The Creation of the Autumn Woods

General Summary

The year was 4422 AD. The borrovyan continent is ruled by dragonic rulers, who rule with tyrannic prominence. In the lands that will one day make up the northern parts off Aeryon, a ragtag group of adventurers, all famed for their ability to kill, are summoned by the land's ruler. A fearsome black dragon known as Arkhanoth the Black. These adventurers were: A Hellknight of the Order of the Godclaw named Tristan Storm, a human clad in great black armour with an unrelenting thirst for order and stability. A tabaxi fighter named Ivern, who grew up in a jungle and had developed some unsavoury psychotic tendencies. A minotaur paladin with an oath of conquest named Hiridar Manbreaker, dedicated to spreading the glory of the Losmian dragon king. And lastly, there was Urnek of Bernia, a half-orc sorcerer with a strange aberrant mind which granted him wicked and psionic powers.    They are brought to his citadel in the western swamps. They were all brought into his giant throne room, where the black conqueror rested on top of his enormous hoard of treasures. Arkhanoth presented them with an offer. Travel east to the forest and kill a group of elven insurgents who had been causing him trouble. They were offered a handful of his hoard for each elven head they brought him, no matter whether it came from a rebel or not. The party agreed, Ivern being the most eager at the prospect of killing. Urnek gave the dragon a flask of his own homemade ale before leaving.   The group travelled east, out of the swamp and across the grassy plains until they reached the forest. As they entered the woods, an arrow landed in from of them, a warning from the rebel forces. The group ignored them and were showered with arrows, most of which barely touched the heavily armoured paladins. The group tried to bargain with their attackers, but when a magician among the elves had had enough of their slippery ways he set of a magical explosion that almost killed Urnek, had it not been for his tough orcish heritage.    A fight broke out. The group quickly located their assailants and struck back hard and swift. Ivern hunted down two of the elves and deftly dodged their arrows and decapitated both of them. Hiridar followed him and managed to corner one elf standing on a branch. After trying to strike the rebel with his greatsword and having it get stuck in the wood, he impaled the elf with his horns, then gored and tore him to the ground, rupturing the aortic vein in the process. The elf bled out in seconds. He then threw a magically infused javelin at an elf chasing down Urnek, pinning the rebel to a tree with one throw. Urnek had in the meantime summoned a magical portal to a strange and wicked place. Three of the elves, including their leader, were lost in this magical darkness and when the spell faded a minute later only scraps of the elves were left. Tristan had meanwhile summoned a spiritual halberd which had cleaved through one of the rebels, he had then intimidated, paralyzed and struck down the last of the rebels before the fight ended.    The group rested and gathered all the heads they could find before continuing onward into the woods. After a short while, they found a glade with a temple surrounded by elven women, children and otherwise unarmed people. On top of the temple, they saw another elven magician in the middle of some form of ritual. With him, they saw three elven guards and an Autumn Eladrin brandishing a magical longsword. The others quickly decided that they were going to kill each and every elf they could catch as per Arkhanoths request. Urnek on the other hand was hesitant to kill unarmed civilians. They decided that Urnek would start the fight of, using the element of surprise, by detonating a magical explosion on top of the temple. They got into position and Urnek, before casting his spell used his psionic power to read the thoughts of the eladrin. Thus he managed to find out that they were in the midst of opening a portal to his master. Urnek then casted his spell.   A dark almost green flame erupted in a great explosion right in front of the temple. The eladrin had just enough time to react and shielded the magician with his body. The guards and a civilian weren't so lucky and were killed instantly. The rest of the party charged, with Ivern running up and stabbing his swords through the chests of two civilian elves. Tristan followed him and prepared himself by the stairs up to the top of the temple by casting a shielding spell on Ivern. Hiridar ran up the other side and decapitated two civilians with one strike of his greatsword. The Eladrin then yelled something in Sylvan, which Ivern understood as:

Finish the spell! Or everything will be lost!

He then ran down to face Tristan and managed to strike him with great force. The wound seemed to decay instantly as blood rushed out. Urnek also ran into the clearing and shot an orb of dark green acid towards the eladrin, but missed. Meanwhile, as he ran into the glade he spoke telepathically to a group of three civilian elves, telling them to run into the woods if they wished to live. Soon thereafter the Magician managed to finish his ritual and an orange portal opened, kept in place by a wooden frame. The elf yelled something in elven, but didn't manage to do mush else, as Ivern had used his quick and masterful footwork to bypass the eladrin and now plunged his swords deep into the chest of the wizard, pinning him to the platform behind him.   Then out from the portal lept two doglike creatures. One of them blinked out of existence and then appeared behind Ivern. The two flanked him and started to bite at him. Meanwhile, Tristan and Hiridar had surrounded the Eladrin, but it didn't seem like their strikes were as effective as they should have been. At this point all the civilian elves had begun panicking at what was going on and were fleeing into the portal. All except the three warned by Urnek. As the fight progressed more hounds would appear and Tristan and Hiridar would notice that even though their attacks didn't do as much damage as they might have expected, the eladrins strikes did, eventually harming Hiridar so badly he would collapse, dying from his wounds. Ivern, sick of all the hounds and the fact that every elf that escaped would be an elf he couldn't kill, turned towards the portal and attacked the frame holding it in place. When seeing the horrified expression on the eladrins face when doing this he exausted every bit of his strength to strike one more time, and succeded in breaking the frame.    Immediately the portal ran haywire. It began to violently spin and suck everyone not of the material plane back into the portal, including the eladrin. It then stopped spinning and instead began to grow. By this point, Ivern had started to hunt and kill every elf he could get his hands on, as Tristan tried to round them up alive. Urnek poured a healing potion into Hiridars mouth bringing him back to counciusness. Urnek then tried to investigate the expanding globe that now was the portal. He poked his finger into it and when he retracted it it had turned black and dead. Urnek broke it off with a stinging pain before warning the rest that it may be time to leave. The gathered all the heads they could find and ran.   The party fled and managed to reach the edge of the forest. At which point the portal stopped for a while. It then began to retract, leaving a forest that seemed magically turned to a glowing autumn behind. A state that would persist for thousands of years. The party decided that no elf could have survived that and returned west towards Arkhanoths swamp. Unbeknownst to them was that the three elves that had been warned by Urnek had managed to survive and driven mad by grief and chock decided that they would never again trust the fey, but rather gather strength and conquer them instead. They would be the Woodlands Gods, the Silvestra Numina.   The party once again reached Arkhanoths citadel, they presented their bounty and were given the agreed-upon reward. All except Urnek who begged the dragon-lord to fix his finger. He did so, but said that the favour would suffice as his reward, infuriating the half-orc. He then offered them continued service in his court, which all except Ivern refused. Realizing the unstable nature of Ivern, the dragon used his magic to paralyse the tabaxi before having him taken away before he was needed again. In an attempt to take vengeance for his scuffed reward the half-orc turned himself invisible and tried to steal his bottle back. The dragon noticed him and stomped him to unconsciousness, threw him to the paladins and asked them to take him away. They all left and after exiting the citadel, they all went their separate paths.