Journey Beyond the End of the World

Campaign: Under the Bus
Locations: End of the World, Demmazon's Realm

Overview

The Journey Beyond the End of the World was the party's expedition west in search of The Aegisstaff, ultimately carrying them through a surviving fragment of the ancient gateway between the world and Demmazon's realm.

Following the discoveries made in The Ruins of Aegea, the party knew that the Aegisstaff had once cured the ancient outbreak of The Werewolf Plague. Research established that Magerris had possessed the staff during his battle with Correries over Rictaria, after which Correries fled toward the End of the World and Magerris pursued him.

The party initially searched Godsmount, where a Divination from Demmazon told them that the answers they sought lay at the End of the World. Further questioning established that the Aegisstaff itself was not there, but that they would need to venture beyond the End of the World to find the answers they needed.

Journey West

The party returned to the Tower of Plinth to prepare for what they expected to be an extremely long expedition. With the war against the werewolves continuing, they knew that disappearing for weeks or months carried considerable risk, but they had no better lead on the Aegisstaff.

They then traveled west aboard the Sunchaser.

Their destination was the region once known literally as the End of the World. During the Age of Wonders, the world had been partially joined to Demmazon's realm. At the western edge, the ocean had poured over the boundary into that realm through an immense planar gateway.

That arrangement had ended during the Fall of the Age of Wonders, when Demmazon separated the two realms.

The geography that remained was radically different from the world that had existed before the Fall.

Thorn Runehammer

In the lands beyond the old edge of the world, the party discovered an isolated forest growing amid otherwise barren volcanic terrain.

There they encountered an elderly dwarf who initially proved reluctant to answer their questions. A game of Battle Chess eventually persuaded him to speak with them.

The dwarf revealed himself as Thorn Runehammer, the legendary dwarven king and one of the wielders of The Five Gifts during the Korvak War.

Thorn had survived the events surrounding the Fall.

He explained that after the Heroes who had opposed Correries freed Demmazon, Demmazon separated his realm from the mortal world in order to contain the newly created gods and prevent their battle from destroying the world. Thorn and the other surviving mortals attempted to flee before the enormous gateway closed.

Fewer than a dozen escaped.

Thorn was the last.

He had been standing at the boundary when the connection between the realms was severed. The event left him completely cut off from magic, effectively turning Thorn himself into a dead-magic zone.

The survivors eventually reached the new land created where Demmazon's realm had once intersected the world. With the aid of a druid among them, they established the forest in which the party found Thorn.

By the time of the party's arrival, Thorn was the last of those survivors still alive.

Kelestaria

Thorn was not entirely alone.

Living with him was Kelestaria, whom Thorn presented to the party as a young elven woman he had raised much like a daughter.

Orinder immediately became strongly attracted to her, and during the party's later absence the two spent considerable time together and began falling in love.

Kelestaria's true nature was not initially known to the party.

Thorn's Bargain

When the party explained that they were searching for the Aegisstaff, Thorn revealed that he knew where it was.

He would help them recover it, but first he wanted their help.

During the final struggle to free Demmazon, the Heroes had confronted an avatar of Correries. During that battle, Correries had trapped the soul of Jack in a gemstone.

Thorn believed the stone containing Jack's soul remained within Demmazon's abandoned temple.

Although the ancient connection between the two realms had been severed, Thorn had discovered a surviving remnant of the gateway. Unlike the world-spanning boundary that had once existed, this remnant was less than twenty feet across.

It still led into Demmazon's realm.

Thorn could not use it himself. Because of his complete immunity to magic, the magical gateway would not allow him to cross.

He therefore offered the party a bargain:

Recover Jack's soul, and Thorn would help them recover the Aegisstaff.

The party agreed.

The Rogue Stone

Thorn told the party that Jack's soul had been imprisoned within a Rogue Stone, a multicolored gemstone roughly the size of a fist.

Most of the party's companions remained behind with Thorn or at the expedition's base camp. Demetrius accompanied the party through the gateway, while Orinder remained behind despite his desire to join them.

Before they could reach the gateway, the party had to cross the volcanic country surrounding it, including territory occupied by salamanders from the Elemental Plane of Fire who had established mining operations in the area.

Eventually the party reached the surviving gateway and crossed into Demmazon's realm.

Demmazon's Realm

Beyond the gateway, the party entered the realm in which the final events of the Fall had taken place roughly a century earlier.

Their destination was Demmazon's abandoned temple.

The temple had been the site of the climactic struggle between the Heroes of the Age of Wonders, Marstalbin, Correries, Magerris, and the newly ascended gods. It was also where Demmazon had been imprisoned and ultimately freed.

The party's expedition through the realm lasted only a matter of days from their perspective.

It proved considerably longer for everyone they had left behind.

The Temple

Within Demmazon's temple, the party encountered evidence that they were not the only ones who had entered the abandoned realm.

They confronted an undead spellcaster who initially concealed both himself and his forces through powerful illusions. The party briefly suspected that the creature might be Riatin, but the undead mocked that assumption.

The battle took place in the chamber that had once contained Demmazon's prison. The remains of the great conduits that had powered the prison were still visible.

The fight was devastating. Several members of the party were incapacitated by powerful magic, including petrification and insanity.

The undead creature was connected to the forces of Cain, whose armies had meanwhile conquered Menasta and transformed it into an undead stronghold.

Magdala

The party also discovered an imprisoned angel named Magdala.

Magdala had been charged with guarding Demmazon's abandoned temple after the events of the Fall. She had been overwhelmed after her enemies approached under illusory disguises.

The party freed her.

With Magdala's aid, the remaining enemies were driven away. With the temple's hostile occupants defeated and the spirits within it finally at rest, Magdala considered her obligation to guard the temple fulfilled.

She allowed the party to take anything they needed from the temple, including the Rogue Stone containing Jack's soul.

In gratitude for saving her, Magdala also promised that she would answer a future call for aid.

Time Beyond the World

Magdala revealed one final complication.

Time did not pass at the same rate in Demmazon's realm as it did in the mortal world.

The party had experienced approximately four days within the realm.

Approximately four weeks had passed at home.

Realizing how much time had already been lost while the werewolf war continued, the party immediately returned to the gateway.

The Ambush

Upon crossing back into the mortal world, the party discovered that someone had been waiting for them.

Agents of the Church of Demmazon ambushed and captured them. The Church agents believed the party had gone through the gateway to recover the Aegisstaff and were surprised to discover that the artifact was not among their possessions.

The group was led by a mysterious Cardinal and included Church operatives who had apparently been following the party since their expedition to Aegea.

Before the situation escalated further, new orders arrived from Samos:

The party was to be released, their possessions returned, and the Church was now to aid them in recovering the Aegisstaff.

The Return to Thorn

By the time the party finally returned to their companions, they had been gone for more than a month. Those left behind had begun to fear that they were dead or permanently lost, and Brance had been pressing to organize another expedition through the gateway to search for them.

The party brought the Rogue Stone to Thorn.

Still wary of Thorn's intentions, Dew Gooder examined the stone with True Seeing and confirmed that a human figure was imprisoned within it.

While using the spell, Dew also discovered something else:

Kelestaria was not actually an elf.

She was a unicorn.

Dew initially kept this discovery to himself.

The party then handed the Rogue Stone to Thorn.

Because Thorn existed as a living dead-magic zone, his touch disrupted the magic imprisoning Jack. The enchantment collapsed, and Jack physically appeared before them.

For Jack, almost no time had passed.

For the world, approximately a century had gone by.

Thorn and the party began the difficult task of explaining what had happened since Jack's imprisonment.

Significance

The Journey Beyond the End of the World brought the party into direct contact with people, places, and consequences surviving from the Fall of the Age of Wonders.

During the expedition, the party:

• found Thorn Runehammer, one of the original wielders of The Five Gifts;
• learned Thorn's account of the final events surrounding the Fall;
• discovered a surviving gateway into Demmazon's separated realm;
• entered the abandoned temple where Demmazon had once been imprisoned;
• encountered forces connected to Cain operating within that realm;
• rescued Magdala;
• recovered the Rogue Stone containing Jack's soul;
• discovered that time passed differently in Demmazon's realm;
• learned that Kelestaria was secretly a unicorn;
• restored Jack after roughly a century of imprisonment;
• and fulfilled Thorn's condition for helping them locate The Aegisstaff.

The expedition transformed the search for the Aegisstaff from historical investigation into direct contact with survivors and remnants of the events that had ended the Age of Wonders.