Everyone hates the Hunnerd Gold campaign. Some of them openly attempt to suicide their characters. The DM reminds them of where they were. Somehow Lucian ends up in prison. As usual, the game takes about 15 minutes to actually get anywhere while the group dicks around assigning people to different parts of a gestalt merge, which then leads to a long discussion about left-handedness and the derivations of the word ‘sinister’.

DM: Refusing to speak of what you’ve learned, you discuss Knowledge(religion) rolls! Heading back is an easy prospect. You are not vexed by hill giants, because you made friends with them! And the fire giant and djinni are dead. There were bees but they’re no longer a challenge to you, so it would be demeaning to all of us to play out your encounter with bees. And so after many days of traveling, the walls of Prole appear in the distance.
Brunt: Prole Castle. 3 AM.

The group giggles madly. Then silence. The DM tries to encourage them to actually do something.

Brunt: If only Tasha were here with her ladder. We could lay siege to this castle – oh, whoops, it’s ours.

An argument erupts over the number of cooks in the castle. Really weird songs based on Heavy Rain occur? A long, long time later, the group finally heads for the castle. The soldiers deploy to form a proper escort, as they do.

Normilan: Man, you got these guys under an iron thumb.
Brunt: Is there a trumpout?
DM: Is there a Trump out?
Brunt: No, is there a trumpet?
DM: Of course. The regiment trumpeter is properly heralding Cruroar with vim and vigor, if not exactly skill. (ridiculously miming it)
Eilnys: He’s got a trombone?!

Since it’s day, the group settles in with some food and comfort as they wait to talk to Mer’dovich. Lots of correspondence awaits Cruroar!

Brunt: Do we have a Mattias? Didn’t you order a Mattias?
Cruroar: I have a herald…

A piece of correspondence with the King’s seal on it catches his eye, and he opens it to find another message, sealed differently. Knowledge(nobility) rolls occur!

DM: This seal belongs to the mountain dwarves.
Cruroar: The guys behind the red dragon?
DM: Yes.
Brunt: Not BEHIND the red dragon.
Cruroar: Yeah they are!
Brunt: Oh! I thought you meant they were the ones, like, propping up his administration.
Cruroar: I read it.
DM: It is not addressed to anyone.

The players mock and complain about this letter for long enough that the DM mimes ripping it up for them to reassemble. Brunt angrily demands XP for correspondence. The letter appears to be sent as a broad cry for help! The kingdom has come under attack from minotaurs and grimlocks!

Brunt: Did we cause this?
Normilan: I don’t think we caused this, but we definitely didn’t stop it.
Brunt: Well, we definitely didn’t have the ability.
Normilan: And we didn’t help that guy kill the other guy.
Brunt: I kinda remember that…

Recognizing the connection and the value of a dwarven nation as an ally, the group ponders what they can do about this. Well, most of them.

Cruroar: You know, I’m surprised. I was half-expecting that person we rescued to be at the castle because for some reason there’s an assassination attempt, but she managed to escape the capital and make it all the way to fucking Prole. I was like 90% though that was going to happen.

The DM vows invisible fireballs. They wait out the afternoon till at last they can approach and speak to Mer’dovich. When darkness falls, they head for the cellar and its undead inhabitant.

DM: Mer’dovich awaits you, deathly pale in the dim light.
Normilan: Normal for a vampire!
Brunt: Strahd von Mer’dovich.
DM: Pale even for a vampire. Chalk white.
Brunt: He’s probably not getting any sustenance.
Cruroar: “Can I get you something?”
DM: “I have refrained from… excessive feeding, as a courtesy.”
Cruroar: “I come bearing news about our ghostly quandary.”
DM: “What of Caius?”
Brunt: Farquaad.
Cruroar: “We know he is out for vengeance against Lassarin. He is the reason what happened to his castle happened.”
Normilan: “He’s apparently the catalyst for the whole reason the Mad God exists.”
Brunt: What’d they call him?
DM: “The Visionary.”
Brunt: “Yeah – oh. You knew all this.”
DM: “Yes. Why does that surprise you?”
Normilan: “It makes sense, you were there.”
DM: “Yes. We all were.”

They probe Mer’dovich, trying to get information about Keyvarin Lassarin, and earn his ire for revealing they’d aided him.

Cruroar: “We didn’t at the time know he was a great villain.”
DM: “And now that you do?!”
Cruroar: “I regret it. I – you got a time machine in that cloak of yours? Can we go back in time and stop us?”
DM: How do you have a Diplomacy modifier?!
Normilan: That’s what’s coming out of Cruroar’s player’s mouth. It’s not what’s coming out of Cruroar’s mouth.
DM: All of his characters, they’re super-Diplomacy…
Cruroar: You always criticize me anyway, that’s why I have the roll.

An argument about real-world and gunboat diplomacy erupts, before the PCs start wondering how this happened with the Gatekeeper in the way – did they teleport around, drive the dragon off..? Mer’dovich asks them to wait a night.

DM: “Leave me. I have business to attend to.”
Cruroar: “…all right.”
Brunt: “…buh-bye.” Yeah, you’ve got basement-dwelling to be doing.
Normilan: He’s revving up for one giant ‘bleh!’
DM: ‘I can’t… hold it back… any longer!’
Brunt: At midnight…!
DM: It cuts back to a real long view. ‘BLAAAAAH!’ The shockwave rolls across the land.

The group discusses travel, and the prospect of maps – though their map resources are fairly low, all things considered. Cruroar mistakes the dwarf town that was attacked by green dragons for the dwarf town that was in the well. Brunt assesses what class Mer’dovich is.

DM: From your observation of the way he moves, what little he’s had to do of it, you suspect he’s trained in some fighting style.
Brunt: A MONKISH fighting style?
DM: NO!
Brunt: He’s back! He’s back!
Normilan: It’s called backhand to the face.
DM: It’s not Slamhand, that’s what you know.
Brunt: He’s a… what’s the broken class that…
Lucian: Anything the DM plays, you mean?
Brunt: I wasn’t trying to go there.
DM: He’s an artificer, that’s what he is.
Brunt: He’s an artificer/thrallherd…

Normilan’s librarian is missing! Gossip hints that she’s gone chasing after the King, believing she could use her va-voom to parlay his interest into a long-term liaison. They have a day to kill; Cruroar spends it getting subtly hinted at that his hunting dogs need exercise.

Cruroar: We could use them to search for the girl and make sure she’s okay.
Normilan: Hunt her down!
Brunt: Without tearing out her throat!
Normilan: Can they do that…?
Brunt: They’re hunting dogs, not attack dogs.
DM: Eeeeeuuuuugh….

Somehow the dogs become a mindless flood of hounds that destroy all the undead. Cruroar again insists that this campaign is all a flashback being told by him.

Normilan: ‘Here I am, King of Urm-Vessing.’
Cruroar: No. No no no. The way this game is going… ‘Here I am. The new God of Prophecy.’
DM: ‘I should have seen it coming.’

Committing to the wait, they rest for the night, and the next morning Eilnys’s father offers her a masterwork maul. He tosses it to her, knocking off her disguise and revealing her to be a vampire, apparently.

Eilnys: It wasn’t me! It was the one-armed man!
DM: The one-buttcheeked man.
Cruroar: But is he dummy thicc?

A guard ambles towards Cruroar. Ambles! Ambles! AMBLES! The group tries to stop him, he keeps ambling! Lucian clonks him over the head with a rock and loots him. They find a rolled-up piece of parchment!

Normilan: He probably killed like five horses to get out here, with this extraordinarily important message, and you just clobbered the poor boy.
Eilnys: I can’t read this…

No one can! It’s a scroll! A scroll of teleport, in fact! Eilnys goes looking for Quirion, but can’t find him! Because this is Quirion, everyone immediately panics. It gets weird.

Eilnys: “Ye didn’t carry me for nine months, ye dwarven bastard!”
DM: “I was still involved!”
Eilnys: “Once!”
DM: “Twice! Yer mother damn near ripped me beard off when she was givin’ birth to ya!”

They find Quirion and Glimmer fishing on the docks. Reactions run the gamut.

Normilan: Him and that fucking dock. No, no, let’s overblow this. Run up to him, grab him. “OH THANK GOD YOU’RE OKAY!”

Incredibly suspicious, Normilan produces his own scroll of Teleport. Somehow Glimmer becomes Elmer Fudd, I got nothing here, people. They chide the pair for depopulating the lake.

DM: (mimes eating a fish whole)
Normilan: He’s a growing boy, we need… (falling dead silent and staring at the DM)
DM: That was – that was Glimmer, not Quirion.
Normilan: Oh, yes. Thank you!

Cruroar vows to build Prole out of wagons he’s collected. They while away the day to speak with Mer’dovich, finding him sitting on a crate in his room. He confirms he sent the scroll, though is evasive about how he acquired it, claiming he knew where it might be from ages ago. Love At First Bite references fly thick through the air. It gets weird.

DM: Congratulations, Brunt, you’re the lich! Here’s your spells!
Cruroar: Please come back as a motley crew of universal monsters. So we have the mummy, the invisible man…
Giles: Ooh, which monster do I get to be?
DM: Frankenstein.
Brunt: Bride of Frankenstein.
Lucian: Why do I have to come back as the zombie?

They refresh themselves on Mer’dovich’s motivations: to continue to have living beings around to feed on. The DM gets accused of being a hack, in not so many words.

Brunt: Look, you’re getting to the bottom of your double-cross barrel here.
Normilan: Yeah, you’re on a short lease, mister.
Brunt: When subverting your expectations becomes your go-to every time, it’s no longer a subversion.
DM: What am I, Disney?
Brunt: No, you’re Ryan Johnson.
Cruroar: OHHHHHHH!
Brunt: Only if you continue down that path.
DM: From now on, all your villains are stroking handlebar mustaches while tying women to the railroad tracks, got it.

They prepare to throw things at the DM, and also to teleport to just outside the entrance to the dwarven kingdom. Then they talk SaGa Frontier for some reason. Then Low-G Man shows up somehow. This whole thing has become a video game music marathon for some reason… oh, the reason is that Eilnys wandered off a while ago. They give up on her return and resume the game.

DM: The magic of the scroll washes over you, and you can’t help but feel a twinge of concern after all of Normilan’s… relating of what could possibly go wrong.
Normilan: Clench your butts!

Eilnys immediately returns, as the teleport goes off without a hitch. The dwarven greathouse is abandoned and smashed to seal off lava attacks, and the Gatekeeper’s cave appears… abandoned? They immediately imagine piles of treasure unguarded and waiting for their loot. In they head, with Normilan risking some light. It is empty, utterly empty… except for a Spot check! Something is on the ground.

Eilnys: Off I go!
DM: Somewhat more cautiously than advertised, you step forward. As the item comes into the radius of the light it’s a… familiar-looking rod.
Cruroar: HAAAAAA! Ha ha ha ha ha ha!
DM: There’s a note attached to it.
Eilnys: I’m gonna read it.
DM: Are you picking up the rod?
Eilnys: Yes.
DM: Are you sure…?
Eilnys: …Yes.
Lucian: I wanna know what the note says!
Eilnys: I wanna know what the note says!
DM: You can’t read it.
Eilnys: That’s right, I can’t read it.
Cruroar: Is it in Draconic?
Eilnys: I’m illiterate.

Normilan grabs it and immediately detonates the explosive runes on it, to the DM’s chagrin. The dragon had apparently intended to prank Tasha, being unaware of her death.

Giles: Is there any way we can stop these explosive runes from blowing up our freaking party every time?
Normilan: Yeah, maybe if I had a good Wisdom and actually said, ‘No wait! Don’t open that!’

The rod proves to be a fake, and the cavern appears completely empty to the point of never being inhabited. The group wonders if the dragon had moved on since the dwarves have been ravaged. Moving on, they find the elevators down to the dwarven kingdom have been wrecked, and they have to take… the stairs.

Brunt: What’s the max fall damage?
DM: 20d6.
Normilan: (laughing helplessly, then pausing) How bad WOULD that be…

Down and down they go, eventually hearing the Heart of the Mountain growing slowly louder. They wonder if they’re walking into a trap.

Brunt: He’s taken a page from Lucian’s book and has decided to wantonly kill all the dwarves.
DM: You reach the bottom. There’s no passage there. You have to go all the way back and around to a different one.
Cruroar: I’d like you to describe every step, as we’re going up. Every step, as I look around…
DM: You’re going DOWN, first of all. Okay, this first step is… (rolling dice) mossy… made of… (rolling dice) lignite…
Cruroar: They’re made of different thing?!
Eilnys: That’s coal, damn it!
DM: I know!
Normilan: Mossy coal…? Can moss grow on coal?
Cruroar: I would imagine, coal is carbon…
DM: The chiselwork is… (rolling dice) Poor. The temperature is –
Eilnys: If you’re gonna do this all night, I’m going back upstairs.

They finally reach the bottom, and are immediately confronted by minotaurs! Said minotaurs actually appear to recognize the PCs!

Cruroar: Do we recognize them?
Brunt: Well, they probably all look the same.
DM: Yeah, you racist assholes.
Eilnys: “Is Lassarin here?”
Cruroar: “It’s been a long time.”
DM: The two exchange looks.
Brunt: (after searching through the list of names and notes he keeps for this campaign) Gurk! Is that you?!
DM: No! You remember Gurk, he had a fancy weapon.
Brunt: Right. What was the other one, Mikar? Muar. Muar!
Normilan: These are probably just mooks at the moment.
DM: Remembering you in the company of Keyvarin Lassarin the last time, the two exchange looks again, then one nods and motions you forward so he can escort you into the outer outskirts of the dwarven kingdom. Right now it appears to be occupied!
Cruroar: War’s over.
DM: Minotaurs and grimlocks and what appear to be some mercenaries have occupied this outer area and seem to be staring across at one of the inner areas, at dwarves deeper inside. Battle is not engaged.

Fighting has clearly occurred, but the players are busy envisioning Glimmer taking over the Gatekeeper’s spot and charging them a thousand gold. With Mer’dovich. Lucian insists that Tasha was wise and wouldn’t have blown herself up with the fake rod.

Normilan: YOU would have gone over there.
DM: ‘Finally! He left me an apology too,’ you would have said.
Lucian: ‘He knows his place!’

The minotaurs escort the PCs to the command area, where the leaders of the factions are. Keyvarin now has a crown of thorns upon his head!

Brunt: ‘Die, tyrant!’?

Not yet noticed, the players huddle to discuss plans. The mercenaries are a surprise and there’s a lot of danger on the field, but they feel they need to at least find out what they’ve walked into. Approaching, they are greeted warmly by Keyvarin Lassarin.

DM: “And here I thought you weren’t interested in my business down in the dwarven kingdom.”
Cruroar: “Uh…”
DM: “I’m afraid you’re a bit late but I think you can still be of help nonetheless.”
Cruroar: “This is a quite interesting scene here.”
Brunt: Maybe he’s crazy. Like crazy enough…
Normilan: “Why wage war against the dwarves?”
DM: “There was no other way to get what I needed down here.”
Cruroar: “So you’re the one that sent the letter?”
DM: “What letter?”
Cruroar: “Our invitation to the party.”
DM: “No, I – before, Marlae contacted you.”
Normilan: “I’m pretty sure the dwarves sent that letter.”
DM: “It doesn’t surprise me. I knew their mages were up to something. I suppose it was calling for help. Well, it’s not needed any more. We’re just attempting to withdraw at this point. They seem intent on punishing us for doing so, however, so we’re busy trying to work out a strategy to get everyone out unharmed. All that’s left is the staircase, I presume you took it?”
Eilnys: “Yes.”
DM: “Not sufficient for an army. I don’t suppose any of you know how to repair an elevator, do you?”
Brunt: “Perhaps we could knock your head against it a few times.”

They don’t know how to fix an elevator, as it happens. Normilan, though, wants to get some answers, and to do so namedrops ‘the Visionary’.

DM: “That’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time…”
Normilan: “You damned an entire nation to its fate like that.”
DM: “It was an unfortunate side-effect.”
Normilan: “For your own personal means.”
DM: “I was after the god.”
Normilan: “I don’t understand.”
Brunt: “What is it you want, you want to be an immortal sitting amongst a world of undead?”
DM: “Is THAT what they’re trying to do?”
Brunt: “So why aren’t you working with them?”
DM: “They have nothing to do with what I’m trying to accomplish. I intend to deal with them in time. Once I’ve gotten everything I need, I have to go back there anyway…”
Normilan: “There’ll be no world left by the time you finish, Keyvarin. What are you AFTER?”
DM: “That’s not true! I’m almost done! I’ve got three of the four.”
Brunt: The blade and staff and…
Normilan: Shroud and crown are two of them.
DM: “And the orb.”
Normilan: “What’s the fourth, out of curiosity?”
DM: “The scepter.”
Brunt: “How did you convince the dragon to move aside?”
Cruroar: “I’m curious about that myself.”
DM: “He wants me to succeed. I don’t know why, but he’s always been my ally.”
Cruroar: “It makes sense, now that I think about it. He knew that you would stop the undead. I guess he sided with you.”
DM: “He’s the one who gave me the sword in the first place.”
Brunt: God damn it.
DM: “I was baffled, completely baffled as to how I was supposed to take down a god.”
Cruroar: The dragon knew a LOT more than he said.
Brunt: “What was killing the god of prophecy supposed to gain you?”
DM: “It’s a long and complicated tale. I’ve told you what my goal is from the very beginning.”
Brunt: “Immortality.”
DM: “I want to live forever. Yes. There’s still so much to see and do. Can you imagine how vast this entire multiverse is? Not just other planes, and the other planes are infinite… but other worlds, like this one. Different, yet the same.”
Brunt: “What will you do once you experience it all?”
DM: “I can’t experience it all, it’s infinite. That’s the beauty of it!”

The players are baffled by this line of thinking, unable to wrap their heads around it. Well, most of them.

Cruroar: I imagine there’s a world, there’s a Cruroar with a Charisma of 6. He’s ugly as sin.
DM: But a strength of 36.

Redacted comments occur. The players attempt to match Keyvarin’s actions to the prophecies. Normilan namedrops Caius, but gets only confusion from Keyvarin till he prompts him with some more details. They try to get information on the scepter out of Keyvarin, to his further confusion, eventually managing to hear that the items of power have connections to the Inner and Outer Planes.

Normilan: “You still laid waste to a kingdom for your personal needs. That I just cannot fathom.”
Brunt: “A second, now.”
Normilan: “Almost a second.”
Brunt: “Who knows what others?”
DM: “I TRY to avoid this sort of thing.”
Brunt: “The world doesn’t exist to simply satisfy your fancies.”

A long pause.

DM: “A-and?”

Keyvarin bemoans his inability to parley or thieve from the dwarves. The PCs, he thinks, could have managed.

Normilan: “I wouldn’t have done it if you asked.”
DM: “You helped with the other one.”
Normilan: “This is different. This is from the dwarves.”
DM: You’re not a dwarf in this campaign, you know.
Normilan: But Normilan WISHES he was!

Brunt observes that if either army moves, the other can strike. Normilan demands he stop immediately, to which Keyvarin protests that he’s TRYING to stop it.

DM: “If you’ve got an idea, I’m listening!”
Normilan: “No, your pursuit for immortality needs to stop.”
DM: “….why?”
Normilan: “You’ve done more than enough damage. It just simply needs to end. Now.”
DM: “I take every effort to avoid unnecessary damage, I don’t think you’re giving me a fair shake here!”
Normilan: “You’ve done a terrible job at it.”

On this note, Brunt immediately charges down Marlae! Battle is swiftly and abruptly joined in that moment, and the game comes to the end with the promise of an epic confrontation with Keyvarin Lassarin and all associated with his name!