Beowolf becomes immortal by drinking Krohn's Philosopher's Stone tincture. The party returns to Hilde, where they find a bizarro Hollin under the north pole. There, they defeat the Prodigy, the monster that violates the natural order, and see the sleeping Blind Idiot God, whose fitful dream is reality. They find Lethe's Star, and reinstalling it in Highpyre's tower, cement Beowolf as the Inkeri king.
At the end of the last game, the party and their allies defeated Krohn, and the party was still in the dais room where they'd defeated him. Krohn's djinn allies there submitted to Ord and the Malik.
They searched the room and on a DC 20 Perception check, Beowolf found a door in the dais room, which just looked like the wall, and led to one of Krohn's bedchambers. Going in alone, he found something extraordinary.
On a dresser there, they find a clear glass filled with a deep green tincture. The liquid continually swirls almost like it's alive. Shadowy black wisps rise out of it, and it smells strongly of Greencake. The party realizes that this is the "Philosopher's Stone," which gives immortality, and is extracted by re-centrifuging huge masses Greencake. Krohn must have used most of the world's Greencake to make this one dose.
To my great surprise, Steve instantly said that instead of consulting the party, Beowolf would just drink the Philosopher's Stone, and Beowolf became immortal.
Searching the rest of the nearby rooms, the party also found about 150,000 gold pieces.
The Malik then took Gafur and Ord to the top of the highest minaret in the Citadel, which looked down on the city's central square.
As the Malik, Gafur, and Ord look down on the square, the Annur come up the stair behind them, then fly down into the square, and the people there stop to stare at them with wonder.
The Malik blows the minaret's horn for about 5 minutes, and the square slowly fills with more people curious why the horn is sounding at this unusual time. When he has everyone's attention, the Malik shouts that Krohn was a pretender and has been defeated. He says that as the last remaining true heir of the Ninety-Nine, Gafur will rule the Caliphate. The Malik says that Ord is the champion of the Ninety-Nine, that Ord will command al-Watan's guard, and that the Annur will be Ord's personal guard. Most of the people in the square turn to look at each other and talk incredulously at the announcement, not sure whether to believe it, but a few run from the square to spread the word.
Looking down at the upturned faces in the square, Ord is surprised to see two familiar faces looking back at him, the Inkeri shaman Kajal and the midwife Wren.
Kajal and Wren had come to find Beowolf and spur him to his almost blunted purpose.
As the players will remember, the party last traveled to Hilde to press Beowolf's claim to leadership of the natives there, the Inkeri. There, Beowolf defeated the chief of the Knarr clan, Faering, in single combat. After defeating Faering, Beowolf claimed leadership of the Knarr clan and ordered Faering to continue leading them as his steward. But later Leutwin, another Inkeri, turned the Dempster Sea clans against Beowolf. They trapped the party in a cave full of rabid vampires, but the party escaped the cave and Hilde, living to fight another day.
Now, Kajal says that since the party left Hilde, Leutwin has brought more Inkeri clans to his side and has fought cruelly to subjugate Beowolf's clan, the Knarr. Beowolf's steward Faering has led the Knarr in a valiant resistance, but the Knarr are just one clan, and their defeat is imminent. Of course, Leutwin is fighting Faering because he is Beowolf's man, and if Faering goes down Beowolf's claim to lead the Inkeri might be finished.
Kajal says Beowolf's last chance is to find Lethe's Star, the Inkeri crystal that once lit Highpyre throughout Hilde's six-month-long winter. Resetting it in Highpyre's tower will awe all of the Inkeri and make Beowolf's claim incontestable.
Kajal says that it's night on Hilde now, and Beowolf's green comet Noreste is dominating the whole sky.
Kajal and Wren say that the Star is under the Fangs. The Fangs are three mountains at Hilde's north pole, which when seen against the sky from near the city of Bruegel, look like three identical spikes. When you reach them, there's a cavernous entrance into the ground between them, and that's where Lethe's Star is. Since the Fangs are at the pole, the party will have to be prepared for a very difficult journey on dog sleds...Faering will have the sleds and dogs prepared when the party reaches Highpyre.
The party set out for Hilde on the Wayward.
It's winter, so constant night sets in as the Wayward gets closer to Hilde. In the night, the way is lit by starlight, and also by the green comet Noreste, whose tail now reaches almost all the way across the sky. The Wayward approaches Highpyre using the same route the Hedgepeth did in the party's first visit to Highpyre. The ship goes from the Bellem Sea that surrounds Hilde; to the Aden Sea, where the party encountered the shipwrecked Dowager before; to Lief Bay, where Highpyre is. Since it's winter, the Aden Sea and Lief Bay have dangerous grinding ice, and it's hard work for Burns to find a way through the ice floes.
The Wayward eventually reached Highpyre. There, Beowolf saw the tower he'd explored in Game 6, and now he understood that it was the tower that'd held Lethe's Star in ages past.
As Kajal had promised, Faering and the Knarr clan were assembled at Highpyre and had sleds and dogs ready for the party. The party and Wren set out.
From here, the party travels up the Pollard River on dog sleds, headed for the earth's north pole. On the first journey, the party followed the Pollard to the hell town Bruegel where they found the meteor Noreste. As the party approaches Bruegel, it's 24 hour night, but there's an aurora borealis, and against it they can see the three Fangs that Kajal and Wren described on the horizon.
After a difficult journey, the party reached the foot of the Fangs.
From here they can see that the two outer fangs are closer, and the the middle fang is a further mountain. Traveling between the two outer ones and towards the third, they do eventually come to a cavernous entrance. It's a hellmouth-like opening with sulfuric-smelling steam coming out of it.
After they enter, they spend a day or so navigating and mapping the caverns inside, looking for some indication of where the Star might be. Often, they can feel the entire cavern rumble like an earthquake. Eventually, they find an open slit in a cavern wall, wide enough to go into, and they're surprised to see a shaft of gray light coming out of it.
When they enter, they can't see anything except the light source, a gray sphere in the distance. As their eyes adjust a little, they can see that a kind of crude natural stair goes down, in the general direction of the light.
As they go down, you're surprised to see that the natural stair widens and becomes an actual street, or even avenue. On either side of the avenue, there are many graves, grand monument buildings in various states of disrepair, and a few buildings that look like crude homes.
Keith observed that the mix of graves and homes sounded like Hollin's City of the Dead.
If they investigate, they find various strange things like gravestones with nonsensical text on them, or text that goes off the edge of the gravestone. Some of the homes or monuments have no doors. One of the monuments has no doors, but has an iron portcullis that doesn't open, and you can see through the bars a person pacing aimlessly. He occasionally runs into a wall, which prompts him to stop and pace aimlessly in a different direction. The rumbling is stronger here than in the cavern above. After this, the party occasionally comes across a person walking in a similar manner on the avenue itself; these people don't acknowledge the party.
Following the avenue towards the light, the party eventually reaches a wall with a high opening or gate in it. At this moment, the ground rumbles strongly, knocking some of the party prone, and the gate explodes as a monstrosity heaves through it. In the gray light, you can see a scaly white dragon that has a face with two halves that look like they weren't fit together quite right. The two legs on one side are flippers instead of legs, and although it moves by half-flopping around, it's quite shocking how fast and powerfully it can move. It has white eyes without pupils, which look like they might be vestigial. The squealing sound it makes is a mix of fury, confusion, and pain.
Wren heaves a sigh, and says tiredly, "It's the Prodigy, the monster that violates the natural order. This is the creature that destroyed Highpyre."
The Prodigy had the statistics of an adult white dragon. In addition:
It breaths napalm. If it presses to create a particularly furious burst of napalm, napalm also starts to spray out of lesions in its head and throat, so napalm sprays out at kind of random directions.
It has powers that explain how it destroyed Highpyre with fire - one of its attacks is to seize up and writhe, which then causes a hellfire or napalm Burst 1,000 area of attack. It goes out from the Prodigy like a sphere of destruction. The sphere destroys nearby structures and leaves them charred. The light from it can also be blinding. It causes an earthquake as well, which has a chance of knocking characters prone. The scream can also be an attack.
The party fought the Prodigy, delivering many attacks that would have staggered a lesser opponent, but the Prodigy fought back, targeting Beowolf in particular. Ultimately they defeated it, with Jaris delivering the killing blow.
They continued toward the light source.
The party continues down the avenue toward the gray light. They go through the gate that the Prodigy destroyed, and enter a more urban area with houses and businesses on either side. Like the graves and monuments before the wall, many of these buildings have some nonsensical structural deformity. Eventually, they reach a large abandoned square on the water, with an apparent meat market, clothing fair, and food fair. There's a merchants' hostel on the square, which strikes the party as looking like the Mooncalf. You realize if you haven't already that you're in a kind of Bizarro Hollin.
On one side of the square, lying on the ground next to one of the meat market stalls, there's a naked man, apparently fitfully sleeping. He moans in his sleep and often turns violently. A very disturbing cold chill goes through each of your bodies. Wren whispers hoarsely, "Our universe is the dream of a Blind Idiot God. This is his avatar - his image of himself in the dream. Aeris could have destroyed all of reality by waking him here, but his ambition wasn't that hateful. Don't wake him."
The party snuck past as quietly as they could, and soon found what they'd come for.
Ahead, past the square, the party can now see that the gray light is Lethe's Star, housed in the top of a high tower in a flooded river, roughly where Lofton Castle would be in Hollin. There's a giant kraken at the tower's base, with its tendrils wrapped around the tower. It's hungering after the Star's power, trying to use its tendrils to heave its body up, but it can't reach the star. Who knows how long this has been going on.
A high bridge leaves the square and goes over the river toward the tower. But, it ends abruptly at its highest point. Instead Beowolf can swim into the river, swim under the surface to the tower's entrance, and then come up out of the water in the spiral stair inside. Going to the top of the tower, he can take the Star, which is surprisingly cool to the touch. It's about the size of a bowling ball.
With Lethe's Star in hand, the party returned to Highpyre as quickly as their could.
Now when the party returns to Highpyre, they find that Faering and his men have spent that time partially rebuilding the tower and the bridges over the river. The tower isn't complete but a frame has reached the full height. Faering's Knarr clan is camped out around the tower.
But, the clans that Beowolf's traitor Leutwin have rallied are camped out on the other side of the river. When, the party arrives, those clans cross the river to confront Beowolf. Beowolf met several Inkeri in Gibb Park in Hollin when the Inkeri came there: the graybeards Ormir, Gomme, and Ernhurst; the angry young Inkeri Leutwin, Asger, and Belwe, who Beowolf killed in single combat; and the mystic Kajal, who now travels with Beowolf.
Leutwin confronts Beowolf, saying that he is not Inkeri, and that Leutwin now challenges him to single combat. The young Inkeri Asger, who accused the left-handed Beowolf of being not human in Hollin before, repeats that claim now and says that it is blasphemy for Beowolf to carry Lethe's Star. Asger, says that he will kill the inhuman Beowolf, but Leutwin objects, saying it is his right as leader of the Inkeri clans.
The graybeard Ormir says that Beowolf killed Belwe but also Belwe's animal spirit in Hollin, so Leutwin will fight Beowolf with the graybeards' support.
But Beowolf now used the ritual that the runepriest Kabir had taught him. He summoned his animal spirit, Celendril, the White Drake of the Waste. Confronted by the legendary guardian of the Inkeri, Beowolf's opponents were overwhelmed. The knelt, acknowledging Beowolf as king.
