The Forsaken

The **Forsaken** are a de facto adventuring party brought together by the Remnants and Ahgregoil, who are currently roaming through the Shadowfell in search of answers and other motives. They are the protagonists of the first campaign.

## Founding

### Arc 1: Crossing Into Darkness

Each of the party was originally in the Material Plane, tending to their own business before falling asleep. The original five members were Cragmaw, Elaric Coppercliff, Herrik Folium, Sceldran Veritene, and Willow Cormyr. These five individuals shared the sane sinister dream: falling to the floor of a church inside of a dark red storm. The five of them woke up in the back rooms of a church, finding their wrists impaled by sickles and chains from the ceiling, with a Mysterious Voice occasionally entering their thoughts. After freeing themselves and offering brief introductions, the party deduced they were in this place for a reason, and sought answers. After a brief run-in with some cultists and necromancers, the Forsaken slew them and took a map detailing several different locations around them. The closest location to them was another church, and they hiked there, getting to know each other a little better.

Inside the second church lay two other survivors, Larold Normalman and Rue Tamiel. The party figured they would stand more of a chance against the forces that brought them here if they stuck together. Inside another room in the church, they discovered a book containing documentaries from the cultists, speaking of unimaginable horrors previously done for some ancient entity aspiring for godhood.

After leaving the church, the Forsaken headed to a place on their map called the *Fallen Seraph's Domain*, where they met the fallen angel Azrael. His body corrupted by the dark matter and essence of the Shadowfell, Azrael also revealed some lore regarding Endymia's history before the War of the World, Celestia, and his fall. Azrael handed the party a talisman to contact him if necessary but told them it could only be used once. After they left the angel to sleep more, they were ambushed by a small pack of shadow wyverns. The party dispatched them, and left to find the hidden entrance to a Crypt Azrael spoke of that was a shortcut to Neobabel. A tornado of rock forced them to jump down, and the party landed on an enormous mound of bones, looking at the crypt full of death and viscera, taunted by the voice.

### Arc 2: The Remnants

Traversing through the Crypt, the party found what appeared to be a dungeon. Inside lied several deformed humans that tore each other apart before the party, and causing Herrik to notably tense up. As they progressed through the dungeon, they found a church carved into the mountainside, with three statues depicting undead figures, one mindflayer wizard, one other wizard, and a central ascended wizard. Before the statues were pedestals of gems connected magically to an obsidian portal, which activated once the gems were placed onto their respective colors. The portal took them to an ancient monolith that was the spire in a necromantic storm of sea-green lightning, Neobabel. When they approached the entrance, two raven-clad figures attacked the party. After a violent battle, and at the lives of Herrik, Rue, and Willow, the Sisters were killed by the party. One was incinerated by Larold, and the other was gunned down by Elaric. Noticing his fallen comrades, Cragmaw willingly knocked himself unconscious to bring Sceldran back up from his own unconsciousness, with Elaric as the only witness. But strangely, before Sceldran could resurrect the fallen party, three spheres of red magical energy enveloped the three dead Forsaken, reviving them and marking the Roman Numeral "I" on their right hands.

When the party entered Neobabel at last, they saw an altar containing a lament of their plight carved in stone. Rue and Willow heard screams from below accompanied by wailing metal, while the rest of the party only heard the metal. Investigating but taunted by the Voice, they pushed onward to find a large meat grinding machine protected by a sea-green magical barrier, with a conveyor belt housing large piles of gore and viscera, also protected by the barrier. After unsuccessfully trying to destroy and investigate the machine, they started to leave, but heard a voice inside one of the piles, and only watched in horror as the person inside was sliced along with the gore and fed into the machine. As they went back up, they decided to ascend the tower, and approached a room with seven different passageways, differentiated by the hanging corpses of other humans dressed to look like the party. When they went into the passageways, each had a vision only they knew about, leaving Sceldran in thought, Larold and Cragmaw with newfound resolve to stop the Remnants, and the others completely defeated.

Next thing the Forsaken knew after their vision, they were in a room with no exits, and a red obsidian portal. When the party went through, they found out that it was Winter in the Material Plane, and had a moment of relief that they were home. But they immediately noticed the snowfall wasn't actually snow, it was ash, and there were strangely no sounds. When they exited the forest, they saw a large reactor of some kind, pulsing sea-green energy in the sky, surrounded by scorched earth and digging into the rock of the land. The Voice, now sounding demonic rather than deep, welcomed them to "The Other Side."

### Arc 3: The Other Side

Going inside the reactor, the Forsaken noticed it was powered by an unstable but encased gravity singularity, and had various runes laced across it. It kept something above the sky afloat, concealed by clouds of smoke. Around the reactor was a ghost town, and the party found an inactive obsidian portal at its center. Various children appeared behind the houses, taunting the party and then turning into Flesh Hellions upon revealing secrets were above. After the party dispatched the Hellions, their bodies turned back into children and the portal activated.

The portal took the party to a skylab known as Alexandria. Inside the lab was various alien-like technology beyond the party's comprehension. As they uncovered deeper in the laboratory, they were led down by a bloodied spinal staircase. Various time dilations occurred the deeper the Forsaken went into Alexandria, highlighting moments of the former Archmage of Arcane Affairs, Julius Morrow's life, ending with him being possessed as the entity known as Ahgregoil. The deeper the Forsaken went into Alexandria, the more they found. Inside the "heart" or central experimentation room were tubes of what appeared to be people under the effects of Herrik's Wild Shape serum, a black notebook documenting the creatures, as well as a diary on a desk.

Before the party could peer further, the entire laboratory turned on its side, sending most of the party who were unable to fly straight towards the walls, as Cragmaw, Elaric, and Larold were floating mid-air in the gravity-shifting lab. All of a sudden, when the room reached a full rotation, the gravity returned to normal, causing everyone to fall. Afterward, the party looked at the diary, only to find the first few pages penned by Morrow himself, and the rest by Ahgregoil. Julius' entries documented various snippets of his life before his possession and the discovery of the *Dark Spark*, the singularity keeping the lab aloft. The handwriting changed from neat cursive to sloppier scrawls, signifying his complete possession by Ahgregoil, who documented various events, including his time possessed as Julius before his forced impeachment, the creation of Project WENDIGO-2, and several other pages concerning different members of the party. The final page was Ahgregoil talking to them directly, telling them to return to Neobabel for their final confrontation with him... after two other tests. Cragmaw's Lantern of Revealing also revealed hidden text in the diary from Julius himself, trying not to be suppressed in his own body. Julius said that he was placing flaws in Ahgregoil's experiments, and warned whoever was listening to him that he was Ahgregoil's biggest weakness. Just then, the laboratory began to shake again. As everything stabilized in the lab, the sound of glass breaking wrung in the air, and a raspy howl echoed throughout the laboratory. Project WENDIGO-2... was loose.

The Forsaken gave themselves a minute to prepare, so Sceldran turned the corpses in Ahgregoil's labratory into ghouls to use on the Wendigo. When they left the room, they saw a collapsed curtain, shard of glass, and an empty containment cage... but nothing else. Cragmaw slid his Lantern of Revealing to the center of the room, where it was immediately pulverized, and he charged towards the source. The rest of the party saw Cragmaw instantly become restrained and fade into invisibility, and tried to find out where the creature was. Eventually, Rue's Hound of Ill Omen revealed its location by attacking it, removing its invisibility. Now revealed, the party and the Wendigo dealt significant damage to each other, with a devastating Disintegrate from Rue and the Wendigo knocking Elaric and Sceldran unconscious with its Blood Thorns. After a significant amount of damage was dealt to the beast, it began to flee towards the exit, and cutting off the party by destroying part of the spinal staircase.

The party took a minute to heal, then continued their pursuit, finding the Wendigo not fixated at them, instead at the beautiful sky of the Other Side. The party slowly approached it, on guard, then paused as it called several of the party different names, namely Rue, Willow, Elaric, and Herrik. All of a sudden, its body began to twitch and convulse, as Ahgregoil forced the creature into a Blood Frenzy, empowering its attacks and making it harder to save against. The second phase of the fight began, with Ahgregoil closing off the edge of the laboratory, part of the nebulous sky falling down on the battlefield, Herrik Polymorphing into a T-Rex, and Sceldran successfully casting a Divine Intervention to deal impressive radiant damage to the Wendigo. In the midst of the fight, Sceldran and Rue were killed by the creature, and eventually Herrik bit off the top half of its body and threw it off Alexandria, where it disappeared beneath the smoke from the reactor.

### Arc 4: Homecoming

Taking some time to recover, Ahgregoil activated the portal in Alexandria, telling the party to take it when they are ready, for their final test. The Forsaken realized that now, they have a moment of peace and calm from everything that had been happening to them, so they shared some heartfelt remarks between each other, and had some drinks together, starting a fire and enjoying possibly their last night together. After they rested, the party took the portal, where Larold saw Alexandria Morrow by her grave, mouthing "Save him." Larold replied that he would bring him back, and left one of his business cards on the laboratory as the party departed. The party was transported to a room with fourteen hanging sickles, evenly spaced in pairs of two, and writing in blood on the floor read: "COMPLETE THE CIRCLE." The party's wounds from the sickles began to ache and burn, as if they longed to be impaled once more. After the party did so, they began to feel drowsy, and entered their own dreams.

Herrik's dream was living with Halima and his father. Cragmaw's dream was the day before the Purge of the Maw. Elaric's dream was getting to go home to the Feywild, and the guild he grew up in had no connection to the Remnants. Sceldran's dream was him preparing to attempt a modified Ritual of Transfiguration. Willow's dream was waking up in her home of Fethshara. Rue's dream was being an orphan taken care of by Faustia. Larold's dream was the day before the backfire of the Temporal Retractor. Things seemed off to some of the party, but the dreams quickly devolved into nightmares for most. Halima turned into a Wendigo and Herrik's "father" cut off his left arm. Cragmaw re-lived the events of the Purge. Elaric was left to die in the Feywild by Finic. Sceldran in an "ascended" form talked to Ahgregoil. Willow was taunted by Ahgregoil. Faustia also turned into a Wendigo and began to kill Rue. Larold watched the same events happen, Julius losing his family, and was tortured by Ahgregoil. Eventually, once killed in the dream, the party woke up, with an object by their feet. Herrik's mask at his, a bloodstained religious cloth at Cragmaw's, a silver amulet of Finic at Elaric's, a necromantic Talisman at Sceldran's, a broken obsidian arrowhead at Willow's, a rotted wolf fang at Rue's, and one of the scarlet roses at the Morrow family's grave for Larold. Eventually, the party made their way up to Ahgregoil at Neobabel's peak, and prepared for the final battle.

The fight with Ahgregoil nearly ended in a complete slaughter. Ahgregoil managed to completely control or hinder the Forsaken's movement with gravity singularities, and when they were low on health in a matter of rounds, Azrael came and cast Mass Heal on everyone, bringing them back up to full hit points. Crippling and highly damaging the Forsaken, things were getting desperate for the party, with Azrael forcecaged and Elaric, Herrik, and Cragmaw annihilated by Ahgregoil's Ravenous Void. Rue managed to Disintegrate the Forcecage before being knocked unconscious, allowing Azrael to heal Sceldran. In the midst of the battle, Larold reached out to Julius within Ahgregoil's subconscious, notably affecting him by forcing him to lose Legendary Actions. At the end of the battle, Ahgregoil ran out of high level spells, and congratulated the Forsaken, wishing for their journey onward to be filled with blessings and curses, before Larold decapitated him. Julius broke free for a moment, before his body fell into a Ravenous Void spell he created, atomizing it just before the singularity collapsed on itself.

In the aftermath, the Forsaken were resurrected by Sceldran and Azrael. Thanks to Azrael's True Resurrection, Herrik was given a brand new body free from his blighted affliction. Sceldran resurrected Elaric, Cragmaw, and Halima, and the rest went their separate ways.

### Epilogues

Herrik lived the rest of his days with Halima, killed his father, and opened up a shop in his home town of Redwood. Cragmaw became an Elder Tortle and chieftan of the new Maw, renamed the Crag, and removed its magical barriers, allowing it to become a safe haven for all. Elaric's parents managed to find him after Ahgregoil's magic was dispersed, and he went to the Feywild to live with his parents while still visiting the Forsaken. Sceldran stayed in the Shadowfell, amassing power as a Lesser Idol after taking a fragment of Ahgregoil's soul and offering pacts to new adventurers. Larold retired, helped Herrik run a shop, and found a date. Willow and Rue cared for runaways and spent their time hunting down connections to the Remnants.