Dungeons and Dragons Dawnstrike: Heroes of the Kingdoms

[Jerome Fontaine]

Prelude to a Nightmare

Trouble permeates the airs about the world of Osgri’il. The clouds above the Yorith Mountains of Aranor spark crimson lightning. The beasts of the world have become more daring, attacking villages far from their own homes. In the ocean, a beautiful landscape of rune-scarred mountains and deep green glades, filled with magnificent floating cities and towers of great power. A large academy pierces the pure white clouds from Wizard’s Peak, where the minds of the privileged few learn to shape the energy of the world to their own whims. But now, this land of wonder, of majesty, now emits rolling black smoke from every border. Suncrest, the Isle of the Arcane, is burning. Men, blood dripping from their teeth, growling and snarling with axe in hand, pillaged and burned with cerulean flame atop their torches and blood upon their blades. Clouds of dense toxic fog hung over villages as hooded figures passed through, smirking in the shadow as soldiers crumbled, choking in the smoke, following behind an armored priest.

The fire glinted off the priest’s emerald scales as his maw sneered at the work of his followers. His saber-clawed hand gripped on the pendant around his neck; a blood-shot eye of obsidian with veins pulsing with silver liquid. Every thudding footstep made his chain mail jingle as he surveyed the ruins, rather pleased at the destruction, but it still made him gag to think he shared space with the corpses of the pathetic mortals. A small child’s bones crunched under his foot as he gritted his teeth. Slit pupils scanned the ruined city above a dragon-like snout as the screams of his barbarians pervaded the eerie crackling of flame. The dragonborn was approached by a hooded figure, a large snake tail slithering around the corpses from under the cloak.

“Progress report,” he growled with indignation.

“The College of Suncrest has been captured. The soldiers scour as we speak for anything of use, m’lord,” the cloak hissed, a forked tongue flicking from the hood. Marble white, slick-scaled hands tipped with sharp fingernails lowered the hood onto the creature’s shoulders. Revealed underneath, the visage of a snake, a hooded cobra with flared nostrils and small protruding fangs looked about at the mess the barbarians had made, taking up a position beside the priest, “and I believe your necromancers are taking great care of our losses. You shall have your Wraiths, Yo’shi.”

The cleric smiled wryly with the shimmer of conquest flame in his mind with the shrouded, ghostly hordes of Wraiths at his command. It was amazing what religion could do. It could band good and evil alike to follow the will of a deity. It could bestow divine power to its champions. It could even provide immortality and ultimate power. Yo’shi planned to not only champion his cult, but become their object of worship. The ultimate position of power: Godhood. He had substantial divine intervention as the sea split open and from it, his new home. The island not only served as a breeding ground and an arcane armory, but also a door. Oh, the possibilities, he thought, as he began to laugh, his acrid smell of acid breath of his draconic heritage making his serpentine scrunch his snout.

“You have done well, Ver-shaal. You will return to the island with full honors for your hand in our conquest. Welcome to the Hand.” Ver-shaal could barely believe his ears. The Hand? An honor so readily given? A throne atop the weak that this new, expanding empire was all that was promised, but Ver-shaal’s excitement could barely be contained as his fork tongued flicked as he thanked his master.

From the ocean nearby, an island had appeared. In under three days, it grew a massive metropolis and now flies a flag bearing the symbol of its clerics, a symbol that has never been seen. No one knows where it came from or who made it. Almost nothing is known. But it has taken Suncrest and it shows no signs of stopping.