm of Pandora. Due to the recent deactivation of the Skein Gate network, the portals that Pandora’s Ice Elven warriors utilized to conduct their raids were thought to be the only currently existing mode of fast mass transit that was somewhat-readily accessible. However, upon their arrival, they did not find the empty hall of enchanted mirrors that they expected to find. Instead, they found that it was already occupied.

Roderick Hale, Archbishop of the Church of Light and his right hand the Paladin Asher of the Dawn, had the Goddess of Pain herself ensnared with bindings of white-hot holy flame. Hale demanded that she submit and change her evil ways, and when Pandora once again proved her mastery over pain and began to rise despite her chains, Hale demanded that Asher unleash the bound Black Wytch upon the Goddess to ensure their escape. As the two battled, a mortal Champion of Pandora from amongst the adventurers entered the fray, although his aid did not seem to be required as the Pandora seemed to be more than a match for Nebbia Andranasta. The rest of the adventurers used the opportunity afforded by the chaos to escape through one of the enchanted mirrors, and spilled out into the Einish frontier-fortress of Mordenholt.

Upon reaching Mordenholt our adventurers were greeted by none other than Prince Leopold himself, leader of those in the Whiteraven Alliance who had sworn to fight against Roderick Hale and his tyranny. When asked why they had come, the adventurers responded with a single emphatic shout.

“To kill Hale!”

Revna Mothersblood, leader of the exiled Shieldmaiden Clan, arrived shortly after an assault launched by a war party of Ice Elves and led our heroes into the ancient temple of the now-dead silver Firstborn, Daedalon. There they retrieved the ice prison of the Einher High King Thorson Bloodeye, where it was being kept safe. Revna took Thorson and the High King’s personal friend and divine advisor, Ansfred Ingögon, back to her encampment.

Meanwhile, those who’s allegiances lay with the Dark Pantheon were called upon by Samara the Ungraved to undertake a mission of great importance to her. They travelled via a powerful necromantic ritual to a Citadel Church far behind the front lines, killing the Chosen within and retrieving the finaled corpse of a man that was once a Dread Knight sworn to Samara’s service in years past.

Saturday, August 5th, 2265

Revna’s plan to reforge the Battlehorn of the Einherjar hit a snag Saturday morning when Orin the Bastard, flanked by many high ranking members of Clan Fenrick, entered town. The two bickered for a time, but eventually Orin caved and agreed that the attempt to reforge the artifact would not likely cause any real harm.

While that was transpiring, Prince Leopold made his way back into the town center and requested that surgeons and healers help him find a way to remove the metal mask he had been wearing for the last four years. Its magic had been hiding him from any attempt to scry or sense his whereabouts, but now that it was finally time to confront Hale, he wished to be rid of its curse. The brave doctors and healers worked tirelessly, while being defended from the Citadel soldiers that sought to kill the Prince while he was at his most vulnerable. Despite this, the surgery was a resounding success, and despite a rather raw layer of new skin the Prince was as good as he ever was.

It was later that afternoon that Revna and our heroes gathered to reforge the battlehorn. With the aid of a Cleric of Magnora introduced by Revna and a Paladin of Magnora named Leodin who had travelled with the adventurers, a small group of artificers began their work. Due to the spiritual nature of the horn’s powers, their expertise still would not have been enough to forge it unaided. Thus, the cleric summoned the spirit of Joryn Karlekstrad, a since-deceased Lightweaver of Magnora. As the larger body of adventurers kept the craftspeople safe from a band of rampaging trolls, the the clerics channelled the divine energies required to keep the artificers safe while they worked. The artificers worked diligently as visions of the legions of the dead swarmed them and tested their nerve. The spiritual torrent that surrounded the horn threatened to absorb the deceased Lightweaver, but his wife Kerrigan and those who knew him in life anchored him to the realm of the living by embracing him.

As the artificers neared losing their nerve, the horn was completed and Joryn was dismissed back to his crafting station within Magnora’s vaunted halls. With the now-reforged artifact in hand, Revna sounded it upon the ice prison of High King Thorson. The ice buckled and gave way under the unrelenting thunderous blast that omitted from its mouth, spilling the now-free High King upon the cobblestones of Mordenholt. Rising unsteadily to his feet, he shouted “There are Fenricks in the Hall!” before collapsing into a comatose state.

Ansfred, using his sight beyond sight, determined that the High King’s mind was shattered and there was nothing he could do to fix it. Without a competent High King to unite the clans and their strength, their people were doomed to fall to the armies of the Church. A new High King needed to be chosen, or all would be lost.

In the middle of the day, the adventurers were greeted by one of the last remaining Silver Draconians. He called himself Proctor, the Protector of the Land. He explained that he was one of the few remaining Architects of Daedalon, and that he was seeking adventurers to aid him. Beneath Mordenholt there lay the ruins of the silver Dragon Daedalon’s greatest city; a wondrous place known as Galaheim’Vox. There he hoped to find objects important to the memory of Daedalon. Those adventurers who went reported finding one such object, and they magically experienced a memory of Daedalon convincing warring peoples to seek peace with each other.

Shortly thereafter, the Einish peoples called the Althing and gathered in the town square. During the giving of sacrifices, Orin chose a worthy foe to be his sacrifice. He challenged the general of Clan Hunhil to single combat, and the fight would have been to the death had it not been for the intervention of Rory Lidelse of Clan Bothnia. Orin won, but had no sacrifice to offer due to said intervention.

Once the sacrifices had been given, matters turned to how a High King would be chosen. After much discussion, a grand melee was decided upon. That way each candidate vying for the High King’s crown would have a better chance at winning if they had the most supporters, thus providing a small picture of the support they might enjoy in the future.

The melee started fine, but quickly turned sour when Tyrik Halfman of Clan Fenrick used poisons in the fight. He was killed immediately, but returned from the Deadlands just as quickly, as he was only half a mortal man and cursed to walk both worlds. The forces of the Church of Light were summoned alongside him, and it became apparent who Fenrick had thrown in with.

All combatants that were then currently fighting called for a truce. Forming a shield wall, they pushed the forces of the Church of Light back towards the portal to the Deadlands that had opened behind Tyrik Halfman. Orin called to Revna to open the shield wall, and then sacrificed his chance at securing his seat in Valhalla by tackling Tyrik back through the portal from whence he came. There they remain, locked in battle for all eternity. With him one brave warrior followed; Rory Lidelse.

The melee resumed with only a handful of combatants still standing. Soon, it was down to two. Haplo Tyrson and Revna Mothersblood fought for the glory of being the High King, and while it said that the young true berserker gave the Shieldmaiden hell, their duel was not one that was fated to finish with a winner.

High King Thorson Bloodeye, against all odds, dragged his broken body across the battlefield and called for silence. His mind, once thought irreversibly lost, was given a moment of clarity by the skilled Psionicist Azurine. Azurine selflessly took his madness into her own mind, but the cost of that sacrifice is still unknown. Confused, yet true of spirit, Thorson challenged any who would dare take his battlehorn and call themselves King. Whispers from his aides told that Thorson only had a few moments of lucidity left before his mind fell into a state of permanent rot. That is no worthy death for an Einher. Thus, each and every hero in Mordenholt took up arms that day and fought valiantly against the greatest Einher to walk the surface of Arthos. There, in the middle of the greatest recorded shield wall, Revna and our heroes sent the High King to Valhalla.

After the funeral there was no doubt in anyone’s mind of who should be leading the Einish Clans. Each and every knee bent as Revna Mothersblood was crowned High Queen, and her first order was to call for the unification of her once-fractured people. The High Queen also promoted a local Jarl by the name Skarf Svansson of Clan Lofoten to the rank of Thegn, so that he might serve as one of her most trusted advisors.

Sunday, August 6th, 2265

Architect Proctor returned in the morning, gathering a smaller group for another expedition. This time he was accompanied by a Gnome who seemed interested in collecting objects that contained Daedalon’s memories on behalf of someone called “ZOG”. Those who went with them reported reliving a memory of Daedalon’s first trade school, where they were taught architecture, sewing, and fabric dying, assembling together a small house with a flag on it. When they left the memory, they were holding the house they’d built, and the Gnome left with it. A White Draconian named Jezreel also gave Daedalon a book as a gift while in the memory, which was mysteriously missing when they emerged.

With the Einher united, Mordenholt turned to face the real threat drawing closer by the hour; the Church of Light. Asher of the Dawn, Paladin to the Archbishop, sent trusted runners to Mordenholt declaring her intent to join them and turn on her former Cleric. She claimed to know the secrets of his downfall, but before our heroes could reach her, she was caught by the Church’s pursuing soldiers and ordered to be executed far behind enemy lines.

Only one force could travel there fast enough, and only one person could summon them. With the final words of the High King echoing in her ears, “A sacrifice must be made to lead the armies of Valhalla,” High Queen Revna Mothersblood asked for a willing sacrifice. One Einher man stood up and pledged himself and his spirit to her cause. His name was Vrael, and as Revna sounded the call from the Battlehorn that obliterated his body, a powerful cry of “Blood and Glory!” escaped his lips. And as the powerful blasts echoed, the land itself began to thrum and stir. Rising from the dirt and glowing green with the power of Valdr’s Celestial Heaven, the armies of the righteous dead appeared, led by none other than their newest general. Beside him, the former High King Thorson Bloodeye. With the armies of the righteous dead at their sides and with select spirits empowering the already potent mortal warriors that had gathered, the armies of the Church fell like wheat before the scythe. Together they liberated Asher from her captors, before handing her over to the Church of Darkness for interrogation. Asher was executed against the wishes of many once her interrogators felt they had the information that they needed, and was forced to resurrect in the Bastion of Light’s resurrection circle.

Shortly after that, Asher of the Dawn was taken under the protection of the Queen of Felnir, Seltia Allana. Thought to be dead by the hand of Roderick Hale months earlier, Seltia revealed that she had actually switched places with her consort. Their objective was never to bring Hale to justice, but rather it instead was to steal the enchanted Crown of Tiefanue; the same crown gifted by the first Gods of Light to the first Human King. She delivered this crown to Leopold, who had been besieged all weekend by the Church’s assassins.

To stop these constant attacks, members of the Thieves Guild tapped their underground information networks and found a mole placed deep within Leopold’s guard. They executed him and stopped the information leak that had been relaying the Prince’s whereabouts to the Church. They also successfully procured additional supplies from Hale’s camps, keeping some for themselves and redistributing the rest to Leopold’s forces.

Architect Proctor appeared alone for the third time, seeking those who had previously explored with him. This time he told those whom he could gather that they would be facing a test, and their reward for passing would be “revelation.” The adventurers who followed him found that the Church of Light and Pandoran Ice Elves had beaten them to their destination, but they were clever and quickly realized the nature of the test that was laid out before them. The adventurers sought to make peace with their enemies, and after the negotiations they revealed themselves to be Constructs wearing the ancient garb of Daedalon’s temple guardians.

Having passed the test, the adventurers made their way through the guarded gate and entered their final memory. The knowledge of what exactly occurred within those walls is uncertain to all, save that the screams and wails that emanated shook the very foundations of the fortress itself. When the adventurers returned, their faces were tear-stained but determined. Within themselves they carried with them the memory of Daedalon’s death, the knowledge of his final lesson, and several objects that he had carried to his to the end. Including, mysteriously, the book given to him in a previous memory.

That afternoon it was discovered by the interrogation of Asher that Hale was using the Black Wytch as some sort of regeneration or rebirth vessel. Asher also believed that Hale was either serving the Hell King, or that he was somehow the demonic entity himself. Thus, before our heroes could slay Hale, they must first slay the Black Wytch. However, her being the consort to the Hell King made killing her near impossible. As quickly as she was put down, her spirit would be vomited back from the Hellstack and returned to the mortal realm, freshly empowered with the lost spirits of the damned. If the adventurers were to have any chance at permanently ending her, mere death would not suffice. It would require a complete and total obliteration of her Grey Elven spirit.

Asher of the Dawn brought forward the idea that Leopold could use the Divine powers imbued within his crown. If he placed it on the head of the Wytch as she was regenerating, the backlash would obliterate her. She also stressed that this would kill the Prince. Not just kill him, but it would also obliterate his entire bloodline. Leopold made it clear that he was willing to sacrifice anything, including himself, if it meant stopping the King of Hell and the false Church of Light.

A rather odd-looking Elven stranger approached the Elves in town at that time. He called himself “Ichabod” and claimed to be the very same fallen Archangel of Ll’yandra mentioned in the most ancient Elven legends. He said that, “If you have an unkillable Elven Wytch, then you need an Elf killing tool. Free my brother the Mortigeist, and use him to kill the Wytch.” He then gave the Elves present a dozen white roses, which acted as magical foci that granted them passage through a celestial portal to the dungeons beneath Castle Lightguard. There they were free to decide if they wished to liberate the Mortigeist and save Leopold, or murder him and condemn the Tiefanese royal bloodline to erasure. Our Elven party did not free the Mortigeist and save Leopold. Instead, Thallan Ebonwalker, who was at that time a Favoured of Ll’yandra, chose to end the Mortigeist once and for all and free his kind from fear. With Darkshard in hand, he stabbed the chained, bound and defenseless fallen Angel repeatedly with his own spear for over ten brutal minutes. Ignoring the warnings of his Goddess to stop, he slayed the beast in its cell, and in doing so, was stripped of his Favour by the Mother of Elves. When the Mortigeist died, a mourning bell rang from within Ll’yandra’s Garden.

With the ultimate decision already made for them now, the mystics of Mordenholt gathered together in an attempt to summon the Black Wytch. She came, and it seemed that all of Hell rode with her. Her minions consisted of every type of Demon known to man, as well as mortal greenskin warriors from the Razor-Vine and Bar’Ghul Clans. Her words of power echoed across the battlefield, changing mortals into toads before summoning abyssal maws to swallow them up. In the end, our heroes prevailed, but only just. When the Black Wytch was put down, Leopold placed his crown upon her head, and spoke his final words to Arthos.

“I do this for my murdered brother, for my murdered father. For their fathers before them and their mothers’ mothers, and for all of Tiefanue. A Kingdom founded on the tenets of the Gods of Light. But I have learned in my time adventuring you do not need gods or higher powers to tell you to do the right thing. Each and everyone one of you has it in you to do what is right. Be good to each other.”

And with that said, the holy flames called forth by the crown utterly consumed them both, body and spirit.

Monday, August 7th, 2265

As the morning sun rose and the adventurers stirred from their beds, the Church of Light launched what was meant to be their final assault. Angered by what they saw as the corruption of their most revered Paladin and the obliteration of one of their most potent living weapons, Roderick Hale and his elite forces literally descended from the heavens. Protecting himself in a circle of what appeared to be Divine Magic, he called forth powerful blasts of Light to smite the adventurers while his soldiers waded into battle. Mighty as they were, his holy warriors did not prove to be a match for the electric band of misfits that had so consistently foiled his plans. The Archbishop was unwilling to accept the possibility that he might lose however, and instead he called forth a miracle of the heavens, causing his troops to rise once more, even after death had claimed them.

Again and again the forces of Mordenholt put down the corrupted Church of Light warriors, and Roderick Hale responded each time with the miracle of True Resurrection. However, upon the third use of this miracle, something seemed off. There was a pause then a giggle. A small one at first, but it grew ever louder. It was coming from Asher of the Dawn. Roderick Hale summoned every bit of magical power at his disposal and called forth a word of power that promised the complete obliteration of all those present upon the battlefield, but the spell’s energies harmlessly faded away as he desperately tried to control them. He tried to resurrect his troops twice more, and each time his spells failed to take effect. All the while, Asher kept laughing. And as she laughed, she turned her gaze towards the Archbishop, who stood confused and alone atop his tower.

Asher of the Dawn shouted to Hale, “You are a fool, mortal. You have always been a fool, and that is why I chose you to be my puppet. Your power comes, and always has come, from me. And I am the King of Hell.” Spreading her arms wide, she opened a plethora of rifts into the Hellstack, possessing the corpses of the Church of Light warriors with new and more powerful demonic hosts. Horns burst from skulls, muscles warped and skin was torn to shreds as these new demonic forms began to burst forth from their seeded corpses. Finally, addressing the town, she gloated, “Quite honestly I don’t even need to be here. You’ve done everything I needed you to do. You removed from Arthos the only thing that might have thwarted my plans. The Divine Crown, given to the first King of Tiefanue by the Gods of Light themselves had the power to do what you do not. Here, upon the graveyard of a Firstborn, that Divine Crown, destroyed or not, allows me to finally remove any semblance of Divinity from this mortal realm. Then my real work can begin.” She then summoned her power and for a brief moment, her image changed. The small diminutive Wood Fae shifted as reality broke around her. For a moment the true visage of the Hell King was seen and it almost drove all mortal minds to madness, brief though it was. The sky turned red and the ground shook as the Hell King’s magics combined the bones of the Firstborn Daedalon with the Deep Magic of the broken crown and incanted, “By Ancient Craft, by What is Mine. I Sever Arthos, Gods Divine.”

The world shattered as every connection to the Celestial Realm across Arthos was severed. She then opened a final hellrift and began to step through, but paused for a moment and looked back at the adventures arrayed before her. “I am looking for a new Wytch though. If you desire true power, seek my gaze.” And with those final words said, the Hell King disappeared through the portal.

As the Severance took hold, those with Divine spells cast upon their spirits, or those who were Favoured by the Divine, dropped dead. However, despite over half of their number being suddenly executed, not all hope was lost. From the distance a glowing orange light filled the area and warmth enveloped all those who were present there. The leaders of the rebel Bastions came in their dozens, showing their true versions of their fallen Angelic forms. Their connection to the Divine Planes was not cut like the others, perhaps because of their unique status as failed Celestial beings. Those mortals that had died found themselves brought back to life by their power, and those that had lost their connection to their God, found it reaffirmed so long as they stayed within close proximity to one of the fallen. Bastion Leader Elija Quintrell moved to the side of Seltia, the Queen of Felnir, and nodded while other Bastion leaders then opened up Celestial passages that lead back to their respective homes. Seltia then called those who were present to attention and spoke the following words. “If this Divine Severance has happened across all of Arthos, then we are needed. The situation does indeed look very grim, but know that I will stand with you, and that I will fight for what is good and just. Soon I will lead my forces to Castle Lightguard to remove any remaining members of Hale’s false church. Go now to your homes and aid those who need it. We will rebuild.”

It then came to town’s attention that the protective barriers around Roderick Hale had fallen. The man that was once the leader of the entire Whiteraven Alliance, fell to his knees grovelling, “I did not know. I did what I thought was right. Please, I beg for mercy.”

It was not shown.

He did not resurrect.

Aftermath

The crowds have departed and peace once again settles upon the town of Mordenholt. Amidst the mist-laden forest nearby, a lone Einher stumbles upon a scene of tragedy. His weathered boots crunch softly upon the damp earth as he approaches a lifeless form before him. A delicate creature, unmistakably Elven, lays sprawled amidst the foliage. He knew this Elf by look and reputation and was shocked to see her body so brutally murdered. This was Enna Summerlark, Favoured Paladin of Ll’yandra.

Hearing a noise the Einher backs away and into the cover of a small bush. From the blood-soaked ground around the fallen Paladin, white roses began to bloom. A strange hooded Elf, with golden veins upon his face, makes his entrance known as he slowly walks to the body. Bending down, hand pressed to Enna’s chest, he channels. A small object, green in colour, levitated to his hand. To the Einher it looked like a shard of glowing stone. Cupping the shard in both hands the strange Elf breathes onto it. Its colour changes from green to red then slowly descends back into her lithe Elven frame. He bends lower still, leaning into the dead Elf’s ear and whispers with a voice like ice, “You shall be the first of my chosen.”

The Elf’s body began to stir.