Present Party: Aria (Avery), Claudia (Alex), Emori (Amelia), and Steve (Hugo). Recall that all characters have been renamed by their parents, Ike and Jin, (to the names in the parentheses) but I will still be referring to them by their real names.
Setting: Typical medieval fantasy world with various Greek elements, seen mostly in temples. The gods in this world are part of the Greek pantheon. The players are at their home in Blackpool, and also, during this final session of the world, they travel the entirety of the continent of Eushora.
Last Bracket: Ages 15 to 17
Last session, the rest of the party had strange dreams but Claudia's player had been unable to make the session. So, I went back and granted her the two dreams that she missed.
- Claudia was in some kind of strange place with odd, very tall and uniform structures made of stone. She was tired, panting. Across from her was another person, an elf. They looked tired and hurt, and told her that they thought they lost him. They insisted on going back to the hideout.
- In the second dream, Claudia had the sense of being in the same place, but the background was blurry so it was hard to tell. The only thing she could see clearly was a tiefling man with maroon skin and dark hair. Strangely, he looked a lot like their brother, Quest. He was wearing black leathers, and holding a scythe with a green blade. There was a corpse at his feet, a tabaxi woman. He turned to Claudia, and began to advance towards her. She tried to fire a spell, but nothing happened. She turned to try and run, but he was suddenly behind her, the same distance away. She forced herself to wake up. The only other thing she could remember was his name: Confidence Milton.
(Out of game note: both of these dreams are in reference to a world that Claudia went to before she joined up with this party.)
The party was especially confused about the fact that a person in Claudia's dream looked like Quest. Steve also realized that the man she described had a striking resemblance to the tiefling on the box of the disc that played music that he'd been keeping in his Secret Chest. Down to the name, it was correct: Confidence. They decided to ask their younger brother, Quest, if he'd had any strange dreams lately. He hadn't.
~~~~~
Aria went horseback riding with Gavin. Luckily, after Emori told Jin that Ike might be plotting something, Jin seemed to have talked Ike out of any date-ruining shenanigans. The two of them rode out into the dense forests of Blackpool and found a good place for a picnic. They talked a lot about what they wanted to do, who they wanted to be. Gavin, it seemed, had a desire for travel. The two of them bonded over a desire to see the world together.
The date ended with a kiss, and a promise for more.
Emori and Aria discovered something new about Claudia: she'd been sneaking out to go to parties in the forest surrounding Blackpool. Her friend and crush Remilia, who was originally from Sinner's Den but now lives in Blackpool after the death of the kings Soren and Adonis, also attends these parties. Aria and Steve also decided to start going, Steve with the intention to embarrass Claudia in front of Remilia and to scam more people with loaded dice. Emori opted out, preferring to focus on school and her goals towards god-hood.
Aria played wing-woman at one of these parties, and spoke to Remilia about potentially dating Claudia. Remilia was actually really excited about the idea and she said that she had an idea.
Later that week, Remilia took Claudia shopping and then up to some of the cliffs by the sea. Remilia gave Claudia a necklace that read "Love" in elvish. Claudia accepted her confession, and that date also ended with a kiss.
~~~~~
It wasn't long after this when they put it all together. The party was sixteen, and they had another round of dreams:
- Aria dreamt of a wedding in a church covered in flowers. Steve and Emori were there, and so was another woman who she didn't recognize. There was this overwhelming sense of dread. She looked at the half-elven man at the altar, and something told her that he was in danger.
(Out of game note: This scene is from their second world: "What a Beautiful Wedding!" The unknown woman was a previous character: Selene.)
- Claudia dreamt of Steve, looking at something that seemed like some kind of illusion, but he was controlling it. Emori and Aria were there as well. They were moving, so they had to be in some kind of vehicle, but there wasn't anything around them except the night sky.
(Out of game note: Readers of this campaign will recognize this as being from World 7: "You Have Boarded an Icarus..." when Steve steered the ship Icarus away from a sun.)
- Steve was standing at the front of a chapel. A half-orc man dressed in white and red had an arm around him. There was something in him that was telling him that this man was good. Looking out, there were people cheering. Towards the front were Aria, Emori, and... another woman Steve didn't recognize, but he knew that she was a friend.
(Out of game note: This is from their sixth world "Counting Sinners Does Not Make a Saint" when Steven became the Archdeacon of the Department of Defense in the church of the Light Father.)
- Emori was standing in a white void, and she was approached by a tiefling like the one Claudia had described a few years ago. In fact, she was approached by three versions of him: one in his mid-twenties black with long hair, a child, and one who appeared closer to her age with short hair. The voice of her dream spirit claimed that they were her friends. All of them claimed to be with her "in here" and she felt something warm in her chest.
As the party was trying to piece together what all of this meant - where these places were, how they seemed to be themselves but somehow older - Hekate overheard them. They told her what was going on. They asked her if they could see the Family Room again, to see if maybe something was there.
She told them, "I think it's time that you knew anyway. I've been telling Ike that for a few years now."
Naturally, the party was very confused. Hekate took them to Ike, and told him that they deserved to know. Ike seemed reluctant, scared even, but he conceded. He brought the party into the dining room.
"I want you to know that... no matter what happens, no matter what you might think of me, I want you to know that none of it was a lie. I want you to know that I love you... even if you won't love me after this."
He snapped his fingers.
The party's memories came back to them in a very sudden flood. They remembered everything - who they were, why they were here, and that Ike, their father for sixteen years, had done this to them. He'd turned them into children, and taken all their memories from them. Of course, the party was enraged. They had every right to be, and Ike sat there and took their rage and arguments.
His only response was simply, "You were never supposed to know... but Hekate insisted."
"Because they're like me," she said. "And listen, you can be mad at him. In fact, you should be... but can you deny that he was a good father?"
The party went silent. They couldn't. Ike had been nothing but supportive and loving. They asked for their things back, and Ike said that he'd kept everything in the attic. He went to go and get it.
When he was gone, Claudia asked Hekate, "What was your wish?"
Hekate smiled. "I asked to create a world, and then to be able to live in that world how I saw fit. I wanted to reincarnate, I wanted to be the creator of magic." She shrugged. "I don't know how many of us you've met in your travels, but I know that most of us... don't really like others like us."
The party had experienced this twice at this point, with Koyassa in the second world and Oscar in the fifth.
"Other transmigrators tend to... mess things up for us. Many of our wishes are fragile. You can always ask our boss for something, but it can't guarantee that you'll keep it. Luckily, I have a wish that's really hard to destroy or take away. You're not a threat to me. I have the Shard. The Shard is part of what gives me the powers I have. If I give it to you, I'm not sure what will happen to me... but I'm okay with that because this place is still going to exist."
Hekate offered to give them the Shard immediately after they got their things, but the party opted out in favor of going out in style.
They coordinated a Continental Tour for their band - Panic! at the Ballroom - and spent the next year traveling Eushora. They'd allowed Ike to come with them as a manager / merchandise salesman. Aria brought Gavin along, so he could travel and see the world. At the end, they would come back to Blackpool for one final show, and Hekate would give them the Shard as they finished their last song. They'd disappear, never to be seen again. During this tour, Emori searched desperately for Confidence. She never found him.
Before the show, Aria said goodbye to Gavin in a way that worried him only a little. Claudia gave Remilia a box, and told her not to open it until after the final number. In the Secret Chest, the party stowed away some of their instruments and a few other trinkets to remember this place: their second home and shared family.
At the end of their final song, in the back row, they could see their family. They were waving at them, waving goodbye.
Hekate appeared by Emori's drum kit. She opened her hand, revealing the Shard, and the party grabbed it.
They disappeared, on their way back to the System Space.
~~~~~
The System always asks them if "they would like to see" what happened in the world after they were gone.
The image that they were given was of Ike, in the Family Room, sitting on the floor, looking at memories of four people: Avery, Alex, Amelia, and Hugo. The door opened, and Phoebe, Achaeus, and Jin walked in. They sat with him, and it was quiet for some time... until Ike began to sob. They all held him and they all cried together. Ike extended a hand, and waved it.
The color of the magic that formed these memories changed from blue to gray.
~~~~~
Credit to @ijaymendell inspiring this awesome campaign!
Additionally, thank you to my friend @bandcat5313 - the original homebrewer and DM for the world of Eushora. This setting and some NPCs were inspired by hers.
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