The Ashen Gates - Session 1

We interrupt this broadcast to... well, we're not entirely sure, but we're drunk and we stumbled into the studio and it just seemed like the thing to do. Anyway, there's a new DM, a new campaign, and a whole new world of unspeakable horrors we've unleashed, just in time for Halloween.

It's all temporary, of course. Sort of. The Ashen Gates is a campaign I've been developing for a few months now ("I" being Will, the guy who plays Lou in our main Tyranny of Dragons campaign), which was intended as a side game we could play on nights when two or more people were indisposed. It has since grown into something much larger, a parallel story with most of the same player characters that will likely run for quite a while.

That said, these sessions will be fairly spread out. I don't want to derail the pacing of the main game, so it'll still follow an ad-hoc sort of schedule.

But enough with the administrative crap.

Awakening

You awaken to an absolute darkness. Your eyes are irritated when they open, like they're riddled with dust, and you bring your hand to your face to rub it away. But as you do, you find that it's difficult—though not impossible—to move. You're confined, covered in something dense and dry and constricting. You open your mouth to breathe, only to inhale a lungful of soil. You realize with horror that you've been buried alive.

Fortunately for our heroes, though, the graves in which they were buried were shallow. All six of them—Gwen, Moki, Adolphus, Ilda, Duckie, and a new face, Thud the half-orc barbarian—managed to claw their way out, only to find themselves in the midst of a drastically unfamiliar scene.

The soil-filled pits from which they emerged were not simple, nor rectangular, as one might expect. Instead, each seemed to be molded to its occupant down to the very last digit, earthen silhouettes of their living counterparts.

Four massive, curved, black stone walls stood in a broken circle around them, 50 feet tall and covered in some kind of intricate texture. Between the walls were four matching gaps that allowed the party glimpses of a desolate alien landscape, shrouded in dim twilight.

In the center of this grim pavilion was a small, white column, about four feet tall. It was covered with intricate carvings, and atop the column sat a perfect, almost unbelievably white sphere the size of a grapefruit.

Our heroes had absolutely no idea how they got here. After introducing themselves to Thud, a simple man who explained that he was an outlander seeking redemption for the violent, prideful transgressions of his past, the party got to work figuring out what the hell was going on here.

Thud, an eminently practical individual, headed straight for the exit. He made his way to a gap between the walls at a brisk pace, brimming with confidence—and promptly smacked headfirst into some kind of invisible barrier. He recovered with relative grace (though his companions saw the whole thing), and did his best to scout the area beyond. He was greeted with a desolate wasteland, flat plains of shale and ash, and not a living thing to be seen.

Meanwhile, Gwen examined the column. Fluent in a half-dozen languages, she discovered that the column itself was inscribed with repetitions of the same phrase in countless tongues:

YE RIGHTEOUS WIELD THIS, LEST THE FIENDS FORGET

Some were written in scripts lost to time, others in contemporary dialects. Intrigued (and quite confident in her own righteousness), Gwen picked up the sphere.

Suddenly, a brilliant white light burst forth from the orb, rendering her momentarily half-blind. But she was simultaneously filled with a familiar sense of radiant warmth, a comforting embrace deep within her soul.

While the rest of the party was distracted by Gwen's bright flash, the ever-accidentally-vigilant Emperor Adolphus Frug was gazing through a gap in the walls. He alone noticed a concurrent flash in the distance, another in the opposite direction, and then, after the light had faded from the orb, a fourth illumination much farther away—and much higher up.

The distant lights vanished soon thereafter, but it was clear to our heroes that their own had been visible for miles. The sphere maintained a soft, white glow while it remained in Gwen's hands, but as soon as she placed it in her bag it returned to its original unlit state.

Adolphus relayed what he had seen, and the party set off in the direction of one of the two closer lights. There was no sun, no moon, no stars by which to determine direction, so they resigned themselves to the Emperor's reckoning.

The River

After traveling for about twenty minutes, our heroes were startled by the sounds of flapping wings and chittering in some unknown language coming from behind them. They quickly ducked behind some boulders and turned around to see what it was.

Against the twilit sky, the more perceptive adventurers could see silhouettes of three or four winged figures descending on the circle in which they had awakened. And while she couldn't make out any individual words due to the distance, Moki surmised that the hisses and throaty growls they heard were spoken in Infernal—a language she's familiar with as a tiefling.

The creatures milled about and chattered, obscured by the massive walls, and after a few minutes the party decided to continue on their way.

Another hour or so passed uneventfully as they traversed the flat, rocky terrain, until Thud noticed a familiar smell: blood, and lots of it. They proceeded with caution, and eventually located the source.

Running more or less parallel to their path flowed a viscous river of dark, red-black blood. It stretched into the distance as far as they could see in either direction, seemingly originating from a rolling hill that crested towards their destination.

The party recoiled in horror and disgust. As they did, though, they saw a small, clawed, red-fleshed hand of indeterminate species float down the river, too far from shore to reach. It was still, probably attached to a dead creature just below the surface. Unsurprisingly, our heroes beat a swift retreat and continued towards the hill.

Upon cresting the hill a good while later, the players took some time to get their bearings. From their new vantage, they could see that the plains they had just traversed were streaked with dozens of bloody rivers similar to the one they encountered.

On the far side, though, was a different story. Hundreds of craters littered the gray stone landscape, ranging in size from a few feet to nearly a half-mile in diameter, and as the party watched they noticed a small, bright red light streaking across the sky in the distance. It hissed as it carved an arc toward the horizon, disappeared behind some terrain, and exploded into a massive fireball.

Kymil

The adventurers cautiously made their way down the far side of the hill, following Adolphus' directions and making sure to keep their eyes skyward, wary of more meteorites. By his estimation, the light had come from the direction of a particularly large crater directly ahead. They wound their way between mounds of rubble and advanced towards it, as two more fireballs streaked overhead and detonated in the distance.

The wall formed by the crater rose hundreds of feet into the sky, composed primarily of unclimbable shale. When they were about 50 feet away, the party saw that there was a small cave entrance at its base, and decided to approach.

Unfortunately, Thud led the way once again, and promptly stepped on a magical trap. A glob of acid erupted from the ground, but thanks to his barbarian athleticism (his words, not mine) he was able to avoid all but superficial injuries.

Moki and Gwen proceeded to check for more traps, and discovered that they stood in a minefield of Glyphs of Warding. Each was imbued with a different spell (some arcane, some elemental), and they seemed to center around the cave entrance in a large radius. However, it was relatively simple to find a safe path through once they knew what to look for.

Upon arriving at the cave mouth, our heroes noticed signs of a recent skirmish. The nearby stone was scorched in some places, frozen or eaten away by acid in others, and a small, red-fleshed body lay slumped against one of the walls. They inspected it more closely and saw that it was winged, sported claws and a scorpion's tail, and horns sprouted from atop its head.

The party continued into the cave, and in an effort to be diplomatic, Thud announced their presence by bellowing "HELLO" into the darkness. Suddenly, a voice answered back in a furious whisper:

"Would you keep your bloody voices down? They'll hear you!"

The adventurers whirled around to see an elf, clad in simple, gray robes, threatening them with a rather harmless-looking stick. He was bald, with skin of bluish gray, and at the edges of his collar and sleeves were a number of surprisingly vulgar tattoos. "Who are you and what are you doing here?" he demanded, still whispering.

The players insisted that he tell them what this place was. "You don't know?" he asked incredulously. "You're in the Nine Hells."

After taking a minute to process this revelation, that they were stranded in a profoundly evil plane with no obvious way out, the party explained how they had arrived there in the first place. At the mention of the graves, the barrier, and the orb, the elf's expression dropped. Clearly, he knew exactly whence they had come.

He told them that his name was Kymil the Quiet, a Disciple of the Arc and Guardian of the Crater. The Disciples, he explained, were an ancient order dedicated to guarding three divine artifacts scattered throughout Avernus, this first circle of Hell.

Kymil wouldn't say what the artifacts were, exactly, but he stressed that no one had moved or even touched them in eons. His diatribe proved him a persnickety man, deeply concerned with the etiquette of his order and intolerant of any loud noises.

"I also know that the only way you could have exited the barrier was to remove the Orb, so don't pretend that you don't have it," he concluded, catching the party off guard. The adventurers deliberated briefly before admitting that they had the artifact with them.

"What's with your tattoos?" Thud asked abruptly.

Kymil bristled and paused for a moment, then took a deep breath before replying. "I had a somewhat reckless youth, but that's beside the point."

Regaining his composure, Kymil explained what had happened at the mouth of the cave. When the bright lights flashed across Avernus, numerous devils had descended upon the crater to find the source, and he had clashed with them at the entrance.

The artifact Kymil guarded sat in the center of the crater itself. It was normally protected by an ancient, magical dome, much like the one around the Orb, but the devils had caught him unawares and managed to break through. Kymil hid when the barrier fell, and many of the fiends had entered the cave.

"That imp," he spat, gesturing towards the small, red body slumped against the wall, "is the only one I was able to kill."

The party spent another several minutes talking to Kymil, learning that his was a solitary, lifelong appointment to this post, and tensions began to ease as they proved themselves well-intentioned. He maintained his whisper, not having spoken at a full volume in centuries. His post necessitated stealth—the fiends, and other horrors of the Hells, would find him easy prey if he made much noise.

"I must ask a favor of you, considering my weakened state," he said eventually. "The piece of the Arc that I guard, the Ring, resides in the crater, and I need you to retrieve it. You seem to be powerful, and at least marginally good, so I doubt it will kill you. However, I must insist that you leave the Orb here with me."

After some convincing, though, Kymil agreed to let the party hold onto the Orb. He was in no position to defend it, really, considering his exhaustion, and our heroes went on their way.

But before they got far, Kymil whisper-shouted after them.

"Wait! I forgot to mention," he said sheepishly. "I know this may sound... unlikely. But, well, you must understand that when a Disciple nears the end of their life, they send a message back to the material plane announcing that a replacement is due to be chosen. My predecessor here at the Crater never sent such a message, and I was deployed when he failed to respond to any messages of our own. I arrived to find this place abandoned."

Kymil grew somehow even quieter, stroking his chin nervously. "Ever since I've been here, I've heard noises coming from deep within the cave. Scratching, clicking noises that keep me awake late into the night. I'm almost certain that it's nothing, just my imagination running wild in this godsforsaken place, but... well, I've never explored the cave much beyond the entrance here, and I felt I should warn you all the same."

Gwen and Moki expressed some frustration that he had waited this long to tell them, but our heroes set off into the cave nonetheless, Moki's light spell illuminating their path.

The Cave

The first stretch of the cave narrowed quickly, forcing the party into a single-file formation.

After a few minutes of travel, though, the path began to widen once again, and the adventurers suddenly found themselves standing on a ledge, a massive pit yawning wide before them. It was roughly 30 feet wide and 40 feet across, another ledge just visible on the other side.

Thud approached the edge of the pit and waved his hand around inside it, determining (with uncharacteristic astuteness) that it was no mere illusion. It was about 20 feet deep, meaning that a fall would be painful, but probably not fatal.

The party searched for quite a while to find any way across, checking the walls and ceiling for switches or other markings that might offer a hint. While Gwen, Moki, and Thud failed miserably to do so, Adolphus walked up to a spot on the wall, declared with a sigh of exasperation, "There's a switch right here," and immediately pressed it.

As soon as he did, machinery began to rumble in the depths of the pit. Moki raised her light to get a closer look, and our heroes watched as four stone pillars rose up from the bottom, finally revealing a way to cross. But the pillars were small and far apart, necessitating a series of difficult jumps to successfully cross.

With the aid of an enhance ability spell from Gwen, Thud made the first attempt. Despite a few close calls, he hefted his massive frame across the pit with grace, landing on the far side with a flourish. He was, however, far too impressed with his achievement to successfully search for any other wall switches.

Moki was next, considering she was quite a bit taller than her remaining companions. She made the first leap with ease, landing deftly atop the pillar. But she misjudged her second, launching too soon and undershooting the platform, and plummeted to the bottom of the pit. She took no damage from the fall thanks to a buff from Gwen, but found herself stranded regardless.

As Moki sat in the pit, lamenting her lack of agility, she heard a faint scratching sound from the wall to her right. She turned, shining her light into the blackness, and saw a rough-hewn grotto carved into the wall of the chasm. From its depths, a single, bright green eye stared back...

Until next time, folks.