Ardna Campaign Journal

For fun, I though I’d list the best possible goals for the heroes of our campaign.

Rumil
Rumil uncovers the plot against him in time to stop it, salvaging his reputation. He is able to convince the people of the Silverlode to help him free his own people, and gains the Savior Template. He settles down and is happy.

Heie
Heie uncovers his own past and uses it as a bridge to his future. He manages to make himself a powerful alternative voice for the Elven people, not obsessed with the past nor possessed by corruption. In that way, he becomes a leader for the rebellion.

Kalam
Kalam gets his war, and destroys the greatest evil the world has ever seen before it can raise its scaly head. Then, he helps himself to some of that power vacuum left behind. We need to design a new Template for what he might become.

Regis
Regis becomes the Master of Disguise, a spy master with a network so elaborate that he actually has dirt on all the up and coming figures in the world of Ardna. He avoids his past and concentrates on his future.

Jamie
Jamie finds her faith while she founds a new faith, bringing the Ways of Micha, of prosperity for all, to the world. It is a freeing new religion and way of life that allows people to do and be whatever they want to be. She unlocks the mystery of her eye, and finds more power then she can fathom. Modifying the Saint template to be a Demigod one, we can make her the Mary Magdalene of Ardna.

Fiamme
He becomes the steward of the new Tower, and leads the Elves to victory. He too gains a Savior template, and becomes the ultimate embodiment of elf kind. Fiamme might be a founding member of his own society, and thousands of years from now adventurers will be having quests based on retrieving his old staff.

Strikeland
Strikeland delivers a fatal blow to Elven kind, riding the world of that foul race once and for all. He gains the Race Bane template and may actually become a full human.

Vorin
Vorin may finally get the Dwarves the hell out of the Wall and busy them with the rest of the world, where dark secrets lay buried, waiting to bite them in the ass. If Vorin goes to Safeholm he may find the path to become a Death Guardian, if he turns his attention to the monsters that started this war, he may become a Lord of Retribution.

Willbrand
Tossed between two extremes, Willbrand will either become a fallen angel or vindicated devil – literally. His birthright begins to seep through not just when he is in a temple, but within his everyday life. His love life catches up with him and he gain the completely made up Love Machine prestige class.

Varen
Varen is lost in his dreams forever, but may find away to free himself for small periods of time. Varen is a Warden of the Wood, but there are many things in this world that exist beyond the pale. Varen becomes a Gardener in the Gates of Wonderland, tending to beasts of the world of fairie, of the place beyond the yellow brick road.

Rumil’s Dream

Rumil has been traveling for a long time now; so much so he has learnt to sleep while he walks.  He left his home looking for peace, and found nothing but the lies of the western men.  He returned home looking for answers, and found nothing but mystery and death waiting for him.  Now he is traveling again, hoping to find the answers he seeks and help the people who have no one else left to save them.

In his dreams, the beauty of the lake will not leave him alone.  She is made of fire and water and she fills his heart and mind with questions that do not have answers, but Rumil now knows this: she is evil.  She is a fairy or a figment, so left over deviltry of the land he was raised in, an ifrit that will not leave him be.

All those he has met in life have been filled with the madness of lies.  He traveled with crooks that masqueraded as nobles, and traveled with nobles that acted as bandits.  He has courted peasant girls that turned out to be queens and fairies that turned out to be devils.  What Rumil seeks is a simple life, he wants only aid for his own people, but he knows now that he has dared too much.  Perhaps mortals should not try to change their own fates.  Perhaps this is Rumil’s punishment for leaving home and trying to change what was inevitable.

For now, Rumil walks, and hopes that one day he will have truth.

What’s going to happen:

Rumil is at a crossroads once again.  He had traveled back and forth across the world looking for answers, and now realizes they can’t be found in any location.  Rumil must make a stand and do something real – and never allow the actions of others dictate what he is or is to become.  People have used Rumil as a pawn long enough, either as one of the Tom, Dick and Harry club, or as a “ambassador” to Silverlode, or as a forced guide through the desert – and Rumil has always allowed it because he felt he could do good so long as he toted the party line just a little be longer.  Well, Rumil is about to find out what happens when you “just play along” for too long.

What’s at stake:

This might be the end for Rumil… at least as we know him.  If he doesn’t stop this horrible war from happening or at least try to take a stand against it, he will lose much of what he gained in the past few years.  Now, this may not be an entirely bad thing.  Rumil has been a mask for awhile now, and he may not care that this is happening – but if so then he must make peace with the fact that he was an unwitting stooge for a plot that will hurt many people.  Rumil must also think about what he can possible do to save his own kind.  Will he be smart and make those lemons into lemonade, or will he simply leave once again in a desperate (but futile) attempt to find himself?

Heie’s Dream

Heie is on the hunt, tracking an enemy through the darkening woods. He knows this enemy is deadly, for why else would his commander have sent him out to capture it in the failing light of dusk. Heie does not remember his life in the past; Heie has no hope for the future; Heie is on the hunt and that is all that matters.

The boughs of the trees sway, but there is no wind. His enemy is here. Heie draws his own bow, and stares down the shaft of his arrow into the bushes that conceal his prey and beyond.

His vision narrows, defined, like a spot light. He sees not the wood, but the city he protects, the city of the Silverlode. He sees the streets, the turrets, and the proud wall – and walking along it inspecting his work, Heie’s Master Commander. It does not occur to Heie that he is staring at his leader through the sights of his own bow; he has no worry that he will be spotted as a traitor or that this would be interpreted as a sign of attack. He seems so clearly now. There is no past, no future. Only the present. Only the target.

Heie watches as his Commander Fiamme walks his rounds, and sees, for a moment, the confidence he once admired in his fellow elf’s face fade and become replaced by a new look. A look of madness. Of obsession. Heie’s instinct as an elven archer fail, and he blinks. When his eyes open he sees nothing but a mangy Orc sitting in his own filth; half mad in his own right and stinking of the dead.

Heie fires and kills the beast, but wonders if he missed his true target.

What’s going to happen:

Heie has had long doubts about Fiamme, and those will be put to the test very soon. Heie will have to decide where his places his loyalties and what he wishes from this life. The elven people are his people – but is this the right way to help them? Does he want to uncover the mystery of his past, or would he rather not know?

What’s at stake:

Heie’s status as a character in his own right. So far, Heie has only ever seen the others do great things has be involved in great things – he has not yet taken control of his own destiny. This will be Heie’s greatest moment, a time where he may help decide the fate of the world. If he chooses to sit back and take orders this time around, he may end up being nothing more then a cohort to an elf gone mad with ambition.

Kalam’s Dream

Kalam sleeps on the floor of his room, his body unused to the warmth and comfort of his bed, his spirit refusing the instinct to roost in a pile of gold.  Sunlight washes the color out of all he can see, replacing it with a blinding brilliance he both longs for and despises.  This is the land of his people, or more accurately, this is the land his people were allowed by the strange and distant tyrant Kalam should have known as “father”.

Kalam sees a shadow fall across the land, but amazingly, even in this land of toiling sun, the people are not relieved by this.  They are more frightened then ever.  The shadow weighs them down, demands tribute from them – steals their women.

And the shadow is ever growing.  The spreads from the desert to the forest to the accursed sea – soon the world is overtaken by it.  The people try to flee but there is no where to run, and Kalam knows this.  Kalam knows this and has prepared.

He has built himself a fire to ward off the dark.  He must stoke the flames with all that he holds dear – wealth and prosperity, lost loves and fallen comrades, the bodies of the innocent – all so that the rest can have some defense against the coming dark.

And he is winning.  The fire is growing, the dark is shrieking back to the desert.  Soon it will be caught between Kalam’s fire and the rising sun.

And no one can stop it now.

What’s going to happen:

Kalam’s mad gamble is soon to pay off – he knows that war is the only sure way to punish and destroy a being so evil that not even death itself could stop him.  Kalam is not pleased that this is the way things had to be, but neither is he naïve enough to believe that there were peaceful ways of dealing with such a monster.  This had been Kalam’s fate since the day he discovered what he is, and what his father is – and Kalam must do what needs to be done.

What’s at stake:

Again, everything.  A misstep at this point will leave Kalam as a second string bad guy never able to make a real ripple in the world again.  If he is found out as a conspirator, he’d likely just be killed (or at least hunted).  If he can’t get his war off the ground, he may be able to salvage something, but certainly nothing reaching the levels of revenge he has now.

The Hydra are a tool.  The Silverlode is a tool.  His friends are tools.  And all designed for one task – removing a great evil from the world at the risk of everything.

Regis’s Dream

Regis is sleeping in a field of grass, many miles from worry, doubt, and fear.  He feels small and warm and comfortable in his place in the world – but subtly that begins to change.  He can feel himself slithering along the ground, without hands or feet or arms or legs – just a face that’s looking at the world from mere inches off the earth itself.  The grace around him is a forest; a puddle as deep as a lake.  The world is growing or he is shrinking – he can not tell which – and he risks loosing all perspective as the world changes before him.

He has suddenly become aware.  Regis has seen much in his short life, so much that he mind has failed him in the task of comprehending it all.  There is a cold blind spot behind him, a place he can shed no light upon   Before him is still more darkness, with strange tall figures walking around it; reveling in it.  There is a half lizard man counting gold while filing his dagger, a half demon going out of his mind.  There is a golden woman sleeping on a couch made of crying people, and she is ignorant to their pleas.  There are more figures in the darkness, too many to focus on – and so, like his own past, they dissolve away, never revealing their secrets to him.

But Regis knows that this will not be the case forever.  He seems a light coming, a shining, fierce, horrible light – destined to uncover all that wants to remain hidden.  Now Regis must decide – does he remain in shadow or does he face the light and risk going blind.

What’s going to happen:

Regis has learned a lot about life these past few months of adventuring, but he has been an outsider all this time.  Soon, Regis will find out what his place in all this might mean, and he’ll have to decide if he wants to follow it – or remain just another amnesiatic stain in a world filled with pointless, plotless, meaningless characters.

What’s at stake:

Regis’s position as a real character, not just a low level cohort the other party members hoodwinked along the way.  Many have fallen short of this task, and many more will do so in the future.  If Regis digs hard enough and doesn’t rely on plot and destiny – he can intertwine his life in the pages of the lives of the people that seem to matter to this crazy world.

Jamie’s Dream

Once again, Jamie must suffer through the strange sensation of sleeping in a bed alone.  Since she first took to the road not so long ago, she has seem to gather the strangest of companions, never interested in anything more then adventure and exploration; always turning a blind eye to her.

And so, restless, lonely, bored – Jamie must decide, yet again, what she is to do with her life.  Perhaps spend some time in Blackwood with that charming old coot and run up a large jewelry bill with him, or perhaps go south and explore more of the civilized world before it is gone.

But then her sleeping mind wanders to the streets of the place she has come to find herself; the Silverlode.  She can not force the image from her mind – the strange idol of a golden man in a fountain, so peaceful, so happy, so perfectly proportioned.  She would not even charge him for a night’s worth of passion if he were real.

Well, probably not.

And the image remains, and the temples remain, and the people of the Silverlode remain in her mind as she contemplates her next journey.  But perhaps this is the answer?  Perhaps this is where she can make her mark?  Many of these people have no leader, no true temple, no reason for existing – just the remains of a faith in danger of disappearing in the wind.  Those people that play at politics behind their closed doors don’t care anything for the people; they just care about their positions and whether or not they will still be there in the morning.  But Jamie has true faith, or at least the seed of it, and she can show the people a better way while simultaneously learning more about herself.  Consider it self-exploration without all the messy cleanup afterwards.

A sharp stinging wakes Jamie from her sleep.  Again, there is a very real pain in her eye, as if it wants to pull itself straight from her head.  Jamie is well aware that the eye was not her own, but she had grown attached to it over time, and was damned sure she wanted to keep it.  It’s a shame that she was awoken too; for she had this uncanny feeling that she was about to see someone from the distant past, someone she had thought was long gone.

The strange thing was – she wasn’t entirely certain she’d be happy to see them.

What’s going to happen:

Jamie has no idea that a war is coming and at this point may not entirely care.  She also has little vested interest in the politics of the Silverlode, so long as they are not completely evil (which there is no sign that it is).  However, Jamie should be very interested in the religion that seemed to be central to the people of this town at one point, and also seems to be very similar to the being that granted Jamie her powers through the magic eye she possesses.  If Jamie is to uncover anything about the faith of this place, she must put her foot down and do so – refusing to waste any more time on matters that don’t concern her.  The Hydra Spawn situation has proven to her that if she does not take initiative on matters that are vital to her, she is basically giving permission for a bunch of retards to take over.  The party may have settled for not getting a cure to the Spawn curse, but Jamie is not happy that her body is, in a way, no longer totally in her own control.  She must make a stand or risk becoming somebody’s cohort – not a person in her own right.

What’s at stake:

The temple of Micha is not a popular one in Ardna, there are few places that worship him so openly or commonly.  If Jamie does not take steps to associate herself with it or with the basic teachings of this temple, she will never find another sign of the spiritual being that has given her the powers associated with her eye.  It would be like Indiana Jones deciding to skip this Arch of the Covenant so that he can find the next one leaving town.

This is Jamie’s chance to decide what she wants for herself and then go after it.  If she fails here, she will never uncover the truth behind her eye/faith, never know which figure from the past has returned, and never rid herself of the Hydra Spawn.

Fiamme’s Dream

The Tower reaches up triumphantly to the heavens, reborn by your efforts, rebuilt from the ashes of the old.  Fiamme dreams of his great successes and of those yet to come; when alas all of the Elven world comes to gather around this new home, and peace and prosperity returns at last to the land.

The men are there too, and the halflings, gnomes, and dwarves.  They come to celebrate the return of the glorious to glory.  The green folk are there as well, and they are not in chains nor there as servants – for by the aid of the fair folk they had freed themselves from the savagery and hated that perverted their simple minds.  They are now standing alongside the other races of the world, standing and looking up to the elves on high.

But there are those that would not be satisfied even with bliss.  A wild woman, not an elf although she appears as one to the eye, riling up the crowd with her jeers and taunts and her mad music playing.  She screams with delight as chaos reigns.  Her music threatens to bring the wall down.

Fiamme draws his sword and descends the Tower, ready to squash this once and for all.

What’s going to happen:

At this point, Fiamme has everything he ever wanted slowly coming to fruition.  His wall is built, his tower is coming, and his people have arrived and are being treated as liberators.  He has no idea why the Orc are becoming evil; and he does not care.  Everything has played perfectly in his plans, and if Kalam insists on making a war, well, all the better to prepare the people to face the very real evils that are amassing against all that is good in Ardna.  Bring it on.

However, there are those that are not simply going to stand by and watch Fiamme’s plans succeed.  If Xandra turns people against Fiamme or elves in general, if Strikeland attacks, if Kalam goes mad, if Willbrand or Rumil uncover the origin of the war… if anything disturbs his plans he must be able to stand in and fix them.  If he is not able to adjust – all might be lost.

What’s at stake:

Everything Fiamme has built so far.  It would not be impossible for an enemy to undermine Fiamme’s operation and bring that tower down upon his head.  Plus, Fiamme wants no forced allegiance to the Hydra Spawn, and if he relies on other people to find the way out of it for him, he may never be free from it.

Strikeland’s Dream

Strikeland is young and innocent and full of life. He has no idea what he is or why he may look different then the other children; all he knows is his mother’s love and that is enough for him.

But soon enough Strikeland is a young boy, eager to go off and explore the world outside his mother’s cabin door. First it is to the stream and then to the neighbor’s field, until at last he has met others of what he thinks are his kind.

They too are children, but they are older then he. They see him and whisper to each other, pointing at Strikeland’s ears, his hair, his face. They laugh. Then they throw stones. That was the first fight Strikeland was ever in, and it was the last time he did not try to defend himself.

As he grew to a young teen, he saw more of people. He saw how the farmers and workmen treated his mother, barring her from a life amongst them as an equal. The old landowners leveled taxes against her, treated their family as if they were stray dogs. Strikeland would be whipped if he even passed near a farm that was not his own. They said he’d taint the crops.

But it wasn’t until he was older that Strikeland saw the first of the fair race that was half his birthright. They entered the town as princes; without speaking a word they somehow demanded to be treated as royalty – and despite the prejudice and hatred he knew was in the heart of the men and women of his home – they could not help but treat these fair strangers as kings.

It was then that Strikeland realized what was wrong. He was nothing like the men and women of his village; he was meant to be like these fair folk, the better half of his lineage. He hated that his blood was mingled; he hated his mother for what she was and what she had given him by way of her flesh. She had diluted someone who was meant to be great.

Strikeland remembered the day he approached the fair strangers as they left the town, their business there finally concluded. He had dressed himself and presented himself as best as his meager funds could manage. He tried to be like them on the outside so that they could see the fellow countryman that was on the inside.

But, it was not meant to be. When they laid eyes on him they retracted in horror. Strikeland was confused, disorientated, he wanted nothing more then to be accepted as the good and glorious being he felt it was his destiny to be. But the fair strangers would not sully their eyes to look at him any further. As they turned to leave, only one remained long enough to explain why.

“The people with whom you have been raised look away from you in jealously; for they will never be as great as you already are,” said the stranger, “But we look away from you in shame; for you are will always be less then you could have been.”

And with that, he was off.

Strikeland knows why the Tower fell. The elves did not deserve their place. They are not so fair, not so good, not so just. They called down their own destruction, and that is the only proof that there is justice in this world.

Strikeland, humiliated, subjugated, laughing stock of the world, of the gods, of every party he has ever belonged to – Strikeland the Half Elf – crawls into a town, again in search of redemption. But instead of finding faith, he finds an elf. An elf who is rebuilding the Tower on the back of humanity – that so-called lesser race that shamed him so long ago.

What’s going to happen:

Strikeland has been crushed by the world for too long, and something must give. He sees the Tower being rebuilt, and can not resolve this with the new faith he is trying to develop. This is not justice, this is not retribution, this is unfair. Strikeland must act now or forever be left behind, a mad, gibbering, useless fool – screaming about invisible monsters that he does nothing to try and stop.

What’s at stake:

Strikeland. Simply put, Strikeland can not be in this situation and not have his character fundamentally changed. Strikeland must act here, do something, or risk losing the very things that make him who he is. You can’t swear your life to fighting the Nazi’s and then sit down to dinner with Hitler without making a move.

Vorin’s Dream

Vorin sleeps fitfully in an overly soft bed of human make.  His body is accustomed to the harshness of his Temple’s stone slabs, meant to keep the sleeper aware and to silence any temptation for the softer aspects of life.  It had been long since Vorin had left his home in the Wall to head south for answers, and he was now ready to give up the small amount of hope he had for this land.

So far he had traveled with a group that willingly sold themselves into the service of their enemy, the Council of Ten.  Then, on a trip to escort a friend to a local town, he found himself unwillingly enthralled by their politics and unwittingly ensnared into their Cult of Revenge, the Hydra.  The Hydra… such promise there, but still…

Now, certain rumors have come to his attention.  The place the humans call Safeholm is near, to the south, in a land they call Four Points.  And, to sweeten the deal, the woods between this town of Silverlode and the direction he must make for Safeholm is filled with the undead – Orcs driven mad and possessed by spirits of darkness.  At last, something to test his mace upon!

In dreams Vorin resolves himself to leave as soon as the morning breaks.  He will head south, clearing the wood of monsters as he goes, resuming his quest for Safeholm and hope for his people.  He tries to squash the worry growing in his stomach, the strange aching feeling that tells him there is some vital, unfinished business left in the Silverlode for him to accomplish.  These are just the usual worries one has before he takes to the road, he tells himself; though he knows in his heart of hearts it isn’t true.

At last he dreams, he dreams of being frozen alive, cased in ice forever and ever, trapped beneath the mountain stone.  It is a dream more like a memory and he wonders why.

What’s going to happen:

Vorin has no idea a war is coming and doesn’t care about the politics of this city – so long as there are no overt signs of great evil taking place there (which, there isn’t).  Vorin has discovered a way to Safeholm, but without Willbrand, he had only hints on where to go.  Also, with Willbrand gone, Vorin has lost the one soul he could have saved.

Vorin will try to leave the Silverlode.  He will try to continue his quest to find Safeholm and he will try to remove the menace of undead Orc, but inside him he realizes that the only real answers to either of these mysteries can only be found in the Silverlode.  There are people in the Silverlode that have actually BEEN to Safeholm.  There are people in the Silverlode that are actually INVESTIGATING the phenomenon that have plagued this town.  If Vorin decides to leave (or stays, is NPCed, and acts like a casual observer) he may blame himself for whatever it is that happens without him making a stand against it.

Worst still, great enemies are amassing from the past, coming ever closer.

What’s at stake:

Vorin’s spiritual destiny.  Depending on the results of Vorin having left/run away/stood there and done nothing – Vorin will likely blame himself for inaction.  With the effect of the Hydra Spawn, this can result in a downward spiral which he may never recover from.

Willbrand’s Dream

Willbrand rides hard on his way back to the Silverlode, his head ringing with what the strange halfling told him in the Tavern at the End of the World.  If Willbrand wanted order in his life, if he wanted control – he would have to wrestle it away from the Fates himself.  There is no use in running away from the world, it will always be there under your feet until you are buried beneath it – the only thing a man can do is try to change his lot in life; try and take control.

Willbrand earned the Silverlode.  Without him, the town would have been sacked by the undead, torn apart by snake spirits, and left to rot in the high winds of the cliffs it calls home.  Without Willbrand’s plan for the city, there would be no government, no academy, and no hope.  Without Willbrand the rest of his so-called party would still be taking adventures off the wall at the local inn.  Willbrand earned the Silverlode, more then any silly little girl (and supposed queen).  And it did not escape Willbrand’s that Dante, that devil, was the one that found her and put her in her position of power.  Willbrand earned the Silverlode, and if he was truly no longer needed, he would bow out gracefully, but keep the academy trusted to him.  But if Willbrand could prove the deception he knows is behind Dante’s little trick, he’ll rip control of the Silverlode back from that fat little noble’s dagger riddled corpse.

More so, Willbrand had long been growing suspicious of his long time companion, the stranger Kalam.  Stranger… this man, in more ways then one, was like a brother to Willbrand.  They shared the road, they shared camp, and for a time they shared rule over a kingdom.  They founded the Hydra together; their own family where the two of them shared the role of father.  But there was something forever distant about this foreigner from the east, and this man who would be kin was changing every day.  True, Kalam was like a brother to Willbrand, but then again Willbrand didn’t have such great luck with his actual brother-by-blood…

So, Willbrand rides hard, rides fast, and rides without rest.  But as he heads west to the Silverlode, he feels the heat of an intolerable sun at his back, rising slowly, steadily, mercilessly from the east.  He does not turn to face it, for he knows it is no sun, it is a fire – a holocaust – and there is no outrunning it.

What’s going to happen:

Willbrand has been whining about what he wants to do with his life for a very long time.  Now, more then ever, he is on the brink of making that ultimate decision, and then doing whatever it takes to make sure it comes true.  Does it mean forcing order into his life, or does he relinquish everything and return to the life of a chaotic swashbuckling adventurer?  Does he wrestle control of the gang that he created, or let it become the plaything of yet another unknowable mystic beast?  Does he demand leadership of the academy he helped found, or does he abandon it to partners less deserving and more incompetent then he could ever dream?

What’s at stake:

Willbrand’s alignment – Chaotic like his blood demands, or Lawful in rebellion to his destiny

Willbrand’s alignment part 2 – Good and god fearing like he is trying to be, or the Devil that is waiting to be born from being kicked out of heaven so many fucking times.

Control of the Hydra – Is the Hydra spawn actually a good thing?  Can Will save the Hydra from the taint that followed Kalam and his friend’s so-called Magus ally?

Control of the Academy – The Order trusts Willbrand with this task, and the land never belonged to the Silverlode to begin with.  Why should he leave?

Control of the Silverlode – He rebuilt the government and saved the city.  If the queen is a lie, he should have the city, if she is not a lie, then he should have payment.