Characters:
Ajax Karo - Gregarious Hunter and Aspiring Kostis, God of Death and PlaguesNeilos - Aspiring God of The Sun and Plants
Steidis - Aspiring God of Fire and Smiths
Setting Up The Board
Before Neilos left with the unconscious Adlai, he asked Meda if she knew of the negative side effects of completing prophecies. She joked that it made you get a little glowing orb that floated around your head, but he informed her that they were losing memories. He only knew this because he had been travelling with companions, so as Meda was on her own, she may not have realized. It was therefore very important to come up with some method of confirming that she owed him one in case she forgot recent history.
Neilos tried to convince her to finish his prophecy first, because that way it wouldn't be a problem, but she insisted that she would simply write a note to herself, and hold it in her hand when she completed the prophecy. With that, she returned into the secret passage and closed it. As Neilos moved across the open field outside of Eniad, some guards on the wall spotted him and ordered him to stop. He did no such thing, but did change course to a different village for a while, to not give away where they were staying.
The gods regrouped at the farmhouse, with Ajax the last to arrive as he had to walk all the way from the swamp. They spent the night planning who would go where, as Ajax wanted to use the distraction to go into the palace with Steidis and drink the acid he had brought for his prophecy while it would be largely empty. When the sun rose, Firuz woke, and, upon seeing Adlai similarly tied up, asked if they would set him free now. Ajax told himi it would be a bit longer, but he replied that he'd heard that before.
Shortly, Neilos teleported into Eniad and carved a message into the ground in front of the palace: they had Adlai, and would return him on the field north of the city in exchange for the Emperor accepting a gift. He then teleported back to the farmhouse, grabbed Adlai, and walked out to wait in the field. Meda arrived first, with the Emperor and a large column of troops marching from the city shortly after.
Poisoning Himself
Meanwhile, Ajax and Steidis travelled into the city through portals of flies and fire, respectively. Steidis burst out of a forge in some smithy, and stole all of the metal he could easily carry, before heading to the designated meeting point (the Fountain of Imperial Glory, where a larger-than-life gilded statue of the emperor held a spear over its head) via the rooftops with his ladder. Though it was the middle of the day, he still went unseen. Ajax emerged into an abandoned alley, and had no problem.
After regrouping, they travelled to the guardhouse Firuz had told them about, which was currently empty. Ajax caused the wall bricking up the secret passage to decay to dust, and they headed down into the cobweb-filled tunnel. At the other end of the tunnel, stairs led up to a trap door in the ceiling. After checking what was above it with a rapidly-made drill and some powers usage, they found there was just a few inches of dirt on top. Ajax rotted it, the dirt fell down into the tunnel, and they climbed up into the palace gardens.
Their first attempt to enter the palace found a charm, so they detoured to another walkway, not encountering anyone on the way. Ajax walked a few feet in, uncorked his vial of acid, and chugged it. It burned horribly, but he seemed okay, and was filled with a golden light as his prophecy completed. He remembered how to change his form in multiple ways; he could now become incorporeal and ghostly or shrink down to a rat. In exchange, he lost the memories of his family.
Ajax's hair fell out in clumps, leaving him mostly bald, his skin paled even more, and his nose shrank. He also struggled to breathe, and let out constant wracking coughs. With that done, Ajax and Steidis used their powers to leave the city; Steidis returning straight back to the village, and Ajax having to walk from the swamp.
A One-Sided Relationship
Back at the field, Neilos taunted the Emperor, remarking that the coward had finally arrived. Clearly furious, the Emperor shouted that he was indeed here, and he saw Adlai was as well, so they should get this over with. Meda drew the ermine cloak and approached the Emperor, handing it over. He accepted it, spitting on the ground as he did so. Having completed her prophecy, Meda was filled with golden light, and returned to Neilos' side. Neilos sent Adlai, now awake but confused, out to meet the Emperor, who supported him until he could mount a horse, and they, along with the column of troops, returned to Eniad.
Meda hadn't forgotten her recent memories, so she followed Neilos back to the village where Evenia was waiting to fulfill her end of the bargain. Evenia sighed and asked if they were finally ready to go. When Neilos confirmed, Evenia greeted Meda and apologized for what she was about to do, as Neilos was an asshole. Though she had to draw in excess divine energy, Evenia succeeded at getting Neilos to fall in love with Meda; an awkward experience, as for quite some time he had been incapable of feeling any emotions at all.
With that, Neilos had completed his final prophecy, and ascended to godhood. All vestiges of his mortal memories were erased, replaced with jumbled memories of his past lives. He gained more powers, the ability to control light and to double any harvest, but also felt more confident in his ability to improvise new ones. His hair grew to shoulder-length and was now stark white, and his eyes shone like the sun, with no visible iris or pupil.
Evenia announced her intention to leave, now that they were done, and asked where they were heading next. The gods decided on Urbos, as Ajax had business there, and they could drop Firuz off. Neilos was staring at Meda, and she shook her head, muttered "This is why I didn't do this earlier..." and left. Ajax asked Firuz what he thought of being freed in Urbos, but he replied that he'd been told he would be free before, and would wait until he was to celebrate.
Another Attempt on Pirus' Life
After a (hopefully final) trudge through the Antominian Swamp, the gods and Firuz boarded the God Galley and set sail for Urbos. As they had said, Firuz was set free for real this time, and the gods headed out to the highlands for Ajax to infect Soldier Pirus with a deadly disease... again. Though he had the idea to use rats as a vector or to sneak into the camp as a ghost, he decided against either of these, sent the miasma into the camp, and the gods then returned to Urbos.
As they'd ignored her summons last time, they decided to check in with Natasa. Worried she might think him responsible for the plague, Ajax disguised himself as a rat. When they knocked on her door, the slave who answered told them she was out doing Hunter work, and that she was annoyed they hadn't come last time. Still, she'd left instructions, and the slave asked if Ajax (who was absent) had been in any way responsible for this plague. If so, was he planning on ending it any time soon?
Neilos lied through his teeth and said that he didn't know what had caused the plague, but would look into it. Before leaving the city, the gods stopped off at the Metaxas estate, where Neilos dropped off the juvenile Drakkon. If they took it with them, they'd have to take the God Galley, but teleporting was much faster. Steidis constructed a cage for the beast, which he had apparently named "Seven of One" (it was needed for the seventh prophecy, and as far as they knew, it was the last one), and Pan was willing to take care of it for a while.
Recovering the Shards
Then, the gods left for Mantea, to recover the shards stolen by the Circle's End, and have Punished Evenia purify them. Neilos teleported directly to the docks, and Steidis was able to make his way from a cookfire without issue. Ajax, meanwhile, stepped out of a cloud of flies in the middle of a building filled with those dying of the plague. Without a word, he walked away, leaving his victims and the attendants who tried to ease their suffering in shock. Once he rejoined the others, they went to the ruins of black stone.
Atlas was still in Metros, so they were on their own. Neilos and Ajax worked together to determine that the "kings" and "formation of men" spoken of in one of Ajax's prophecies could also refer to women. That taken care of, they took the elevator up to the city and started toward the Divided Palace. On the way, Neilos spotted someone tailing them, so they headed into an alley to lure their pursuers in. They took the bait, and surrendered when Neilos teleported directly behind them.
A man and a woman, with no weapons drawn, Steidis confirmed they were not the two who had stolen the shards from the God Galley. Neilos revealed their secrets, and questioned them. Afterwards they just let them go, due to a fit of kindness from Steidis. Before that, though, the gods learned:
- The White Queen was the leader of the Circle's End cell in the city
- The shards were somewhere in the Divided Palace
- They knew of one dozen Circle's End members in the palace
- The White Queen and two other people (Christos and Nikos) should know exactly where the shards were
Next, they went to the Divided Palace to attempt to recruit the Black Queen to deal with the Circle's End, though Neilos stayed outside as he wasn't in a mood to talk to any more mortals, and Ajax again camouflaged himself as a rat. Steidis intimidated an elderly clerk into arranging a meeting for them, but he was told that the Black Queen was ill with the plague, and was not currently holding any audiences. That wasn't good enough, so Steidis forced the man to take him straight to her chambers.
When they arrived, the clerk knocked on the doors, and a royal guard cracked it open to belittle him, saying that the queen was ill and that he should know this. Steidis dared the guard to say that again to his face, and suddenly he was obsequeious, addressing Steidis as "Lord" and courteously explaining that the queen was in no condition for visitors. Even if he let him in, she wouldn't be able to answer any questions he might have. Steidis lashed out, punching the clerk and then the wall, cracking the stone, before storming off.
Steidis headed to regroup with Neilos before assaulting the White Queen directly, but on the way he rounded a corner and found a group of a dozen people, including the White Queen's Royal Guards, holding shards, who charged. Perhaps they thought him more vulnerable because he was alone, but this was a fatal mistake, as Ajax transformed back into humanoid form. Steidis threw flaming disks and created pillars of flame, while Ajax fired out death rays at those further away and drained the life of those nearby, ending the fight, and their assailants' lives, in a heartbeat.
They recovered 8 of the shards, carefully putting them in the "rat sack" that Steidis had been carrying Ajax in with a set of tongs, but one was still unaccounted for. Ajax called one of their souls back from the dead and asked the spirit where the last shard was; it whispered that it had been given to the White Queen. He asked it two more questions: what other security was there around the White Queen, and what should they tell the spirit's next of kin? For security, there were another three Royal Guards. For its last wishes, it asked for the gods to tell its family that it had died trying to prevent a great catastrophe.
Steidis and Ajax met back up with Neilos, who had grown someone's private garden into a miniature forest while he waited, then stormed back into the palace and headed straight for the White Queen. Steidis kicked the door of her personal chambers off the hinges, and the two shocked guards inside were tangled up in a tomato plant by Neilos before they could act. Wary of further guards in the queen's bedchambers, Ajax went in first in rat form, and discovered a Royal Guard holding a vial of something hiding beside the doorway, waiting to throw whatever it was at anyone who came through.
Ajax's rat eyes glowed with a baleful light and the man dropped stone dead, the vial shattering on the ground and the black oily liquid within spilling out. He returned to human form and invited the others in, where they found the White Queen on her deathbed, covered in boils and currently unconscious. Rather than wake her up, Ajax summoned up the spirit of the man he'd just killed and asked where the remaining shard was; it turned out to be hidden underneath a bowl in the front room.
This shard didn't have any of the forboding aura that the other ones did, and upon picking it up, they found that it was, indeed, now just a piece of a shattered mirror. Further interrogation of the ghost discovered that the vial had been all that remained of the "poison", and that "Venetia" was in charge of a cell of the Circle's End in Susae. They left the White Queen to die of the plague, and went off in search of Punished Evenia to have her "purify" them.
Keti's stormcloud gave them away, and they found that they were both still staying in the hideout they'd met in previously. Neilos stayed outside, while the other two went in and asked Evenia, who was quite unhappy to see them, if she wouldn't mind helping them some more. She started to reflexively decline, when Steidis interrupted and said she just had to touch some shards that they had on them. When she asked why, he informed her of what they knew, and she agreed.
When the shards were brought forth, Evenia remarked that while something seemed strange about them, she didn't get the sense that they were as dangerous as the others had made them out to be. She reached out and grabbed one with her thumb and forefinger, and nothing happened. Steidis confirmed again that they had burned them horrifically when they'd tried to pick them up in the past, but it clearly wasn't affecting Evenia. She touched the rest, and the aura they'd had dwindled to nothing. The gods said their goodbyes, and Steidis promised to not come to her for more help for at least two weeks.
The Bear Freed
The gods returned to Urbos to seek out Ursula, using their powers to be instantly transported. They started at the Oracle's Temple, where an unfamiliar woman was standing at the stone desk in the waiting room. Ajax asked the clerk if she knew where Ursula was, but when she claimed not to know, Neilos sauntered up, revealed secrets, and learned that she was out with Yianna at a tavern. After retrieving Seven of One from the God Galley, Steidis found the couple and told Ursula that she had been cured, so she didn't need the charm anymore.
Neilos quickly tested if it still cancelled out his powers now that he had attained full godhood, but was disappointed to find that it did. He then declared the charms to be an abomination. Steidis then asked if Ursula wouldn't mind growing their juvenile Drakkon to adulthood and, because she still wanted her revenge from their first encounter with the other one, used her powers to mature the beast to a worthy foe. Ursula shapeshifted into a giant bear and wrestled with the Drakkon, while the others used their powers to assist, and it was quickly slain. Steidis took as much blood as he could, while Ajax grabbed the "death organ" for later use.
The Armoury Of The Gods
Steidis and Ajax took the God Galley to Eniad, for Steidis to complete his last prophecy; they preferred the slower pace, because Steidis wanted to recover from his wounds. Neilos wanted to go "meet up with his bae" and teleported immediately, claiming he'd meet them at their usual docking place at the edge of the swamp on their arrival. Seven days later, they arrived, but Neilos was nowhere to be found.
Both used their powers to teleport into the city, and regrouped without issue, then headed into the palace using a hastily-forged ladder to get over the walls. Once inside, Steidis laid out the materials he needed in front of himself, and got to work, creating a number of weapons and implements of the highest quality. Upon the completion of the last, a forearm-length knife, he was filled with golden light, and attained full divinity.
Notes:
Prophecy Scoreboard:
Neilos 7 (Completed)
Steidis 7 (Completed)
Ajax 5
Missing Memories:
Neilos All Mortal Memories
Steidis All Mortal Memories
Ajax Mortal Appearance, Most Precious Memory (His First Hunt), The Last 5 Years, Childhood, Family
As per usual, NPCs are much more concerned about the memory loss than the PCs.
Ajax took 4d6 damage for dirnking acid damage... and I rolled four 1s.
The only emotion Neilos is capable of feeling is love towards Meda.
The bonus suite of power-ups the PCs get upon attaining full godhood:
- HP used as blood magic now converts at 1HP : +2 in skill
- Daily HP regen of 10 from prayer/sacrifices carried out in the god's name
- They can ask one question per session about the lore of the world and receive an answer
Neilos only gets 9HP daily because he keeps fucking over and/or pissing off potential worshippers.
To quote Ajax "I don't think he's going to make another check of 8". This was followed by Soldier Pirus rolling a 7. Don't taunt the dice gods! They're always listening.
Ajax's plague is canonically referred to as "The Screaming Death" until he comes up with a better idea.
Three prophecies in one session! It finally happened. And two final prophecies, to boot.
Another guest appearance from Ursula's player.
The questions that Neilos and Steidis asked were:
- Neilos: What is the purpose of the golden city in the mountains?
- A: It is the home of the gods, away from any annoying mortals, and will have access to most resources a god could want. Additionally, it is a place where the powers of the gods are strongest, so all gods would find it easier to use their abilities
- Steidis: What happened to the last Neilos?
- A: He was killed by Kostis.
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