2025-04-19
Last night saw the last session of season 8 of the Grenzland Campaign. In fact, the final session of me running this campaign. This was planned, and with no hard feelings. The players were well aware that they’d take part in the closing episode of an eight year long story. Thus it may be excused, that contrary to the open and war gamey style of our usual sessions, this was a scripted and quite linear last installment. At least I tried to make it a roller coaster.
The sky splits with a deafening roar as Darpantor descends like a comet of fire and rage, wings blotting out the light. His eyes burn like twin furnaces, locked onto the specks of defiance below. As he nears, the air itself trembles with the fury of his voice:
“You insects! You murderers of my one and only love! Do you think her death will break me? No — it has unleashed me! Heoda’s fire lives on in my wrath, and you will burn as offerings to her memory!” (1)
This is how the player of mighty dragon Darpantor, maybe the one most important long time antagonist of the campaign imagined the final scenes to play out.
It didn’t happen exactly like that, but we came close. Let me recount:
We begann with quite a tense situation. Numerous adventurers, mercenaries, orcs, gnolls, gnomes, some elves had found refuge from marauding spectres in the orcish village of Fluchtburg close to the Orc River in the northern swamps. In the session before, the adventurers had succeeded in bringing down the Evil High Priest responsible for the spectres, so spirits where high and confident. But then a golden dragon with a warlock rider landed closeby. The player of that golden dragon framed it like this:
Upon landing, the rider gets down and stays behind while the dragon walks a few steps toward the gates and calls “Brothers, Come to me! All of you mortals, hear my word! I am back at last!” (2)
In yesterdays session I added: “I am Zekionaerth! I am Heoda! Submit!”
Saelruntu, one of Zekionaerth’s brothers reverts to his natural sub-adult golden dragon form and submits at once, approaching Zekionaerth like a cowardly dog …
All can see the rider is a very gracious human draped in robes of midnight black and crimson, she carries herself with regal arrogance, a predator in every stride. She radiates confidence, her crimson hair cascading around the black and white mask concealing her face. She slowly paces around, looking pretty bored yet in full control of herself so close to the magnificent wyrm. (2)
Naturally, Liskolf the magician, well known for his provocative (and often seemingly clueless) fearlessness steps forth to wish a good day and tries to investigate more about the dragons business. Simultaneously Samo the Enchanter walks up to the dragon (much to the surprise of everyone at the table) and welcomes the golden dragon, suggesting to work together in the furthering of magical research.
The dragon however is suspicious, do these two have anything to do with the pityful demise of Darpantor’s one true love? They fit the description Darpantor has given, and their names sound familiar. The dragons chest starts to glow, fires kindling.
The menace is palpable. The Orcs start to back off, the Dwarves look for cover.
Frazirros, also brother of Zekionaerth and Saelruntu stands close to Sinta the elven theurgist. He also reverts to dragon form:
“This is bad, this will turn into a blood bath … this is not my brother, this is not how we behave!” he growls to Sinta.
Klaus Zimmermann the village priest, sworn to Anhur the God of War gathers his Acolytes and Men at Arms. Weapons are being readied. Klaus gives the Dwarves a stern look: don’t back up, what are you cowards?!
Then the Dragon attacks! A dice roll settles it will not breathe just yet, but Liskolf and Samo get clawed to the side, both suffering some none lethal damage. Klaus, wearing Boots of Speed starts a sprint to get around to that warlock rider, but where is she? Invisible!
At the same time Klaus feels the presence of Anhur like never before. An impressive fighting man suddenly appears in front of the dragon. The head of his mace shining with blinding light as if it was a piece of the sun:
“Halt! Darpantor! This rabble is not worthy of you! I am Anhur the God of War! Allow me to fetch my champion from the Plane of Fire! The mighty Tiberius, who has been locked in eternal battle with the Orc King!”
Samo takes advantage and Dimension Doors himself onto the back of his trusty Roc circling above and escapes.
“Coward!” the Dragon roars but agrees to Anhur’s challenge:
“You have three days time … if you fail, Fluchtburg will burn!”
And so Anhur tasks the adventurers with travelling to the Plane of Fire and finally bring back Tiberius. He tells them to go up the river to the mountains, where they’ll find the gate they’ll need to pass.
First the group considers to take one of the merchant ships to sail up river but they soon realize that clearly this will take to much time, leaving no chance of being back within three days. Luckily they have their flying steeds and rush off to those mountains.
Sure enough they find a well known gate: the mighty portal of the plane skipping Castle Gargantua. But knowing the place they decide to land right in the roof garden winery of the castle. Only Sinta stays outside to observe the Castle phasing in and out of this mountain valley. How would they otherwise know when they’d be able to bring in reenforcements? And when would they even be able to return?
The other adventurers start to explore the castle once again. Where was everything? It’s so long ago. But they do recognize the hall with the giant table and the enormous butterflies. Close by, they hear some strange singing, a smell of sour wine and noises of tumbling empty bottles …
“God save the Queen … ba ba ba ba baaaa baaa … her fascist regime … ba ba ba (burps … more bottle noises …)”
Around the corner they find Johnny Rotten! He’s seen better days, but he’s quite happy to reunite with his former adventuring friends!
Johnny even joins the fray as the group is attacked by some clawing tar-monster castle guards. Luckily the monsters are done with quickly, and the group moves on.
As Alina one of Klaus Zimmermann’s retainers has quaffed a potion of treasure finding before, the group quickly finds a huge hall with a massiv statue of Neptune. Alina points to the dais under the statue. The groups starts knocking on the stone, looking for any promising hollows.
Awakened from a dreamy state by the knocking sounds a young thief in a neighboring hall gets suspicious and wants to investigate who’s messing with the hidden treasures … he tries to hide in shadows and approach but is notices by Klaus Zimmermann. At first Klaus wants to attack at once but then realizes it’s a single human, not another monster.
“What do you do here?” Kaçak the thief demands, “this is my treasure!”
“Is this your place?” the others ask unbelievingly, “are you Gargantua?”
“Yes … well, no … I don’t know …” Kaçak replies. “I’ve been here for a long time. I am not even sure why … so, if you are going just anywhere I’d like to come along”.
The others explain what they’re up to and that they are looking for a gate to the plane of fire. Kaçak can help as he knows the hall of the elemental stairs is right next door. He then produces ten Amulets of Protection from Fire from Neptune’s Dais - how convenient!
Through mighty double doors the group enters the next hall. There is a sequence of four rising terraces, each one about 70 by 30 yards, and each consecutive one about two yards higher than the previous. The players know this place. They remember that elementals appear as soon as one enters one of the terraces, and crush anyone who wants to pass. So this is a problem. The group is not in best shape anymore, they have spent a couple of spell slots already and don’t even have magic weapons. The uppermost terrace should be the terrace of fire, likely the gate to the actual Plane of Fire, their destination!
Kaçak reasons, that he could try and climb up the wall to a ledge where the adventurers could walk along carefully, provided that he manages to secure the climb for everyone with spikes and ropes. That said a series of climbing checks ensues - mostly successful. While Kaçak can keep his footing and even manages to get to another pair of double doors at the far end of the hall, most of the other adventurers finally tumble onto the terrace of fire and are lost from view.
Down below by the first terrace are still Klaus Zimmermann, who doesn’t want to take off his armor for the climb, his two retainers Alina and Seraph and Stink und Stunk the two Ogres who are with the adventurers. For the Ogres the climb is impossible, the ledge being to narrow and the ropes to flimsy. So they decide to rush through, up across the terraces:
Stink is beaten to pulp by an Earth Elemental (it was so close, Stink, we miss you!). Alina is drowned by the Water Elemental, but the others make it through and reach the Plane of Fire.
In the meantime Kaçak investigates the next hall, upstairs from the elemental terraces. The room is full of strange machinery and in the center is a giant contraption with numerous tiny model planets and suns moving along steadily, driven by a myriad of clockwork mechanisms and wires. A strange little gnome, with an unkempt long beard, wearing a greasy lab coat adresses Kaçak:
“What are you doing here? How did you get here?”
“I climbed.” Kaçak replies, “I want to see what’s here, I want to learn. My name is Kaçak.”
“My name is Before”, the gnome replies, “but I have no time, there is work to do. Maybe my brother Thereafter can show you around.”
In fact there is another gnome off to the right. He looks like the mirror image of the first one.
“Do you want to be our apprentice?” Thereafter asks, and Kaçak says “yes!”
Thereafter points out a tiny blueish sphere moving along on the machine. It’s being circled by a smaller, somewhat orange sphere.
“This is Earth, orbited by it’s moon” says Thereafter. “Until some time ago Earth had two moons. But it’s gone now.” The Gnome points to a work bench nearby, and Kaçak sees a tiny white sphere laying there. The wire it is attached to has apparently been clipped off.
Kaçak marvels at the vastness of this machine. There are many more suns and so many planets …
Meanwhile the other adventurers have reached a vast plane of saering heat. Far in the distance are structures that might be mountains, but also castles. Some miles away they notice a hill, and they can hear the clanging of swords. Two fighters are whacking each other with their weapons. It seems unreal, almost like slow motion. The movements of the fighters seem very slow and tired. Clearly this must be Tiberius and the Orc King.
As the group approaches, small flaming whirlwinds rise from the ground of glowing embers. The flamebeings approach as if they want to intervene. But now Johnny Rotten is quick and goes for a sprint to jump at the Orc King, feet first with his trusty combat boots. The Orc King being surprised falls to the ground. As he want’s to get up again, Tiberius offers a hand to help him.
“What?! Do you mean this is over?!”
Tiberius’ gesture is breaking the rules of the eternal battle. The Orc King looks back and forth between Tibierius’ outstretched hand and his mighty orcish saber in confusion.
Then the others explain how the Orc could once more become a true Orc King if he comes along. And so all of them decide to flee from this unhealthy place. The flamebeings are no serious obstacle now, and the adventurers reach a place where a hovering longship lies moored to a jetty protruding from the plane of fire out into open space.
As the group sets sail to travel through space, they notice a space ship on it’s trajectory away from a small blue planet in the distance. The space ship looks like a weird conglomerate of numerous pods, held together by wineshaped metal fittings. A sight that’s somewhat familiar to the players (it’s the star ship of the Ancients), but not to the characters.
Then suddenly a massive hour glass appears between the adventurers long ship and the star ship. As the longship steers closer to the hour glass, the adventurers can read letters in the sand running down:
“I am Helba the Eyeless Wizard. I have found my destination! Farewell!”
“How do we get home? Where must we sail?” ask the adventurers. And the sand changes shape to an arrow pointing exactly to the blue planet in the distance. Then the hourglass disappears, and the starship warps away.
Homeward bound the Longship coasts through space, when suddenly a tall figure appears on deck. It is jetblack, and it’s eyes look like stary skies.
“I am Ptah! Bow to the God of Outer Space!”
which all of the adventurers immediately do.
“I know of your quest and it’s reason. It will be my honor to host the duel between Darpantor and Tiberius in my private arena!”
The adventurers agree and are immediately transported to a castle in a strange colorful landscape. The sky is a gradient from purple to yellow and the landscape is also purple and yellow, almost candy like.
In the inner courtyard. Darida the Warlock with her black and crimson robes - the dragon rider from the first scene -is already waiting …
Tiberius takes his weapons and rushes into the arena at once.
“Take off your mask!” he shouts.
Darida starts to cast and Darpantor appears above her …
With a final beat of his wings, Darpantor dives, maw aglow with molten death. (1)
But Tiberius charges forth through the flames. Still wearing his amulet he is convinced those flames can’t kill him, and thus he breaks the spell of the phantasmal dragon fire.
Tiberius slashes his mighty sword at the warlock, severly injuring, but not killing her. Darida zaps her Wand of Paralyzation at point blank at the mighty Fighter and Tiberius’ life dwindles away.
But Darida does not let her opponent drop down, she holds him up with all her might, and pulls the dying fighter towards her, embraces him and the two bodies meld into each other transforming into a massive dragon with five heads.
The newborn Chromatic Dragon Queen of Chaos roars:
“You stood against the moonfall, against my reign, against destiny itself! You are not heroes—you are ash!”
“REMEMBER THIS AS YOUR END—THE WRATH OF DARPANTOR, LAST SCOURGE OF THE GRENZLANDE!” (1)
Ptah of course hosts a feast, offering his heartfelt thanks to everyone involved.
When the heroes finally leave the castle, they walk down that winding path leading down from the gate. The sky is still purple and yellow. Below is a road leading from the southwest to the northeast. There are some woods to the south and a swamp to the southeast.
As the heroes turn around, they catch a last glimpse …
… of the Keep on the Borderlands!
(1): Text by TacoJr
(2): Text by Preuk
Thus ends the Grenzland Campaign as I have run it. The dwarves will have found a new home further up north. The Elves have taken on a life as pirates, cruising the Alfen Sea. Orcs and Humans around Fluchtburg will improve their relations I suppose. I’m sure Liskolf will be of much assistance here, if only for his excellent knowledge of the orcish and gnollish languages.
Who knows where Samo has fled to? Some say his plan is to build the “Bruegglehub School of Magic”. A strange name, that’s for sure.
And what will Sinta do? … maybe Johnny Rotten can convince him to go on another quest to find out if any of his old dwarven friends did in fact survive the catalysm.
Whether the Snakemen will return to Atlantis, and some future heroes will deal with the Spectres? Who can tell … I’ll document the final state of this campaign … so maybe, someday, someone will pick it up again.
Please send any comments or questions to wandererbill@betola.de or @wandererbill@tabletop.social
Copyright: ~lkh • Sa 26. Apr 09:38:37 CEST 2025 • License: CC BY-NC 4.0 • Hosted by: SDF-EU Public Access UNIX System - https://sdf-eu.org