The Heretics of Toreon
The Heretics of Toreon
The Heretics of Toreon refers to the party's extended stay in Toreon during their investigation of The Werewolf Plague, culminating in their capture by the Church of Demmazon, imprisonment as heretics, forced participation in Toreon's gladiatorial games, and eventual rescue by The Chosen.
The party originally came to Toreon seeking access to the greatest surviving library in the world. Their stay lasted long enough for them to establish a home in the city, recruit scholars, conduct extensive research, and become involved in the city's political and religious conflicts.
By the time they left, their research had been confiscated by the Church, their membership in the Chosen had been disrupted, they had become famous gladiators known publicly as the Heretics, and their experiences had fundamentally altered their relationship with both Samos and the Chosen.
Arrival in Toreon
The party traveled to Toreon primarily to decipher an ancient ceramic disk they had recovered during their investigation of the werewolf plague.
The symbols on the disk appeared to use the same ancient language in which Pythia the Mad Prophet had written. The library at the Tower of Plinth did not contain sufficient material to translate it, making Toreon the party's best hope.
Toreon was the largest surviving center of civilization from before the Fall of the Age of Wonders. Its Great Library had once been second only to the library of Aegea and, following Aegea's destruction, had become the greatest surviving repository of knowledge in the world.
The party's arrival also gave them their first prolonged exposure to life under the rule of the Church of Demmazon.
The contrast within the city was striking. The inner city retained enormous structures and architectural remnants from the Age of Wonders, while an extensive outer city of tents and poorly constructed buildings had grown around it.
Entry into the city proper was tightly regulated. Visitors were required to register themselves and their weapons, state their reasons for entering, pay the appropriate fees, and carry passes. Weapons had to be registered and peacebonded.
The party rented a house near the Great Library and registered for extended access to its collections.
Researching the Disk
Translation of the disk proved considerably more difficult than expected.
The ancient language required individual words and symbols to be compared against surviving works from the same period and then cross-referenced with translated material. The party recruited scholars to assist them and settled into an extended period of research.
The translation eventually revealed that the disk contained information concerning the plague they had been investigating.
The disease was airborne and extremely virulent. As its victims deteriorated mentally, an invocation could trigger a lycanthropic curse and transform them into werewolves.
Most disturbing of all, the disk did not merely describe the disease.
It contained the formula for creating it.
It contained no cure.
The age of the writing also established that the plague was not a new creation. Research eventually produced references to a remarkably similar plague that had struck Aegea around the time of its founding, providing the first major indication that the modern Werewolf Plague had an ancient precedent.
Life in Toreon
The party spent considerable time living within Toreon while the translation proceeded.
Their activities extended beyond the library. Dugan Lifebrew and Bo Duke brewed and sold alcohol locally, while other members of the group pursued their own activities and interacted with the people of the city.
Their stay also exposed them increasingly to the religious and political realities of Toreon.
The Church of Demmazon exercised enormous authority over the city. Worship of other gods was treated as heresy, and Church Enforcers maintained a particularly visible presence in the inner city.
The party also learned that people had been disappearing throughout the city.
Their investigation eventually became entangled with evidence of vampire activity, something the Church was attempting to keep quiet to avoid widespread panic.
Samos
The party eventually came face-to-face with Samos, the ruler of Toreon and leader of its Church of Demmazon.
Samos was himself one of the Chosen and had once belonged to the organization at the Tower of Plinth.
He challenged much of what the party had been told about the history of the Chosen. According to Samos, he and his followers had not simply been expelled from the organization. He claimed that he had left because he objected to the Founders manipulating people without their knowledge.
Samos also revealed that the Chosen had concealed information from the party concerning their own abilities and activities. Among his revelations was that Effron had placed a magical means of tracking the party's leader, allowing the Chosen to observe them through the Tower's scrying pool.
He offered the party an alternative.
If they abandoned the Chosen and joined him, he could remove the geas imposed upon them, free them from the Chosen's surveillance, and teach them more about their abilities.
The party was deeply suspicious of Samos, but he made it clear that simply remaining neutral while continuing to operate freely in Toreon was not an option.
After considerable argument, the party reluctantly agreed.
Betrayal and Capture
Samos and Bishop Ward collected the party's Badges of the Chosen and performed a ceremony intended to break their geases.
The ceremony succeeded for most of the party.
It failed for Dunno Mename.
Samos ordered Dunno detained separately.
Bishop Ward then escorted the remaining party members from Samos's presence. Instead of taking them to quarters as expected, he delivered them to waiting guards.
Ward mocked their reluctant and openly distrustful acceptance of Samos's offer and ordered them arrested.
The party was stripped of its possessions and imprisoned.
They were informed that they would fight as gladiators.
The Heretics
The party spent approximately a week in prison before its first arena appearance.
Conditions were deliberately poor. Their cell was filthy, spellcasting was difficult and closely watched, and guards carried devices capable of punishing prisoners who attempted to use magic.
Disease quickly became a problem.
When the party was finally brought into the colosseum, the spectators greeted them as heretics.
Their first opponent was a girallon.
The party survived.
Their continued survival only led to more fights.
Beldin
During their imprisonment, the party met Beldin, a half-elf paladin of Magerris.
Beldin had entered Toreon despite the danger because his elven mother had been poisoned by a wyvern and was dying. He had hoped to find someone in the city willing and capable of healing her.
Instead, he had been betrayed and arrested for his race and religion.
Beldin became one of the party's closest allies among the prisoners.
The Ring of Fire
The party's later gladiatorial fights became increasingly lethal.
In one major battle, twenty-three prisoners were thrown into the arena together. Their equipment was deliberately poor, and much of the available armor had been heavily oiled.
The arena itself had been transformed into another weapon.
Rotating stone pillars periodically sprayed fire across the battlefield, while alchemist's fire was released around the edges of the arena. The prisoners were simultaneously attacked by feral yowlers.
The heavily oiled armor made the arena's fire particularly dangerous.
The battle was devastating.
Most of the prisoners died or were incapacitated. The party and Beldin barely survived, along with only a handful of the others.
Their unexpected success began to make them famous among the spectators.
The gladiators became known throughout the arena as The Heretics.
Fight for Redemption
By their next appearance, the Heretics had developed a following among the crowds.
They were placed into an arena with several groups of other prisoners and told that the fight would continue until only one group remained. The surviving slaves would be offered freedom, while surviving heretics would be given an opportunity to repent.
During the battle, Demetrius secretly contacted members of the party.
He warned them that the Church had confiscated their research materials, interrogated the scholars who had assisted them, and barred those scholars from returning to the library.
More importantly, the Church now possessed a complete copy of the ancient text the party had been translating.
The party survived the battle.
When the remaining enemy prisoners surrendered, however, Bishop Ward ordered the Heretics to kill them.
Several party members refused.
Beldin threw down his weapon entirely.
Death of Beldin
Bishop Ward entered the arena surrounded by guards.
He offered the surviving prisoners an opportunity to repent before the Church.
Beldin refused.
He openly defied Ward, declaring that he would not betray his principles or his god.
Ward ordered him executed.
Beldin was killed in front of the party and the assembled spectators.
The crowd, however, did not react as Ward apparently expected. Many began calling for the surviving Heretics to be allowed to live.
Ward returned the party to prison instead, warning them that their next fight would be their last.
Condemned
The surviving Heretics were moved into a different prison chamber.
This cell was completely cut off from magic.
The prisoners were deprived of food, while the only available water was contaminated. Without functioning magic, they could neither create food and clean water nor easily cure the diseases caused by their conditions.
The Church appeared determined to weaken them as much as possible before their final arena appearance.
Their situation had become effectively hopeless.
Rescue
Unknown to the party, Demetrius had decided that Beldin's execution was enough.
Demetrius had secretly been an agent of the Chosen operating within Toreon for years. A magical necklace given to him by Serianne concealed his nature as Chosen, although it also suppressed his Chosen abilities while he wore it.
After witnessing what happened to Beldin, Demetrius abandoned his cover and contacted the Chosen.
The end of the war at Trondhammen had recently freed Chosen forces that had previously been committed elsewhere. Eritrea returned aboard her flying warship, the Sunchaser, accompanied by Marcus, Jayme, Orinder, Brance, and other Chosen.
During what was intended to be the Heretics' final gladiatorial fight, magical fog engulfed the arena.
Ropes descended through the mist.
Marcus dropped into the arena and told the party to climb.
The Chosen extracted the surviving Heretics directly from the colosseum and carried them away aboard the Sunchaser.
The party had escaped Toreon.
Aftermath
Once safely aboard the Sunchaser, the party learned Demetrius's true role as an undercover Chosen agent and met Eritrea, the last Founder they had not yet encountered.
Their relationship with the Chosen had become complicated by the ceremony performed by Samos. Most of the party had been released from their geases and, technically, had ceased to be members of the organization.
Their research had also been compromised.
The Church of Demmazon now possessed the information necessary to understand the ancient plague formula, while the party no longer had access to the Great Library.
The party remained uncertain whether Samos's own translation and claims could be trusted.
During the journey away from Toreon, Demetrius revealed another discovery from his research: an ancient plague resembling the modern Werewolf Plague had struck Aegea around the time of its founding.
Unable to continue their research in Toreon, the party returned to the Tower of Plinth.
There they continued investigating the ancient outbreak and eventually discovered repeated references to The Quest for the Cure, setting in motion the expedition later recorded in The Ruins of Aegea.
Significance
The party's time in Toreon substantially changed both their investigation and their relationships with the major factions of the campaign.
During their stay:
- the ancient disk was translated, revealing the mechanism and origin of the modern Werewolf Plague;
- the party learned that the plague formula was itself ancient;
- their investigation became entangled with Toreon's vampire problem;
- they confronted Samos and learned his version of the schism within The Chosen;
- most of the party's geases were removed, disrupting their formal membership in the Chosen;
- the Church of Demmazon obtained the party's research and its own copy of the plague information;
- the party became famous in Toreon's arena as The Heretics;
- Beldin was executed after refusing to renounce Magerris;
- Demetrius sacrificed his long-standing cover within Toreon to summon help;
- and the Chosen rescued the party aboard the Sunchaser.
The party entered Toreon primarily as researchers looking for answers about a mysterious disk.
They left as escaped heretics, with the Church possessing the same dangerous knowledge they had uncovered and their search for the origins of the plague redirected toward ancient Aegea.
