The players have freed the river god near their settlement from his dementia, by eradicating the Wyld zone at the mouth of the river. Unfortunately, by doing this, they have revealed a first age city that has remained unlooted that is only some six hundred kilometers from the Realm, a nation of 100 million people and nearly a million artifact hungry Dragon Blooded. (The game designers are horrible at math and population math, so I tinkered with a spreadsheet and the numbers of dragon blooded at year one to figure out that ten thousand exalts was way too low, even a million was low, but… you have to draw a line somewhere.). So now things have changed. I am giving the characters two month sabbatical in the city of Rathess to let things stew a little. In this two month space things will develop greatly. The Solars fighting in the Slave Coast will have many impressive victories, but at the cost of creating mystical disasters, each battle site opens up a new Shadowland in the area. Only three locations are free from these effects, the player's home base that is very solidly anchored in Creation, the First Age City, as it has a Wyld zone and a gate to Yu-Shan which protects it from shadowlands to some degree, and Nowhere, where the Cult of the Illuminated is based, but this is mostly because the Black Sun thinks he is still a secret. The Practitioner just built his first Manse and he will want to come back and retrieve its hearthstone, but when he does he will be in for a surprise, it is now deep in a Shadowland and the manse is now Abysally aligned and the hearthstone is gone.
Ayed the Solar general has been engaging the Tepet Legions in many battles all over the land, using sorcery to move his troops quickly, often putting them in the field twice in one day and making the legions retreat to a central location. It worked better than he could have thought. The result was that in an unplanned battle, the Tepet Legion General, Tepet Arada, was surprised and only barely escaped capture, with great personal loss. Unknown to Ayed, part of the reason for the quick capitulation of Tepet forces is that the Black Sun has put three legions in the field as well, with over fifteen Death Knights and they have been aiding Ayed with out his knowledge. They have also staged attacks on the individual Slave States and have created many more shadowlands. All that remains is for the battles to link the shadowlands and then Marama's Fell will double in size.
Additionally, the Black Sun is working with the Infernals to destroy the Holy Road from Whitewall. When this happens, he will finally reveal himself to Creation and the Realm as a Deathlord a little more scary and a better planner than Mask of Winters, who only took one city; the Black Sun took an entire direction.
This is my point. The players have known about a mysterious force in Marama's Fell for months, nearly a year, but decided to ignore it. At their own peril. They have not been standing still, though. They have secured two cities in Creation. Nexus is theirs, if they are smart it will remain that way and they can possibly be in a position to tame Rathess and hold it even stronger than they hold Nexus. The Practitioner is getting closer to wielding Solar Circle Sorcery, and the bane to Shadowlands, but the north will be creating more shadowlands at a 2:1 rate that he can destroy them. And the Black Sun will hold the Slave States of, Amber River, Serrat, and Inhalja with their some nineteen million slaves. Then he will threaten Whitewall and then nothing will stand in his way to devour the entire north. After the north falls he will secure his hold and then push into the East and the Realm. All it really takes is to push troops onto the realm and commit a few atrocities and open the Realm's first Shadowland. Hopefully after sucking thousands of dragon blooded into the North first, then sending them back as agent provocateurs.
The City will fall first, then Nowhere and the Cult of the Illuminated, then lastly the space where the Sword of Creation hit, where Somewhere Else sits.
There has been one glitch. I invited a long time friend to join the game and he has been a disruptive influence. Well truthfully, he has just been disruptive. Argumentative and pissy. Truthfully I dropped the ball; I had hoped that he and his wife would meet new people and have fun, but I forgot that he likes to cheat and push the boundaries and needs to be in control and if he is not he will actively try to sabotage the game. I recently told him he could recreate his character and he did so, making it more general and weaker while at the same time ignoring my guidelines for his redo. He thinks he pulled one over my eyes, but maybe that, will make him a better team player. But I suspect that he will realize that he made a weaker character and start to complain again. Truth fully, the party likes his wife and enjoys playing with her. I told them if we voted him out of the game, she would go too, so I gave him this chance. Which he basically flouted and slapped me in the face with. He thinks he is saving the game for me. He is in fact jeopardizing his friendship with me.
On the other hand, my girlfriend and I just celebrated a year together and I asked her if she wanted to revive her character that she played once ten months ago. She wants to spend more time with me and she is wavering. I told her that she would have benefits for sleeping with the GameMaster. The benefits are that her character will have been made into a combat monster by Ayed in an attempt to churn out generals to fight against the Tepet Legions. The result is a character who is combat heavy and although a Zenith Caste, few social abilities, but a total kick ass warrior. Her new history will include battles where she routed forces that had her at ten to one disadvantages in numbers. Moreover, she is Tia, so she is also the Solar admiral as well and has defeated many in naval battles too. My entire point is that my friend did not specialize his character in one combat type and made his character weak by doing that, her character can obliterate foes ten times as fast as his updated character could, because her character would be a war specialist. Same essence same basic advantages, most of her points in non warrior areas, he character could launch eight full attacks for every single attack he made. Against a very tough foe that is impervious to all damage she would be able take it down in seconds and he would be impotent.
I might be sabotaging the game for my old friend, but he thinks his character creating ability is superior to mine and he is disrupting the game so much that I just want to show him up sometimes. I know, childish.
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