Draconic Incursion

### Results

Material Plane no longer in immediate danger from celestial dragon dictatorships

## Participants

### Binturian Enemies

Delcho Sinfella, Dragonkind at large, Urist's Own mercenaries

## Common Knowledge

In a recent autumn, people might recall a sudden uptick in the activity of wyverns, drakes, and dragons across Orelisle, led by a pitch black dragon named Delcho. Anyone living near the ruins of Cliffhaven, Lesion, or certain parts of the Overbright might remember more clearly the forces of Delcho Sinfella and his revived dragons working to bring about a new age of draconic dominion. Nearly everyone knows the names of those Binturians who felled Delcho.

## Contributing Factors

The primary motivator for the Draconic Incursion was its leader and instigator: the Vantablack Celestial Dragon Delcho Sinfella. To Delcho, the Material Plane was a cesspool of anarchy and chaos, governed by the irrational whims of the mortals who dwelt there (to say nothing of the fae in its darkest corners). Only the ironclad rationality, charisma, and strength of the dragon could bring any semblance of peace to that world, and he was just the dragon to give his dream life.

To that end, Delcho devised a ritual which would open gateways to the Celestial Plane across Temporis and beyond, each allowing dragons chromatic and celestial to pass as they saw fit and subjugate the mortals to their superior rule. This would, of course, require an army, as many dragons as he could recruit, and five artifacts of power, and an ancient gateway built by his kind eons before they departed from the mortal realm.

## Binturian Involvement

The Binturians were contacted by Leneki, a very old mud wyvern who wanted Delcho’s plan stopped, and directed to the five artifacts that Delcho wanted. Securing four of those five, the Binturians infiltrated Delcho’s base, scattered his armies, and killed Delcho at his ritual’s climax to save the Material Plane.

## Order of Events

### A Mutually Beneficial Agreement

A mercenary working for Delcho named Justus Torrs, in the guise of a farmer, approaches the Binturians and asks for help recovering an artifact which has afflicted the people nearby with a soul afflicting curse. Some parts of his story, such as how he came to learn of this artifact and who discovered it, belie his true identity. Despite this, the Binturians agree to delve into the ruins known as the Great Tomb of the Lich King of Fegefeuer in search of this relic for a reasonable fee. As they trekked the ruins deeper and deeper into the earth, they unwittingly walked ever closer to the mouth of an undead nation in ruins deep beneath Binturia. In the titular ruins, they stumbled across powerful time-altering magic, ancient records of a war between the undead and the beast-folk, and countless undead milling mindlessly or going about their business.

In the tomb’s heart, the Binturians felled a zombified drake guarding the lich king’s corpse, and located the artifact: the Wisp of Fegefeuer, a glass candle holder which can summon wraiths to its wielder's aid and supposedly can revive long-dead creatures. Justus, having lifted the facade of the humble farmer, offered to pay the party for the artifact. They refused, unwilling to turn over such a powerful artifact to a stranger, and he departed. Upon exiting the tomb, the Mud Wyvern Leneki touched down in the Binturian Forest before them and offered his aid. Leneki explained Delcho’s grand plan, as much as he knew of it anyway, and offered his aid to them if he could keep the artifacts after the fact. The Binturians agreed, but ensured that final ownership of the artifacts would be negotiable.

### Trouble in Paradise

On intelligence from Leneki’s allies (Aube the dog-folk and June the cat-folk, both officials in Leneki’s beast-folk army), the Binturians travel through a Dimension Door -- a powerful transportation spell that can cross planes -- to the Overbright. Some of the party was sent to the coronation ceremony for Dove-Folk King Martin, to hopefully secure his airship to provide support for the other Binturians. Said other Binturians were sent directly to their next destination: the Crypt of the Slayer of the Immortal Wolf.

Discussions between the Binturians, the new king, and his advisors were doubtlessly tense (Delcho and the Dove-Folk had both tried to play each other against the Giants, so that needed to be untangled), but ultimately the Binturians secured the airship and flew it to the Hallowed Hollow to provide an escape route for the rest of their party. Meanwhile, the Binturians in the Crypt witnessed the rebirth of the Slayer of the Immortal Wolf, a frighteningly old dragon. Rather than fight the terrible beast, the Binturians tried to sacrifice one of their own to the Slayer, as an offering of peace in exchange for the artifact. This deal was, mostly, accepted, as their offering had been the only one willing to engage the Slayer in head-on combat (It should also be noted that the Binturians stole their sacrifice’s stone and distributed it amongst themselves. This would set their surviving sacrifice, one Jask Sigma, on an unstoppable path towards his annihilation the following spring).

After this complicated and morally-fraught exchange, they secured the Authority of Appearance, an elemental artifact which can conjure tornadoes and suck air from people’s lungs (in addition to looking very stylish). Two of Delcho’s agents, Heather Grey and Silvestus Murdoch, lept into the chamber from a nearby airship with a small horde of undead, and offered to purchase the artifact for their employer. Despite the silent threat, the Binturians agreed happily, and again distributed the winnings amongst themselves. Upon their return on the loaned airship, the Binturians got an earful from both Aube and June.

### Words of Power

Leneki and Murdoch, basically at the same time, approach the Binturian Party in the Adrian square to fill them in on the next artifact: the Alchemist’s Acerbic Revelation, an elixir which can compel truth from even the most stubborn fae. The trouble with the Revelation is that it was sealed behind countless countermeasures in a demiplane of the Celestial Plane: the Akashic Accords Libraries of the Aetheric Plane. Entering normally requires the permission of the Celestial Council, and even then the library magically bars non-dragons from entry. As such, Leneki provided the Binturians with samples of his blood to drink, which would fool the magic of the library for at least a few hours. Once inside, they would need to find the three passwords to open its deepest vault, and convince the libraries’ guardians (a pair of artificial sisters called the Norns) to grant them access to it. So in short, they had their work cut out for them.

Beginning from just beyond the Aetheric plane, the Binturians sprinted through the Void as quickly as they could and passed through the entrance to the Libraries without issue. With the aid of the fairy Tenya and the Ent Olaf, two lesser Norns, the Binturians walked through mile-long aisles of draconic texts to reach the home of the Norns: the Vortex of Fate, a massive simulation of the Material and surrounding planes, powered by Celestial magic and intensive scrying, which can even let the Norns partially predict the future. The three Norns, Skuld of the Future, Belldandy of the Present, and Urd of the Past, would allow them to retrieve the Revelation if they first assisted them. The Aetheric Plane, and especially the Libraries, are under constant threat from both Void Beasts and Fae-Folk incursions, and lately the library’s normal defenses had been sabotaged. With the Binturians’ aid, the security rituals are restored, and with the vault door opened by the words of power Tenya flies in and retrieves the Alchemist’s Acerbic Revelation.

### Barely Hidden Wounds

Before the Binturians could fully regroup, Delcho used a Dimension Door to send part of the day’s party to the next destination: the ruined mega-city of Lesion, a nightmarish place of foul beasts, chaotic magic, and even Void Beasts. The rest of the party quickly joined them for backup, but traversing its blood-stained streets was still an uphill battle. Made even worse by the fact that Heather Grey stole the artifact (the Cultured Cavalier’s Coat, able to convert any spell into another form of magic) from under their noses, and the Binturians were forced to retreat from Lesion empty-handed.

### In the Deep

The final artifact was in K’Vesten, in a magically-secured catacomb beneath its capital castle. Though this castle had previously been occupied by Queen Amity, the civil war following her death saw the Flaming Pearl change hands dozens and dozens of times as warlords rose and fell. On top of the warring factions in the area the Silver Horn had simply remained there in the aftermath of the Fel War of 10,018 A.B., complicating matters further. When the Binturians started their journey, it was guarded by the rising warlord Zohar Bethlem (a distant cousin of the Binturian Niccolaux Ostinato).

While one team of Binturians assaulted the castle head-on, and fended off a summoned Greater Demon from the depths of Narak, the second group infiltrated from another access point, freed dozens of enslaved Homunculi, and killed Zohar Bethlem. Both parties acquired the keys needed to disable the protective runes guarding the artifact: the Cornucopia of the Mountain Gods, which can store and even empower any ritual cast upon it for future use. That done, the Binturians were briefly hindered by an ambush conducted by Heather Grey and Silvestus Murdoch, but overcame it with little issue.

### March to Urist’s Home

With no artifacts left to collect, Leneki directed the Binturians to the heart of Delcho’s organization in Cliffhaven. Though many dragons and drakes fell, including an artificially toxic dragon named Abyrstus who acted as one of Delcho’s Lieutenants, the most important leader escaped to Delcho’s ritual site. General Tadmus Adonmus of the Urist’s Own mercenary company, refusing to let Cliffhaven’s last breath fly, fled through a Dimension Door out of the party’s grasp.

Meanwhile, another group of Binturians managed to secure a ceasefire between the Ore-acles near Cliffhaven and all other peoples, ensuring that the threat of a massive Ore-acle invasion did not come to Orelisle. They could not secure their aid for the coming battle, however.

### Battle of the Crinoid Peak

Speaking of the coming battle, Leneki used his own magic to hold open the Dimension Door which Adonmus fled through, and upon entering the Binturians reached the site of Delcho’s ritual. The icy winds of the Crinoid Mountains blew past them as they gazed into a massive gateway to the Celestial Fields, held open from time long passed and through the Planar War until that very day.

With aerial support from Leneki and ground support from Aube, the more diplomatic party members kept Delcho distracted while an infiltration team circumnavigated the ritual. At each nexus, they found a replacement artifact, and executed a small counterritual to unbind it from the main ritual. Delcho soon learned of this treachery, and dispensed with all manner of civility. Delcho rallied his dragon, drake, and dwarf allies, and entered the fray flanked by legions.

The battle was long and grueling, as Delcho’s army and his scaly exterior shrank little by little. The Binturians cast powerful rituals and called upon their gods for aid (The Masked Lady herself appeared to Chant’folne and Niccolaux to give advice), At last, Delcho’s army lay in ruins, and the beast revealed its true form. Lights dimmed and fires waned as the black hole of Delcho’s true Vantablack Celestial form emerged and engulfed Binturian after Binturian, each volley of the remaining survivors dragging a missing comrade from the depths of its inky oblivion before their souls were torn asunder. No one knows who struck the final blow, but with the death of Delcho and the collapse of his company, each person on that mountain top earned the title of Dragonslayer.

## Aftermath

With Delcho dead and his movement crushed, the remaining dragons departed for their original homes. No gateways to the Celestial Plane were opened, and the Material Plane at large was saved. There may still be dragons, both chromatic and celestial, who sympathize with Delcho’s cause, but most are disorganized and lack Delcho’s connections, charisma, or power.

## Further Information

* The Binturian Party
* Chant’folne Sforza
* Cliffhaven
* Cornucopia of the Mountain Gods
* Delcho Sinfella
* Leneki
* Lesion
* The Sisters#Members#The Masked Lady
* Morsland