Episode 251 - A History of Heroes Part 1

With no great conflicts to attend to our heroes take a breather and reflect on their time adventuring. The hijinks they have gotten into. The dragons/ dragon affiliated foes that they have fought. All of the hairs that have been tuscled. Truly, it has been a journey and a half.

This is an anime-ass-recap episode! We haven’t done one of these in forever so we wanted to take a stroll down memory lane as well as refresh our memories. Of course, since this is us, we had to come up with an in world justification for the recap which hope you will enjoy.

## **Story**

The year is 1716. Queen Aludra Wyrmsbane has been ruling Deephome in peace for the last seven years. As the time went by, she and her wife Jaela would go off in secret to raid and fight, and keep the boredom away. Jaela has been working on building up the militia, and working on a public sewage/sanitation system. They also do couples yoga together. Bucky is in his early twenties at this point, and is trying to find a job, living with Aludra and Jaela in the meantime (smoking that Silverweed Oil). Meanwhile, Xena Meloncamp is now seven years old, and is in the midst of combat training with her father, Steve Meloncamp.

Prince Thom Harper, the 10-year-old son of the late King Titus Harper, has been tasked with giving a report on the history of the legendary heroes, the Ätlän-tã Fælcons to Watson Copperfield, the Gnome head of the White Spire. He does a pretty good job detailing their previous adventures. As he gives it, he asks for sweets, which Copperfield refuses to give him, as the boy's mother, Queen Ashayara Dayne, forbids it. He summons many of his friends to help him with his recap, as he forgets some stuff. He brings in Queen Aludra, Bucky, Jaela, and Steve to help. Together, they are able to weave quite the tale of the not too distant past...

It all began when Lord Milnor captured ~~five~~ four adventurers: Aludra the Dwarf, Thom the Dragonborn, Junpei Iori, and Tum Darkblade. They were taken to be made into zombies by Milnor and his lackey, Thokas, keeping them in Shadowspar Keep. With no memory of their past lives or how they got there, these four adventurers escaped to New Newfoundland Land, which has grown quite a bit under the watchful eye of Mayor Ballard. The adventurers traveled around a bit, and then decided they needed to get the implants out of their heads. Oh, by the way, they had implants in their heads. They were told by Geodude, a djinn servant to Junpei Iori, that they should search for a man named Fennekin. They headed out for the city he lived in, Caer, but stopped by Mastwick on the way, where they learned that Tum Darkblade wasn't a Darkblade at all. He was a member of House Thumble, and wanted to be a member of an organization known as the Darkblades. The head of House Thumble, Lord Trant Thumble was a bad man, but a great warrior. He conquered Mastwick and Caer for his own. The adventurers were told by Fennekin to find and bring to him three ancient and powerful artifacts: The Whip of Binding, The Orb of Endless Power, and The Brazier of Worlds. In exchange, he promised to remove their brain devices.

*(A sub-plot that was not talked about until later was that Tum met up with Footpad Calor, a high member of the Darkblades, who told Tum a lot about his past, and that he had a mission to steal a magic talking sword, named Blood Drinker from his father, Trant Thumble. They successfully stole the sword and gave it to the Darkblades, and Tum was made into a full and proper Darkblade. This also caused all his memories to come rushing back to him, but they gave up Blood Drinker, much to the dismay of the bloodthirstiest member of the part, Thom the Dragonborn.)*

They went to the library to search for information on these items, and were pointed toward House Vidalis, and The Crypt of Sinu the Red. They were also pointed toward The Lost Island, but could only find it by using a magic compass inside the Cursed Cave. They are able to find the compass, but unfortunately, Tum "Darkblade" Thumble drowns when a magical scroll that was supposed to make him breath underwater malfunctions. They were able to use the compass to reach The Lost Island, whereupon Junpei Iori got all his memories back. He remembered that he was from this place, and willingly leaves the party to be with his people. On this island, the party met Winston and, more importantly, Lord Titus Harper, him of the dark past, the Tempest, the oncoming storm, and breaker of chains. Father to Thom Harper, narrator. They also met Bucky at this time. They fought a young dragon while trying to acquire the Whip of Binding, and killed it, but then its mother arrived and nearly killed them all. They escaped just in time.

*(Another point that is not touched upon, but is probably important. During their travels around Drunkeros, the party is told that a man named Captain Hookbeard, whose beard was, of course, not hooked, would carry them across the sea on his boat. Once they got aboard, they discovered that Hookbeard and his crew were smuggling slaves around, which the party was not okay with. They killed the crew and freed the slaves, one of whom was a salty sea wench named Ros, and they quickly made her captain of the boat that they took over and named, the Chum Guzzler.)*

The next place they went, after Aludra and Thom adopted Bucky, was the Crypt of Sinu the Red (for the first time). There, Aludra failed to solve a riddle, and died (for the first time). Before this happened, however, Aludra discovered the corpse of another Dwarf, and when she picked up his shield, she regained all of her memories. This corpse was her brother, and they were of the House Wyrmsbane, a powerful family of ruling Dwarves. Aludra was brought back to life by the Orb of Endless Power. After this, the party went to the Swamps of Ichtaka to find the Brazier of Worlds, but ended up accidentally falling back in time, over 300 years earlier! In the past, they encountered House Vidalis including a (more) evil version of Thom the Dragonborn. This one was Thom Vidalis, and he had several clones of himself at the ready to attack Pelor's Hope (Harper's hometown). The Thom of the regular time got all his memories back once they fought and killed the other Thom, and he remembered everything in his life up until the point that he was killed by himself from the future, which is this version in the present in the past. It's a little confusing.

Fennekin helps them use the Brazier of Worlds to transport them all back to their original times. Harper stole the Brazier of Worlds to return to Fennekin on his own, but was stopped by the others, who then questioned him. He revealed that Fennekin kidnapped his entire family, and threatened to kill them unless he did this. They decide to work together to take down Fennekin. With absolutely no plan at all, they confront Fennekin, who detonates the brain bombs in Aludra and Thom's heads (Aludra's second death). Harper is stabbed in the heart by Ros, the salty sea wench from the boat, and they are all killed. Fennekin also killed Harper's entire family, except for his sister Adira Harper, who escaped. He also killed Ros' sister Pirta, who he had kidnapped in order to force her into killing Harper.

The three heroes were then resurrected by Erathis, the goddess of civilization and society. She told them that they have to stop Fennekin and save the world from the newly created Demon Apocalypse they helped cause. She also tells them that she will send an Adherent of Erathis, Jaela, to them, to help them along the way. They meet Jaela in a bar in Pelor's Hope, one of the last surviving bastions of life left. *(They kind of jump around a lot. At some point, Thom ran off by himself to go steal back Blood Drinker, and at this point, he has had it for a while. The two have bonded, but Jaela is also fascinated by the sword. It was later destroyed by Jaela when she sacrificed it in order to have her very own Pegasus, Princess Ivy Bluemoon. She can fly and has diabetes.)* Back on Drunkeros, Caer has been completely destroyed, swallowed by the portal to the Abyss created by Fennekin. Only a mighty fortress remains in its place. Jaela, who comes from a far away place, Yangahr, tells them that they need to find the Demonomicon, and it will have instructions on how to stop Fennekin. Jaela is a Deva, which means that she lived many lives as many different people, and when one of them dies, they are "regenerated", if you will, into a new body. She has a flashback/dream/vision, which she pulls all her new friends into.

They are all in other people's bodies, reading their memories. Notably, Jaela is in her previous form, Rhavar, and Thom inhabits the mind of a Gnoll named Steve Meloncamp (Thom hates Gnolls). Also, Aludra is in Temerity Barakas, and Harper is in Telir *(they are less important)*. This group was tasked by a god named Mordenkainen to deliver the Demonomicon to Fennekin (not because Mordenkainen was evil, just because nobody knew a damn thing back then). They found the Chum Guzzler, inexplicably all the way in Yanghar, and took off toward Caer. Steve the Gnoll had the Demonomicon in his possession when the ship was attacked by demons, and he created what he thought was a portal to safety, but turned out to be a portal to not safety, which was the bottom of the ocean. He died crushed under thousands of tons of water, Demonomicon in hand.

The main group woke up from this vision and set off, with the help of a goofy wizard named Zird the Arcane to find the corpse of Steve, as he still had the Demonomicon. They got on a magically created submarine and found the body, and it was Thom who got out to get the book. However, as soon as he touched it, a startling metamorphosis occurred. It seems that, as Steve was holding the Demonomicon when he died, his soul was trapped within it, and transferred itself to the first host body it came in contact with, Thom! From that point on, Steve's consciousness lived inside Thom's head, and could even speak for himself.

Once they emerged from the ocean floor, they met up with some old friends: Watari, Wren, Lex and Clinker. Oh, and Ros, whom Harper agreed not to kill just yet, though there was still a lot of hostility there. They eventually made up. They then went to a woman named Avery T'léas, in the White Dome of Fairmire, to get the Demonomicon interpreted. There, they learned that they could use the Hammer of Sundering to destroy the device that was creating the portal, and kill Fennekin, but to do so, whoever swings the Hammer would die... They also learned some of this from Riekert Svenson, a necromancer. They then had to save Bucky from Yeenoghu's Moving City, a terrifying Gnollish encampment that is constantly on the move, as hundred of Gnolls are forced to carry it upon their backs, indefinitely. They saved Bucky and Ros and Daisy, a donkey that has been travelling with them since the beginning. They then went to save Harper sister, Adira Harper, who they believed to be kidnapped by demons. In actuality, she was in command of a horde of devils and demons way back in Shadowspar Keep, and she gifted the adventurers many of the demons so that they could attack Fennekin's Fortress, which they did. The Battle Above the Abyss will forever be the stuff of legend, and it saw Thom Vidalis, the legendary hero, sacrifice himself to swing the Hammer of Sundering, killing Fennekin, closing the portal, and ending the Demon Apocalypse once and for all...

They then take a break before telling the rest of the story...

## **Trivia**

* Watson Copperfield confirms that Pyre still rules Mastwick
	+ This episode continues the running goof that all of Tim Lanning's characters want to deal with the Pyre problem, but none of them ever do
* Baby Xena Meloncamp has killed before. She's seven.
* The original owner of the Whip of Binding was Captain Blindy
* Thom Harper does not hold any grudges against Ros for killing Titus Harper, as Titus Harper forgave Ros, eventually
* Jaela is pumping milk from her Deva breasts. She does this because sometimes other people like to put Deva milk in their morning coffee. This of course leads to several questions. Why is there coffee in Drunkeros? Why is everyone okay with drinking milk from their friend, a humanoid creature? Why is Jaela even producing milk? Who's idea was all this anyways? Jaela's? Aludra's? Old Man Weck's? Believe it or not, this isn't even the strangest thing about this show
* Watson Copperfield claims to have met Zird once. This would have been long before the events of the show, as Zird was long dead by the time Watson was introduced
* They still don't know where Adira Harper is

## **In This Episode...**

### **Cast and Player Characters**

* Michael DiMauro - *Dungeon Master*
* Tim Lanning - Thom Harper
* Jennifer Cheek - Queen Aludra Wyrmsbane
* Mike Bachmann - Steve Meloncamp
* Nika Howard - Jaela

### **Non-Player Characters**

* Watson Copperfield
* Bucky

### **Quotes**

**"That's the power of being an adult: You just keep making wrong decisions until you die. And then come back to life!"** ~ *Aludra, thrice killed.*