4 months has passed since Yeenoghu died. At lot of things has happened. The Swords have been given a lot more land, and Dorak renamed Glaerthil, Home of the Swords in ancient draconic.
Glaerthil swells to 20.000 people almost, with Drahar holding on at around 35.000 now, with all the loses of the war.
Gnoguh: Several merchant princes and merchants and nobles wants to marry off their daughters
Torn: Lots of apprentices want to apply for apprenticeship. Dorak/Glaerthil has built Torn a wizard tower.
Carric: A big push for Carric to become high priest of the church of Kord
Truxas: Spends a lot of time in the Feywild, being michiveous about it.
Overall, it's a prosperous time for the Swords. The one day, someone shows up at their door, telling it is time. They are given a scroll of Planar Portal and the sigil code to Sigil (pun intended).
Arriving in Sigil, the Swords make their way through the Cage with the help of a lantern-guide. Arriving at the Horny Devil, they meet up with Odu Messa, just as they were told to by Bane.
Sitting in the back room, is a humanoid fox who presents himself as Odu Messa.
Odu Messa has a lot of things to tell.
In the beginning of times, the 9 gods of creation made the world. Somewhere in between the mortal worlds and the Astral Sea, these 9 gods create a divine focus (the Divine Source) for their power, and using said focus, they shape the world, as it is.
Time passes, and over time, something causes the ancient gods to become inattentive, lax, or to simply no longer care for the world. Maybe their attention was drawn towards something else.
At this point, man, elf and other humanoid races are numerous, but live primitive lives.
Then an interplanetary race of brain-eaters find their way to the world, quickly taking it over, expanding their already plane-spanning empire.
After years of misery, slavery etc, the humanoid races are just about completely broken. Their ancient gods seem to have left them, and without their help, there is little the races can do against the might of the mindflayers.
Then, during man’s darkest hour, the gods return, along with the fabled dragons! Together they battle the mindflayer empire, causing man (and elf etc) to rise up and fight with them. But these are not the ancient gods, but instead Usurper gods who have trapped the weakened ancient gods somewhere, and stolen their symbols.
The Usurper gods and dragons win, the mindflayers flee either to other planes, or deep deep undercover… err underground.
Time passes, empires rise and fall, and the new gods cement their position. Thousands of years later, the primordials, other ancient beings of power, rise up to battle the new gods, but lose. Some go dormant, while others are changed to demon princes.
The usurper gods leave the world of man, heading to the Astral Sea, to protect the source of their power, in case the ancient gods should find a way back from their prison.
The world goes peaceful again, with gods battling for mankind’s attention, empires rising and falling etc.
Even more year passes.
The ancient gods, while dead, are not without resources. When they died, divine sparks fell down all over the world and infused places, items and creatures with the divine potential. For example, most exarches of the usurper gods are creatures with the divine spark.
So, in order to fix the world, the Swords just have to find the Divine Source and shut it down, and then kill the weakened gods, which will make the current exarches (like Kord) become the new de facto gods.
Odu Messa knows all this because the divine spark is stronger in some exarches, making them remember such things. Bane remembers some, and Asmodeus remembers more.
Odu Messa is Asmodeus...
Asmodeus also reveals that he has been researching the Draconic Prophecy and that Xarkos is the only clue he can give the Swords.
The Swords leave Asmodeus and start researching Xarkos. They find some ancient tomes that speak of a cult of Xarkos, the cult of blood. Using old maps and directions in the tomes, they find a portal to an unknown place in the mortal world, where there should be a temple where Xarkos used to be worshiped about a 1000 years earlier.
Much to their collective surprise, the temple is not empty. In fact, worshippers of Xarkos are in the middle of sacrifizing a elven maid when the Swords enter the temple.
The worshippers are quickly killed, and suddenly the Swords find themselves facing Xarkos himself, who in turn appears to be a 3000 year old vampire with connections to the church of the Shadow.
After much talking and debating, the Swords find out of quite a few things about Xarkos.
Xarkos was part of the Church of the Shadow back in the day, and he was also a part of a team sent to steal a ritual from the Church of Luna - a ritual that allows you to enter the memories and mind of anyone - even a god.
In order for the Swords to get knowledge of where the hiding place of one half of the ritual is, they do need to do Xarkos a favor. Kill of some vampires who have taken up shop in the Hive, and are drawing way too much attention to their feeding habits.
Ingen kommentarer:
Send en kommentar