Ascension of the All-Father
The party recovered an Oleander Throne ranking soldier, Cnaeus Arius, who was left for dead with the lycanthropes in Llywelyn. He was bitter about being left to die by the Oleander leaders and also worried about his being infected with lycanthropy. He promised to tell the party all that he knew in exchange for the curing of his lycanthropy as the first full moon was set to rise.
He told the party that the All-Father was not actually a divine god. There are no cleric granted power among the Oleander people. Instead, the first ruler of the Oleander Throne had been keeping himself alive all of this time with powerful magic and had been finding ways of becoming a god himself.
The Oleander Throne's wizardry and magic grew to great heights through their exploitation of the Moonwells and the Fey within. This was demonstrated by their capture of Narahm, the Great Leviathan, and using his blood to create magical items en masse. Cnaeus told them that over the centuries, the Oleander wizards drained as much as they could from the Moonwells on the mainland, gaining more and more insight into wizardry and magic in the process. However, this knowledge came with the destruction of most of the Moonwells on the mainland. This is why the Oleander Throne is so fixated with the Moontide Isles--there are so many Moonwells, untouched and untapped for their raw potential.
The Oleander Throne had been performing experiments to see if creating divinity was possible. Cnaeus stated that the experiments were successful, and the party then assumed that somehow Yeenoghu, The Hunger, and Ydarion's Mother's Mother's Mother's Mother must have been created by whatever the Oleanders were doing with these tests.
Cnaeus also related that the three great threats to the Isles would have been useful if they succeeded, but ultimately, they were distractions.
Freeing Nyctelios, The Mad God, would have created chaos among the existing pantheons, leaving more room and "domains" to be absorbed by a newly divine AllFather.
Capturing the Great Leviathan would have freed the oceans for their fleets to sail safely across for invasion, while at the same time, providing new magic weapons from his blood.
Having the Blood Tribes seize control of The Wild Hunt would have weakened the Daoine and Northlander forces, making them easier to conquer--though Ulfr ultimately betrayed them for his own ideals and want for power.
All of this would put the Oleander Throne at a great advantage on the Isles. But moreso, it would keep everyone occupied so that Servius Oleander could enter a Moonwell that would lead to The Feywild and he could achieve his divinity. Levi immediately suspected that the Oleander Throne would want to invade a Moonwell near Caer Cenwynn, which would make the Moonwell at the Silver Lodge a suspected location.
The party returned to the League Guildhall, both parts of the separated parties rejoined. As they were planning their next steps, the Heroes of Halfbrook arrived, believing that there was a deep rivalry between the groups, but the League barely remembered them.
Apex Daggerheart said that they came across an item that they thought that they would share with the party. It was a letter between Oleander Throne archmages that they intercepted. It stated that they were unable to place the tefillin on Talshond, but were able to place it upon Rivariin, who was known to have traveled into the Feywild at the Moonwell at the Silver Lodge.
This confirmed that the Moonwell at the Silver Lodge was the target, but also told them that Rivariin had an object important to the Oleander forces.
The party went to the Silver Lodge to warn them and ready its defense against the Oleander armies that they feared were approaching. They met with an Emissary of the Stag King, who seemed a bit less concerned about the situation than the party. But he ultimately agreed to "bend the ways", making arrival at the Lodge more confusing and time-consuming, potentially losing some of the troops.
The party prepared their defenses and the Oleander forces arrived during a tulmutuous thunderstorm. Servius Oleander was accompanied by formations of soldiers that were broken, many of them lost in the bending of the ways. He fought the party with powerful magics, but ultimately when he drew upon powerful necromatic magic, it was revealed that he was a lich. This was how he extended his life. And the tefillin that they had placed on Rivariin was actually (when translated) a phylactery.
Servius used a powerful spell, Power Word Kill, to instantly kill Wistari Enydark, and the soldiers advanced, as did a great Ivory Worm that burrowed up and swallowed people whole. The party succeeded in holding him back from reaching the Moonwell. However as his body crumpled with the killing blow, he smirked and muttered out "Fools" and his spirit left his body and moved to the Moonwell, entering it to go to his phylactery to reform. Even in death, he was able to enter the Moonwell and continue his plan.
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