Lady Franchezka Zo

Lady Franchezka Zo is a Muppetborn noble who was originally native to the Plush Plane, but divine intervention caused her to effectively die and revive in Avalon, making her cosmically native to that plane instead. She ruled over the Othrye Peninsula, a region of the island nation of Muppetascar, where she was well loved by her people and responsible for a time of great prosperity while the rest of the nation experienced unrest. She was also an accomplished wizard, focused entirely on clothomancy, a basic magical element that doesn't seem to exist outside of the Plush Plane, rendering her skills next to useless once she was displaced.

**MUPPETASCAR AND THE OTHRYE PENINSULA**

Prior to the events of the Muppetborn Campaign (Summer 2021), Muppetascar was ruled by Queen Jem, Daughter of Hen. Upon her passing three years before the campaign, her daughter Brenda ascended to the throne. But Jem's rule had been a golden age, and the ascension brought about unease. Rumors began to spread that Muppetascar was importing dark and mysterious objects from the nearest neighbor on the mainland and trade partner, Nova Mascotia, and that Muppetascar was experiencing unchecked banditry and people disappearing en masse. There was suspicion that the nation's neighbors were responsible for these rumors, intentionally sowing seeds of unrest.

Meanwhile, the Othrye Peninsula, which was overseen by Lady Zo from the Whirlygig Manor, was prospering. The region includes the City of Cappitaleta, a bustling trade hub with the mainland, and there was no denying that much of it was thanks to Lady Zo's personal efforts. She always made it a point to thank her people in speeches and dedicate public works improvements to them.

But her ambitions didn't stop there. Lady Zo began to believe that her achievements demonstrated that she should be the rightful heir to the throne. Working together with artificers from Nova Mascotia, she commissioned a new kind of siege weapon, and using her clothomancy skills to animate a dozen or more cloaks with her consciousness, she hatched a plan to give the palace an ultimatum and, if necessary, take control by force for the greater good.

**MUPPETBORN CAMPAIGN**

The plot of the summer 2021 campaign centered on four Muppetborn who were employed by Queen Brenda to drum up goodwill. The group were dispatched to investigate the more verifiable of the many rumors, all while representing the palace and help those they encountered. Getting to the bottom of the rumors was not as important as making a show of assisting everyone in the palace's name. But if there were foul deeds at play, they were to put a stop to it in the name of the queen.

It turned out that many of the rumored events were the direct result of Lady Zo's plans, for which she had personally hired three mercenaries of varying ability. Several people had indeed disappeared from the small mountain village of Poppyseed Lane, but the party learned from Lady Zo's assistant (and combat butler) Chadwick Entertainment Queso that the rumors had been investigated and most of the supposedly-missing had already been accounted for. The villagers had been put under a hypnotic trance by one of the mercenaries to mine a large red crystal, believing afterward that they had been "away visiting family." A large yellow crystal on display in the Cappitaleta city square had been replaced with a glass one by another one of the hired help, causing Lady Zo grief and embarrassment as she was present for the revelation. A cart carrying a large green crystal was taken by bandits, but they were already slain by the third mercenary before the party encountered their hideout. A crate delivered by rowboat to "some place to the west" contained a large blue crystal delivered directly to the Whirlygig Manor. Lady Zo herself had absconded with a book from the Poppyseed Lane school library, Rhoda the Wanderer's Field Guide, that detailed a ritual that used crystals of varying colors to transport objects between two places.

As the party conducted their investigations, they found that Lady Zo was strangely present in, seemingly, multiple places at once. She made it a point to keep an office in every town within her jurisdiction so she could be closer to the people and any events that required her immediate attention. She accomplished this through the use of several cloaks that she had prepared with clothomancy spells and blue crystal shards to activate the spell from a distance. After extensive practice splitting her attention several ways simultaneously, no one had reason to suspect that they were not talking with the "real" Lady Zo who was usually safely in her manor at any given moment. The party investigated her Poppyseed Lane office after midnight to try and discern her ruse, discovering that she was hoarding, rather than eating, the biscuits brought to "her" each day by the mayor. They also disturbed her cloak, knocking the crystal free from it, which necessitated that she send Chadwick to replace it with another prepared one.

Once they brought their suspicions to the Whirlygig Manor, the party was dropped into a dungeon room and had to fight the three mercenaries and Chadwick before reaching the hidden room where Lady Zo was performing the ritual outlined in the stolen book. Her expectation was that she would summon the Juggerupagus, a pilotable Muppetborn take on the Juggernaut from Tomb of Horrors, which was waiting for her to teleport into her circle of colored crystals from an identical circle of crystals somewhere in Nova Mascotia. However, Lady Zo misread the requirements and substituted a green crystal for what should have been a purple one, and the ritual went awry. Slowly rising from the circle was a balor, a creature unlike anything the Muppetborn had ever seen. (The balor was similarly confused.) When Lady Zo found that he would not obey her, she directed the party to attempt to shatter one of the crystals before the demon crossed entirely into the Plush Plane. They successfully shattered the green crystal, and everyone and everything nearby was pulled into the new portal that opened in the wake of the first one, crystals and all.

**MUPPETBORN IN AVALON**

Upon landing on some grass somewhere, the Muppetborn found that they could not move and slowly lost consciousness. Shortly after, the goddess who created the Plush Plane spoke to them, took pity on them, and explained that this was never supposed to happen. The Hand had created clothomancy for the Plush Plane alone, and while She couldn't introduce the magic to another plane entirely, She could return the Spark of Life to each of them individually to carry with them in this strange, dangerous world. Ultimately, it was discovered that a total of six Muppetborn were reanimated in this way (attuning them to this new plane as a result): the four adventurers, Lady Zo, and the one of the three mercenaries whom the party had left alive. The portal had dropped everyone in a moving line in order of passing through it, so the Balor was some distance away from the party, and from Lady Zo.

While the party began exploring the Alshifa region, Lady Zo found that most of her magic was useless outside of the Plush Plane. Desperate, she briefly took up a position helping at a halfway house she happened upon, though she never actually managed to achieve any work for the owner before being discovered there by the party. Aided by local recluse Tara Pynn, the party was working on rebuilding the crystal circle, this time with a proper purple crystal to link them to the one in Nova Mascotia back home on the Plush Plane. With no other options, Lady Zo tagged along with the group offering only the smallest bit of assistance when necessary.

Once the party took possession of a large purple crystal, they discussed what to do about the Balor that by this time had reached the halfway house and was threatening the nearby city. Lady Zo reasoned that she should be able to cast the transport spell from a distance using blue crystal shards, as she had always done through the ones in her cloaks. The party agreed to try belling the tiger, offering the Balor one of Lady Zo's cloaks to assist him in finding her to exact his revenge. (They also learned that his name is Sazzozoth when one of the adventurers kept calling him by an invented name, though this detail was never shared with Lady Zo.) Using the four colors that Lady Zo had used initially, with green in place of purple, she successfully sent Sazzozoth back from whence he came, against his will.

Following a long rest and an attempt by bandits, the group set the proper four colors in a circle, and Lady Zo began the ritual again. But as she reached the end of it, she abruptly stepped outside the circle, intending to stay behind as the party was transported away. Lady Zo assumed that the weapon she has commissioned was still awaiting her summon, and that she could separate herself from her would-be captors and lay claim to it in the same moment. But the party reacted quickly and used telekinesis to pull her back into the circle as she completed casting.

The group was successfully transported to the workshop in Nova Mascotia where they were surrounded by armed guards while Lady Zo slipped away behind her business partners. While severely outnumbered, the group found that they were not outgunned. The armor, weapons, and spells gained while in Avalon proved especially potent once brought home to the Plush Plane, and the party could not be opposed. But despite a thorough search, they could not find Lady Zo.

As it turned out, Lady Zo had returned to the crystal circle after resting long enough to cast the ritual again, hoping to call back the Juggerupagus. But it was no longer where it had been transported in Alshifa, after some gnolls came upon it and were unceremoniously crushed under its wheels. Once she could cast it again, Lady Zo used the ritual to return to Avalon to look for it to no avail. By the time she was able to try to return home, one of the adventurers had pulled up the purple crystal to take with him to Muppetascar for studying purposes, leaving Lady Zo stranded in Avalon until such time as the circle is recreated somewhere on the Plush Plane.

**AFTERMATH**

Lady Zo is unaware of any and all developments on the Plush Plane since her disappearance, She believes so strongly in her own importance that she assumes she will retake her position once she finds a way back there. In actuality, when a party of superpowered Muppetborn loyal to the Queen tell everyone who will listen that you're a traitor to the crown, they're taken somewhat seriously, and Zo's vacancy has been filled by the appointment of her niece, who is doing a fine job of things. But, again, this is all unknown to "Lady" Zo who clings to her title.

With the method of the ritual unavailable to her, Lady Zo has committed herself to two objectives. One, find some other way to get home to a plane to which she is no longer inherently attuned. Two, learn additional elemental magics and exercise her skills in this world just as the party pursuing her had done. She believes that if she can learn powerful magic here, she will eventually be able to force her way home and experience an increase in ability that would go forever unrivaled on the Plush Plane.

That's the plan, anyway. But Lady Zo is accustomed to having supporters at her beck and call, and her travels across Avalon have proven to be quite the fish-out-of-water experience for her. She continues to call out for Chadwick the moment she needs anything... before realizing she has to conjure an unseen servant to do it instead. All of this is not to mention the sudden appearance of hordes of demons, the timing of which seems a little too uncanny to be simple coincidence after her personal run-in with that one Balor. Now she finds herself hiding in a cave, expected to pull her weight in helping everyone survive. But she WILL survive. If making her triumphant return comes at the cost of coming out on top against an Armageddon-scale demonic incursion, then SO BE IT.

**SCOURGE OF AVALON**

For her part, Lady Zo finds the adventure to be a humbling and educational experience. She quickly learns that ordering others to do things doesn't go over terribly well, and that if she wants to be respected, she must earn it by proving herself useful, if not agreeable. She plays to her strengths and needs, learning spells that better enable her to understand the things the group is encountering as well as several methods of teleportation and a certain affinity for conjuring magical hands to the battlefield. She also sticks to her personal values and eschews necromancy, and on several occasions she resists the allure of magical items that offer power at a price. The party also relies on her regularly to allow them to Fly, Feather Fall, and Scatter out of danger. She develops something close to a friendship with Ash, who offers on multiple occasions to use the Libris Oblivicon to try and find a way to allow Lady Zo to return to the Plush Plane. While Zo accepts the help at first, she sees how Ash is close to destroying himself with the cursed book and tries several times to convince the Tiefling to surrender it to anyone else.

During one of Melek's nightmare sequences, it's revealed that Lady Zo's personal nightmare is to fail the people under her care. Her ideal dream room, in contrast, includes Chadwick reviewing the reports of the day including how the people are prospering under her guidance, as well as having Gritty as a romantic bedmate.

By the time she learns the ninth level spell Gate and has the necessary materials to cast it, Lady Zo understands the importance of their mission, far too well to abandon the party's objectives and return to the Plush plane. Knowing that the trek through the Abyss would likely prove fatal (or worse) to all involved, she ultimately abuses the Wish spell to create a simulacrum of herself to travel to the Plush Plane in her stead. Opening the Gate for the construct, she has the simulacrum cross through, revive Chadwick with its own Wish spell, and direct him to prepare the denizens of the Plush Plane for the worst-case scenario. As Chadwick rushes toward the Gate to speak with her directly, she closes it, possibly eliminating her last chance to return home.

At the end of the campaign while the party discusses Asmodeus' counteroffer to Mephistopheles' plan, Lady Zo is among those voicing that Asmodeus' plan has merit, though she herself does not attack Mephistopheles. Wondering if she could truly be happy returning to a mortal life on either plane, Lady Zo accepts the arch devil's offer to have a say in the shaping of things to come.

**EPILOGUE**

*Lady Zo is given a shard from the Heart of the Abyss, which she fashions into a Ruby Rod of incredible power. She pushes herself back into the Plush Plane, but with so much raw energy flowing through her body, she crashes straight through the realm, forging a separate Lower Plush Plane where she is now the dark ruler.*

"Well, you've certainly made some waves." This statement alerted Heckqueen Zo to the presence of her unannounced, but expected, visitor.

 "My, that is putting it mildly. Could I offer you some tea?" The Hand nodded and took a seat at a small table. Zo motioned with her staff and conjured settings for two, and she set herself to preparing a kettle.

 The Hand watched her work at this for about a minute before speaking again. "You've changed."

 "So much understatement from you. The last time you spoke to me, I was barely alive."

 "Yes," agreed the deity, "It is true that you are quite different now in innumerable ways. But I'm presently observing your willingness to brew your own tea rather than call for it to be done by someone else."

 Heckqueen Zo paused for a few seconds. "You're correct. I hadn't really noticed."

 "And while we are speaking of things that have changed, I feel we should discuss..." The Hand gestured vaguely out the nearby window, granting a view down a volcanic mountainside.

 "I call it the Time Out," declared Zo, pouring tea into the two cups. "Those who live their lives on the Plush Plane less than ideally will not reincarnate immediately as they once did. They will spend some time here, in my domain, long enough to think about what they've done." Zo set down the kettle and took the opposite seat.

 "I'm not certain how I feel about this. This... change to my design."

 "Do you not think there are those who deserve this much?"

 "I love all of my children."

 "But do none deserve this?"

 The Hand stared into Her teacup. "Would Franchezka Zo deserve this?"

 "Oh, absolutely. Well... maybe. Through my travels, I had my eyes opened to atrocities far greater, and punishments far more severe, than anything I ever would have imagined possible had I lived a full and complete life on the Plush Plane. Makes the things I once plotted seem like hardly anything." She sipped her tea. "Really, EVERYTHING outside the Plush Plane was more dour, more serious. Terrible, really. Inherently devoid of fun. Made me reflect quite a bit. I consider it to have been my Time Out. I believe those experiences made me a better person."

 "A person who now visits cosmic punishment upon those who had once been her peers."

 "So DO you believe, then, that none of your children deserve it? Including your little Franchezka?"

 "I... do see the value in it. There are times that I look upon my children sorrowfully, and I wonder if I have been too lenient. But I never actually would have established this, justified or not. I just couldn't."

 "And now you don't have to."

 "How long will you keep them?"

 "Only as long as is necessary. And then they will return to you for a kiss on the forehead and reincarnation, just as you always planned."

 The Hand sipped Her tea. Chamomile. It was familiar, pleasant. She realized She felt relieved that it wasn't something only native to the outside worlds. This is what She truly feared, She reflected. Too much outside influence affecting Her attempt at a perfect world. "What did you plan to do before you accepted the Archdevil's offer?"

 "Had I written my own epilogue rather than accepting the one from the DM?" Zo stroked her chin. "All along, I was concerned that we would fail in our endeavor. That the demonic Abyss would continue to expand and ultimately threaten the Plush Plane as well. In fact, I couldn't be certain that it hadn't already. I felt that it was unfair that we were shielded from the harsh realities outside our own, and that we should have the opportunity to prepare for the worst. I was planning, ultimately, to use the magics I had available to me to allow the mortals of the Plush Plane to freely travel to other worlds and take the Spark of Life with them so they could learn and prepare. But... I guess that now that I am in the position that I am, I see the wisdom in keeping our world safe and apart from the rest."

 The Hand stared into Her teacup again. "It wouldn't have been necessary, it seems."

 Zo lifted an eyebrow. "Do explain?"

 "It's already begun. The borders have been punctured in both directions several times, and none more so than your meteoric return to, and directly through, our world. I'm afraid that the Plush Plane is forever connected now to Avalon, and from there, to places beyond."

 Heckqueen Zo finished her tea in a single, large gulp. "You... don't say? Oh my, my cup is empty. I'd best make more tea!" She quickly dumped the kettle and unnecessarily started the entire process a second time.

 "What's more, your loyal butler Chadwick has taken his charge very seriously. He's squeezed every detail he could manage out of your simulacrum and responded as if everything you experienced is an imminent threat. What's this about a clockwork executioner who loves math but doesn't like creatures from other planes? And a... motorized vehicle destruction derby, was it? And I haven't the faintest idea what a Zombie Art is, but he'd have people believe they come up from the floors of libraries and march across bridges seeking to annihilate unwary people."

 "OH BOY, THIS KETTLE SURE TAKES A LONG TIME TO COME TO A BOIL, MAY BE A MINUTE!"

 "Chadwick Entertainment Queso has stirred up quite a few people into a tizzy, believing that they need to visit Avalon to grow stronger and prepare for what is to come. I've tried to exert my influence to calm people, but I can only do so much without direct intervention, and I worry how that might be taken. If I were to make an appearance to address it, it could cause even more people to conclude that the situation is dire and that action must be taken, the opposite of what I would hope for. And... things being as they are now, I believe I would have to grant the Spark of Life to any individual who willingly leaves the plane, not just those who depart unwillingly as in the past."

 The kettle began to whistle, but Zo continued to stand there, keeping her back to The Hand. "...so then...?"

 The Hand rose from Her chair. "So then, things are going to continue to change, sometimes by small steps, sometimes by large leaps. And... I feel it's something I simply have to face as a parent. Try as you might, one cannot escape the inevitable. The unpredictable nature of change, and of expectations defied, and of plans gone awry. If you'll excuse me."

 Zo nodded silently, and The Hand took Her leave of the Lower Plush Plane just as abruptly as she'd arrived. The Muppetborn Archdevil turned off the heat to the kettle and left it sitting on the heating coil as she walked to the window overlooking her domain. Her staff hummed quietly as the shard of the Heart of the Abyss pulsed a dim light.

"No one deserves to be here more than me."