Assault on the Tower of Plinth

The Assault on the Tower of Plinth was a major attack by the forces of Filtiarn against The Chosen during the events of Under the Bus. It was the second major werewolf attack against the Tower of Plinth, following the earlier assault that killed Effron and devastated the Chosen's construction operation within The Gap.

The later assault was far larger and more deliberate. An army of werewolves, worgs, human mercenaries, and spellcasters attempted to overwhelm the weakened defenders of the Tower while an Aspect of Filtiarn maintained an unnatural full moon over the battlefield.

The attack was ultimately defeated, but it demonstrated that the werewolf threat had developed into an organized war and provided important evidence that whoever was operating as Filtiarn had extensive knowledge of the Chosen.

Background

The first attack on the Tower occurred relatively early in the campaign. Werewolves and allied creatures infiltrated the Chosen's position through the Gap, killing more than thirty Chosen and nearly three times as many laborers and allies. Among the dead was Effron, one of the surviving Founders of the Chosen and the leader of the organization at the time.

The attack led the party south to investigate its origins. Their investigation eventually brought them into conflict with Deskin and the organization associated with the Temple of the Moon.

After the first assault, a disease began spreading among the Chosen who had fought the attackers or handled their bodies. The party eventually concluded that Deskin's experiments had succeeded in overcoming the Chosen's previous resistance to The Werewolf Plague.

By the time of the second assault, the situation had escalated considerably. Thousands of werewolves had begun openly attacking settlements throughout the northlands. The Chosen dispatched most of their military forces to defend the affected communities, leaving fewer than fifty Chosen at the Tower. Many of those remaining were scholars or inexperienced recruits rather than soldiers.

The Chosen had also just suffered another major loss. Eritrea, one of the last surviving Founders, had been murdered aboard the Sunchaser. A reconstruction of her final moments revealed that her killer was someone she recognized and accused of having a dangerous obsession with gaining greater power. Before killing her, the attacker declared that his followers were heading for the Tower and dismissed Quentin and the remaining Chosen as incapable of stopping them.

Knowing an attack was imminent, Tim used teleportation to begin transferring members of the party from the Sunchaser to the Tower rather than waiting for the ship to complete the journey.

With Eritrea dead, Quentin was left as the last Founder still actively leading the Chosen.

Discovery of the Werewolf Army

Scouting revealed an army of approximately three hundred werewolves, wolves, and humans encamped roughly half a mile from the Tower.

Tim and another member of the group infiltrated the camp while disguised as wolves. They discovered that enemy spellcasters were using Transmute Rock to Mud from scrolls to tunnel through the mountain toward the Gap. Workers removed the resulting mud before the spellcasters repeated the process farther ahead.

From the progress of the tunnel, the party estimated that the attackers would break through within approximately a day.

Tim stole a travel chest belonging to one of the enemy spellcasters before escaping. More importantly, the reconnaissance allowed the defenders to predict approximately where the tunnel would emerge.

Preparing the Defense

The party concentrated nearly everyone capable of fighting in the courtyard of the Tower.

The defenders included members of the party, Marcus, Brance, Orinder, Demetrius, Quentin, Tim's followers, and approximately twenty-five low-level Chosen. Dugan Lifebrew and Jayme were also present, although both were pacifists.

The defenders possessed only about one hundred silver crossbow bolts, which were distributed among the available archers. Several applications of Silversheen and other available silver weapons were also distributed.

They then waited for the werewolf army to break through.

The Assault

The attack began after dark.

A section of the canyon wall opposite the defenders suddenly turned to mud as the enemy tunnel reached the Gap. At nearly the same moment, Bo Duke spotted an enormous wolf-like humanoid standing on a ledge approximately three hundred feet above the battlefield.

The creature howled.

An impossible full moon rose over the Gap, despite the actual full moon still being approximately a week away.

The transformed section of the wall broke open, and magical stone bridges extended across the Gap toward the Tower. Werewolves began pouring across them.

The defenders initially held their position effectively. Area spells including Web, Fireball, and Lightning Bolt killed or delayed large numbers of attackers. Enemy spellcasters created additional bridges, however, allowing increasing numbers of attackers to cross.

The attacking force included werewolves in both hybrid and wolf forms, worgs, human mercenaries, and several spellcasters.

During the fighting, another attacker shattered a purple gemstone that opened a magical portal. Additional werewolves began emerging through it, while another force of human mercenaries approached from the stairs leading toward the remains of the old elevator.

The defenders were now being attacked from multiple directions and began withdrawing toward the interior of the Tower.

Malachi's Fall

During the fighting, Malachi attempted to use Sound Burst against a group of enemies. To catch the maximum number of attackers in the spell, he deliberately included allied combatants within its area.

Because he knowingly endangered his own allies in doing so, Malachi violated his paladin code and lost his paladin abilities.

He would subsequently require atonement.

The Aspect of Filtiarn

Unknown to most of the defenders, Delphi had used the Tower's scrying pool to send a call for assistance to Chosen in the surrounding region.

The Traveler received the call and came to the Tower.

He recognized that the unnatural full moon had been produced through Epic magic and searched for its source. His ability to detect Chosen indicated that an extraordinarily powerful Chosen had cast the spell but was no longer present.

The enormous wolf-man on the ledge was instead serving as the focus maintaining the effect.

The creature was an Aspect of Filtiarn.

The Traveler incapacitated the Aspect. As soon as he did so, the unnatural moon disappeared.

Without the magical full moon, the werewolves in the attacking army suddenly reverted to human form. Many were left naked and unarmed. The transformed attackers panicked and fled, some retreating through the portal and others escaping across the bridges.

With the werewolf forces collapsing, the remaining attackers also withdrew.

The Tower had survived.

Interrogation of the Aspect

After the battle, Bo Duke discovered the Traveler on the ledge with the unconscious Aspect, who had reverted to human form.

The party brought the prisoner down and interrogated him after he regained consciousness.

They learned that he had formerly been Deskin's second-in-command. After Deskin's death, he had taken control of Deskin's operations and spent the previous fall and winter assembling an army.

According to the prisoner, Filtiarn had appeared to him through visions and dreams. Filtiarn instructed him to attack the Tower, told him where it was located, and provided the information necessary to carry out the assault.

The prisoner believed that Filtiarn had personally cast the Epic magic responsible for the unnatural full moon and had granted him the power that transformed him into an Aspect.

However, the interrogation revealed another important detail.

The Aspect had not expected the portal or the additional forces that emerged from it. Those forces were not part of the army he had assembled.

He explained that the purple portals were linked to portals located atop the step-pyramid temples associated with Filtiarn. Because his own temple had been emptied to support the assault, the additional attackers must have originated elsewhere.

He believed that the principal temple of Filtiarn was located somewhere in Toreon.

The party ultimately decided to imprison the former Aspect at the Tower pending a trial.

Suspicions About Filtiarn

The assault strengthened the party's suspicion that the individual acting as Filtiarn had ties to the Chosen.

Eritrea had clearly recognized her murderer, and her final conversation indicated that she had known him for years. Her killer also knew enough about the Chosen to locate the Tower and assess its leadership.

The captured Aspect, however, did not know Filtiarn's true identity.

At the time, the party considered several possibilities, including former or supposedly deceased Chosen. Among those discussed were Stegner, Angar, Samos, and even The Traveler.

These were the party's suspicions at the time and should not be confused with the later-established truth: Stegner survived his supposed death and was the individual behind the attempt to bring Filtiarn back.

Aftermath

The assault confirmed that the conflict was no longer an isolated outbreak of lycanthropy. Organized werewolf armies were operating throughout the northlands, while the plague continued to create additional victims.

The attack also left the Chosen in an increasingly precarious position. Effron had died during the earlier assault, Eritrea had recently been murdered, and the aging Quentin was now the only Founder remaining in active leadership at the Tower.

The information obtained from the Aspect also connected the werewolf forces more directly to the network of step-pyramid temples and suggested that an important center of Filtiarn's operations existed within Toreon.

Most importantly, the scale of the werewolf war convinced the party that conventional efforts would not be enough to stop The Werewolf Plague.

Their research therefore turned toward The Aegisstaff, the artifact that had been used against a similar plague during the ancient history of Aegea. Their attempt to determine what had happened to the Aegisstaff would ultimately lead them toward Godsmount and Journey Beyond the End of the World.

Significance

The Assault on the Tower of Plinth marked a major escalation in the campaign:

• The werewolf plague became an open military threat rather than a series of isolated outbreaks.
• The Tower itself came close to being overwhelmed while most of the Chosen's military forces were deployed elsewhere.
• An Aspect of Filtiarn appeared openly for the first time in the conflict.
• The use of Epic magic demonstrated the extraordinary power available to the individual operating as Filtiarn.
• The unexpected portal reinforcements demonstrated that the attack involved forces beyond the army assembled by Deskin's former lieutenant.
• The attack provided further evidence that Filtiarn's activities were connected to someone with intimate knowledge of the Chosen.
• Malachi lost his paladin abilities during the battle.
• The aftermath pushed the party toward recovering The Aegisstaff as the only known means of ending the plague on a large scale.

The Tower survived, but the assault demonstrated that the enemy was capable of finding and directly attacking the secret headquarters of the Chosen—and that the conflict surrounding Filtiarn and the Werewolf Plague was much larger than the party had originally understood.