Brazen Wolfe Tabletop

Part 3 – The Shadows Throne

Same as the walls with the addition of Shadow Born Ogre and Shadows Avatar.

The Shadow is very selective in who it trusts and loans its power to. This Ogre through sheer strength, malice and willingness to spread the shadows corruption was one of the favoured ones. Engaging the party quickly and with great sweeping blows I would set his initiative to 15 and keep it there. The shadow didn’t just bless this brute with more strength and shadow infused blows but with a cunning intellect. It knows when its in trouble and will act accordingly. Willing to grab, grapple and hold hostages this should be a tough warmup fight.

Fast, intelligent, charismatic and having the ability to induce fear upon the entire party this is a mean creature. Immune to damage unless magical or dealing radiant damage this will take some chunking before it goes away.

Having a unarmed attack that can turn into a free grapple is good, as a legendary action it can help make this creature feel stronger and more imposing that it should. The scimitar is also quite strong with its strength drain ability. Party members will start to fear this attack if the fight goes on too low as instant death is a rare thing in D&D5e.

Aftermath…

The Fall

In Confronting the Shadow, and his Avatar the party inadvertently defeat the host army. The creature they fight slaughters all his servants and slaves, using their souls to increase its own power for a final confrontation.

247WeShDe

As the creature stumbled before them, great swaths of shadowy energy flowing out of the now broken form of the avatar it began to shift and change. Falling to its knees it looked upon the party, the dark pits of unfathomable evil were slowly focused for a moment with clear blue eyes. As the dark energy receded the body seemed to shrink, becoming smaller, frailer and the full extent of the damage they had wrought became visible. Broken bones pierced the skin, welts, burns, gashes and cuts littered every inch of exposed flesh.

As the last of the energy left the body and disappeared into the ether, disrupted by the radiant glow of the weapons they carried a tear escaped the eye of the shadow in front of them. The light in the eyes of the body in front of them disappeared and the blue orbs became unfocused. As it collapsed backwards the face shifted slightly, appearing as several people they had met already. Sai Tsugen, to a warrior that they had seen with Lady Toshio when she had given them the cursed horses.

The body of Karyn lay before them, broken and withered. The Shadow had no pity or mercy for those who had failed or slighted it and Karyn was proof of this. Her body used as a vessel, her natural magical ability to shape change and her warriors grace had all been used by the Shadow as its avatar.

Despite all the Shadows attempts to stay alive its avatar had died. Felled by the creatures that it had sought to destroy and rule over. In fact it was destroyed by the blessed weapons of its ancient enemy, Huangdi – the guardian dragon of the Harimasu family.

As the last of the corrupted and ripped apart soul of disappeared the body of Karyn looked like something of nightmares. Used and discarded by her evil master her life ended how she spent it, in the service of the great evil of this land.

Moving out of the gore filled pit the dead minions of the Shadow filled the halls. As they moved through the carved stone rooms and pathways the soldiers who came to aid in the siege rushed up to them and let them know of what had happened. All the warriors and servants of the Shadow, but a few spirit folk, suddenly dropped dead. Searching the halls they found nothing but death. Some evident from the party and their hands or blades but many were just simply dead.

Liz greeted the party outside the halls and attended to their wounds as best as she could and soon they were travelling back towards the wall. What ever they had deemed worthy to carry out and the vision of the tainted halls was all they dared take from the unholy ground after the Shadows demise.

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Hatoi sat down and held onto the cup of warmed liquor like it was an old friend. After some time and the gathering of people around her sat in silence she looked up and spoke. “I don’t remember much before the madness overtook me but I do remember being bound and lead into the infirmary.” she began staring at the cup. “I don’t remember what I was doing but I do remember flashes of a lit room encased by dark rock. Oni and other minions of The Shadow were walking around the rooms and bowing to me. The strangest thing is that I felt powerful when they bowed. It was something I craved and something that I lived for.”

“The madness gave you visions? Hallucinations?” the guard Gin asked before Captain Hou and several others present glared at him to be silent.

“No. It was more than that. I remember flashes of the battlefield, commanding troops as if I was hovering over the shoulder of a lady in white.” Hatoi blushed at this “to me she was the most beautiful and powerful woman I had ever seen and I helped her… somehow to achieve what she wanted to do.” she continued. “That’s when I realised. I was feeling what the Shadow was feeling and seeing what it was. When you,” she nodded towards the party, “slew the Yuki-onna I felt a great exhaustion. A crippling feeling of powerlessness as the energy I was pouring into the Yuki-onna was ripped away.”

“The same thing happened when we fought the Shadow Blessed Oni…” Kyoko said. “When she was defeated the shadow energy didn’t return. It was destroyed”

As the party absorbed what was being said the sounds of celebration could be heard from the wall outside. The Oni, undead or Spirit folk hadn’t returned. Reports had come from other parts of the wall that spirit folk had been seen celebrating in tribal manners – almost joyous that the Yuki-onna had been defeated.

“Well. I think this much is clear. The Shadow is weakened and its keep lies open and vulnerable. What do we do about it?” Kyoko asked looking around those gathered at the table.

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Potential next sequence…

Distortion Field – 247MoDiFi

The salty sea wind caressed their tired faces as they stared towards the bow of the boat. It had been a week since they confronted the Shadow and defeated it, though at a steep cost.

Now returning home felt like the best option for those onboard. Away from the evil they had seen, witnessed and the loss of those who they had grown accustomed to.

“with good weather we should be home within a week” the captain called out, not Kyoko… She stayed behind with her family.

“be on the lookout for pirates and beasties now. We need to warn them we have the heroes of  Ryokughan onboard so they have a chance to flee with their lives” the captain barked out in a mirth riddled tone. The crew laughed and cheered as the large ship bobbed up and down on the waves.

The captain was right. They had made good progress and the few ships they did see left them alone. The weather was fair and great for sailing and they were perhaps halfway home already. “You’ll be glad to be home now aye?” One of the crew asked as she handed around a bottle of liquid, rum. Definitely rum. “I can’t imagine going through what you lot have but is going home the right thing? After all you’ve done and seen. Surely you have the hunger for adventure. I know when I was a young girl and joined aboard..” she was cut off by a loud whistle.

“all hands on deck. Look lively. The spotter has seen some oddities in the waves. Be on the lookout for anything strange…” Now it was the captains turn to be cut short as a wall of wind and translucent colour materialised infront of the boat and spread out like a curtain of some great jellyfishes stingers.

The boat had no chance to swerve or adjust and plowed into the curtain of colour. Except, it didn’t. The bow of the boat passed through harmlessly as the colours danced across the hull, sails, rigging and crew alike. As it crossed over the party their skin tickled and as they spoke it was in several octaves higher than normal. The crew laughed and marvelled at the spectacle and as boat slowed they realised they had come into a pocket where no air was present.

“be prepared men in to paddle us out. I don’t like this at all.” Thr captain squeaked.

The crew moved to prepare the long oars whilst giggling at the captains voice. This distortion field affected other things too. Colours changed, sounds were different and even walking felt odd. As they were about to put the oars into the water the sails picked up again and the distortion suddenly stopped.

“onwards. To Daye!” The captain called, much less squeaky than a moment ago.

Under the waves alien creatures swam and moved through the water away from the boat. The creatures that flew on the wind currents up high beat their three pairs of wings as six eyes scanned below for a meal.

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Thoughts

This is it. The end of the year. Thanks to everyone who has followed this journey along and my experiment to have a year long adventure where each month follows from the previous month. Don’t forget to stick around the next few days as I add a few extra things in and stay tuned to Dicember 2022!.