Lords of Dust: The End of Aldan Vane (For Now)

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Sunday night’s game of D&D was excellent.

Bryan is running the game right now, and doing great. Previously, we had discovered a snow-globe, which we learned was housing a demi-plane which had been created to seal off a small village from the rest of Eberron. Apparently, the only way to keep the village’s rift into the Shadowfell at bay was to trap the village inside this glass dome.

The golden dragon ally we had made cast a ritual to teleport us into the globe.

We arrived in a world devoid of almost all color. The way it was described to us was that the saturation was turned way down. What looked like snow was settling around us, but when we tasted it, we realized it was ash. So igniting my enshrouding candle, the party entered the city, searching for any clues as to where the rift had opened. We investigated the small church near the center of town, finding it gutted and burnt out. Same with the rest of the buildings in town. Eerie.

Some villagers began approaching us, and initially, we tried to communicate with them. But they continued their advance, their eyes pitch black. When they lashed out at us, we sprang into action. But as the villagers fell, they released from their bodies dark wraiths we then had to fight. Luckily, Aldan is a Ghostblade, so he was able to ignore their insubstantiality a little and do some impressive damage. Going through the rest of town, we were beset by more villagers until we were able to sense the presence of the rift off in the distance.

Arriving before the gate, we couldn’t figure out how to seal it. It appeared to be against a hill of some sort, and when we began to dig into the hill, we discovered that a thin layer of ash was actually covering the body of an ancient, massive shadow dragon. It appeared the dragon had opened the portal, and had since died. Using the Swordmage power “Be Gone”, Aldan teleported the dragon’s body into the portal, hoping to close the gate once the dragon was gone.

No such luck, for beneath the dragon’s body was a nest, full of eggs. Hatched eggs. Uh oh…

Before we knew it, we were surrounded by shadow dragon hatchlings, angry we had banished their mother, even if she  was dead. Pillar, our Warforged Ranger, was appalled at the idea of killing baby dragons, so we incapacitated most of them and threw them through the rift. Which began to collapse.

Fine, you say, that’s what you were there for, right? Sure, but we weren’t too excited about the fact that it looked like the snow globe was collapsing, and we were still inside with no way out.

Before the portal completely collapsed, a figure emerged from the portal. It was an eladrin with silver hair, and dressed in a red renaissance-era dress. She wore an eye patch, and had a mechanical arm. Introducing herself as Tana, she told us she had a way to get us out.

A note: Tana was Bridget’s original character in 4e, an Eladrin Wizard, who, in our last session of the campaign, took out her eye to place the Eye of Vecna within, before being teleported to Ravenloft. Also, note that we weren’t playing in Eberron in that original campaign, so it would appear that certain planes of existence overlap campaign worlds. Cool. When she showed back up in this game, Bridget got really, really excited.

Anyway, back to the story.

She explained to us that this rift was not only to the Shadowfell, but to the Domains of Dread themselves, AKA, Ravenloft. She would be able to open a portal back to Eberron, but would only accommodate three people. There were four of us. The fourth would have to return to Ravenloft with Tana.

Aldan told everyone else to hurry, before it was too late.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Tana asked.

“I have been to the Shadowfell before,” Aldan said.

“Not like this, you haven’t.”

The party fled through the portal, and Aldan and Tana departed into Ravenloft, just before the demi-plane completely collapsed.

Now, whether Aldan is gone forever or not, remains to be seen. I’m excited to see where his story goes.

Next week, I start up playing a Female Gnome Wizard, which I’m really excited for. With an extended spellbook, she’s got a ton of options for her choices of powers. Looking forward to it.

Until next time, keep rolling 20′s!