The Ruins of Aegea

Campaign: Under the Bus
Location: Aegea

Overview

The expedition to the submerged ruins of Aegea was undertaken as part of the party's search for a cure for The Werewolf Plague.

Research at the Tower of Plinth had established that a remarkably similar plague had struck Aegea around the time of its founding. Surviving histories repeatedly referred to a magical history tome called The Quest for the Cure, which had been kept in Aegea's Great Library and apparently described how the ancient plague had been defeated.

Because Aegea had been submerged shortly after its destruction, the party hoped that the flooded ruins might have escaped extensive looting and that the magical book could have survived.

Eritrea agreed to carry the expedition aboard the Sunchaser. The party was accompanied by Marcus, Jayme, Orinder, Brance, and a contingent of Chosen soldiers.

Finding Aegea

Pre-Fall maps were of limited use because the geography had changed dramatically since the Fall of the Age of Wonders. Even maps of Aegea itself proved difficult to interpret because the ancient city had existed on multiple levels, with nearly as many structures in the air as on the ground.

After searching the southern sea, the expedition eventually located structures beneath the water and confirmed that they had found the ruins of Aegea.

Much of the city remained underwater, but numerous structures had survived largely intact. Some still contained substantial pockets of trapped air.

The ruins were not uninhabited. A tribe of kuo-toa had established itself among the remains of the city.

The Kuo-Toa

The party's first dealings with the kuo-toa eventually brought them before their chieftain, Ploog.

Ploog claimed that the coming of the party had been foretold by the kuo-toa god Blibdoolpoolp. According to him, surface dwellers bearing powerful weapons would arrive to destroy a great turtle that had begun intruding upon the tribe's hunting grounds.

To ensure the party's cooperation, the kuo-toa held several members of the expedition hostage while the others were sent against the creature.

The "great turtle" proved to be a massive fiendish dragon turtle.

The party killed it.

Near its lair they discovered a large, mostly intact structure that they identified as the remains of the Great Library of Aegea. Within the dragon turtle's lair they also discovered its hoard.

Ploog subsequently released the hostages and allowed the party to explore the library. In return, he asked them to recover a magical trident that kuo-toa legend claimed was somewhere within the ruins and which he regarded as belonging to his people.

The Great Library

The Great Library had once been even larger than the library in Toreon.

Most of its ordinary books and scrolls had been destroyed by centuries underwater, but portions of the library had survived. Some chambers remained protected, and the party eventually reached collections containing magical works preserved against deterioration.

The surviving collection included magical books capable of communicating their contents through illusions or directly imparted knowledge, ancient ceramic records similar to the disk recovered from Deskin, and several important historical works.

Among the surviving works was the book the party had come to find:

The Quest for the Cure.

The party also discovered evidence that someone had entered the library much more recently than the destruction of Aegea.

The Werewolf Guardians

The party encountered a group of kuo-toa within the library who rejected Ploog's authority and attacked them.

During the battle, several of the kuo-toa transformed into werewolves.

The presence of werewolf kuo-toa established that the party had not merely stumbled upon an unrelated kuo-toa settlement. Someone connected to the modern werewolf threat had already been operating within the ruins.

The party did not yet know the full explanation.

DM-only / later-established information: Stegner had previously explored the library. It was here that he discovered the ancient disk containing the formula for the plague as well as information concerning Filtiarn and his failed attempt at ascension. He subsequently left infected kuo-toa to guard the ruins and prevent others from gaining access to the same information.

The Adventure Machine

Although The Quest for the Cure had survived, the physical book had been badly damaged by water and could no longer simply be read.

The library contained an Adventure Machine, an Age of Wonders device that allowed people to experience certain books as interactive magical adventures. Such machines had originally been largely a novelty and form of entertainment for scholars.

The machine itself was damaged.

After repairs, it could function again, but many of its original safety features could not be restored. The experience it generated would therefore pose genuine danger to those participating. Because The Quest for the Cure was also damaged, the party could not be certain that the history presented by the machine would be entirely complete or accurate.

The party nevertheless entered the machine and experienced The Quest for the Cure.

The Quest for the Cure

The magical history transported the party back to the founding of Aegea, long before the Korvak War, the Age of Wonders, or Demmazon's revelation to the world.

They witnessed the early city's struggle against drought, famine, attacks by enormous wolves, and finally a devastating plague.

The plague was revealed to be a curse capable of transforming its victims into werewolves.

The party experienced the events that ultimately led Aegea's founders to seek the means to create The Aegisstaff. The completed artifact cured the plague before Filtiarn could carry out the mass transformation he had intended and became one of the great artifacts of ancient Aegea.

The experience established the connection the party had been searching for:

the ancient plague that nearly destroyed Aegea and the modern Werewolf Plague were manifestations of the same threat, and The Aegisstaff had been the means by which the earlier outbreak was defeated.

Aftermath

The discoveries in Aegea fundamentally changed the party's objective.

Creating another Aegisstaff was not considered feasible. The original artifact therefore became their best hope of stopping the modern plague.

Later research established that Magerris had been the Keeper of The Aegisstaff before his ascension. The last known historical account placed the staff in his possession during his battle with Correries over Rictaria. That battle destroyed Rictaria and created Godsmount, after which Correries fled west toward the End of the World with Magerris in pursuit.

The party therefore turned from searching for a cure to searching for the lost Aegisstaff itself.

Significance

The expedition to Aegea connected several previously separate threads of the campaign.

The party:

• confirmed that the modern Werewolf Plague had an ancient precedent;

• learned that The Aegisstaff had defeated the original outbreak;

• recovered The Quest for the Cure;

• gained access to surviving historical material from Aegea and the Age of Wonders;

• encountered werewolf kuo-toa demonstrating that agents of the modern conspiracy had reached the ruins before them;

• and acquired the information that redirected their investigation toward finding the original Aegisstaff.

The expedition transformed the party's understanding of the plague from a contemporary werewolf conspiracy into the recurrence of a threat rooted in the world's ancient history.