Session 11: A History Lesson

General Summary

Ana told her tale to the companions, and they listened.
Two hundred years ago a small band of Eaters of Worms traveled to the very base of Valdryssil, seeking to discover if the God Gashes (the tears in the great tree where the gods emerged eons ago) held power that could be used to defeat the Wormborn plague. The band included Bjekmir the courageous warrior, Helka the necromancer, Ana the former traitor, Roba the Djorruk scamp, and Lar the Jotenmyn savage.
The Eaters had traveled for over a month to make it to the northern edge of all Valkheim, to the base of the great cosmic tree. They now traveled in a glacier-filled valley hemmed in not by mountains, but by the mountainous roots of Valdryssil itself. The short days knew no sunlight this far north, as only a twilight haze could penetrate the dead boughs of Valdryssil that loomed miles overhead. The Eaters had been pursued and harried by Wormborn for their entire trek, and now just hours away from where they hoped to find one of the God Gashes a pack of Wormborn caught them and attacked!
Seasoned killers all, the Eaters methodically went to work to dispatch their foes. The first casualty of the battle was Bjekmir's warhorse "Four", who immediately turned into another Wormborn the Eaters had to deal with. Helka and Ana slung spells across the frozen battlefield, slaying Wormborn with efficient precision. Bjekmir stood between the mages and the foes, defending them and dealing terrible wounds to the Wormborn with his magical axe Storm Thief. Roba and Lar fought back-to-back against a Devourer and a massive Ruiner. While Lar's rage-fueled attacks quickly cut the giant Ruiner down to size, Roba was snatched up by the Devourer and shoved into its mouth! The tiny Djorruk was chewed up terribly in the cavernous mouth of the Devourer, nearly dying, before his companions could slay the Devourer and free him.
With this batch of Wormborn eliminated, the Eaters decided to quickly press on before more could catch and find them. Bjekmir used his magical potion of healing to ease Roba's pain. The equipment and supplies that Four had carried was cross loaded between Bjekmir, Lar, and Helka's undead minions.
A few hours travel northward farther up the glacier valley brought the Eaters to their long-sought final destination. Before them, in a wrinkled notch of bark nearly fifty feet deep, was a God Gash. A tear in the tree nearly 20 feet long and over 5 feet wide seethed with a black void that was anything but empty. Power oozed from the void, invisible but tangible. Around the God Gash the bark of Valdryssil was damaged, as if something had carved crude runes and symbols into the tree. These carvings were recent, as bits of bark and tree littered the icy ground at the foot of the God Gash. Between the Eaters and the God Gash stood a 30-foot-tall tree with bark as white as bone and leaves as red as blood, adorned with three golden lanterns hanging from its lowest boughs. Despite the eternal cold here this tree was untouched by frost and snow. And as the Eaters approached the tree turned to meet them!


The crimson-leaved tree was a colossal Vaettir that had once been a beautiful giantess before being touched by a fallen leaf of Valdryssil. Upon her hands were scars that matched the runes that had been carved into Valdryssil around the God Gash. She asked if the Eaters had come here, where life began, to revel in all life coming to an end as she had. The Eaters fanned out into a defensive formation as they questioned the giant Vaettir. She said she was Faena, and that Valdryssil had cursed her and ruined her. She had come here to hate and spite the great cosmic tree, to deface and defile it, as she felt it had done to her when it made her into a Vaettir. When asked about the scars on her hands and the matching runes she had carved into Valdryssil, Faena stated that the great Tree had marked her with them, choosing her to be its savior and its slave, but she refused this fate.
The conversation soon spiraled into violence, as Faena was quite mad and would not let the Eaters approach the God Gash. Bjekmir and Lar rushed to hack at the trunk-like legs of Faena as Ana and Helka launched spell after spell upon the towering Vaettir. Roba flew stealthily into Faena's upper branches from behind her, hacking at her delicate leaves. Faena's golden lanterns flared with a garish green light and several of the Eaters temporarily fell under her charm of madness, carving away their own flesh as if it were burning them. Luckily, the battle-hardened Eaters quickly broke out of this charm and continued their attack on Faena. Helka summoned necrotic tentacles which wrapped all around Faena, and unknowingly around Roba as well who was hidden in the red leaves of the Vaettir. It just wasn't the Djorruk's day (but the worst was yet to come)!


Finally, the combined attacks of the Eaters were too much for even the mighty Faena, and she fell, her cursed existence ended at the foot of the great cosmic tree she claimed had ruined all that she was. The Eaters then approached the God Gash, with a curious Roba flying right up to peer into the black void. Helka studied it beside Roba, and with her vast knowledge of the arcane deduced that Valdryssil needed strength to fight off the Wormborn corruption, and this God Gash could be a medium to return strength and power back to the tree.
Without passion or malice, Helka pushed the unsuspecting Roba into the black void of the God Gash.
Roba was instantly killed, his life essence taken back by Valdryssil. But the great cosmic tree was not done. Suddenly thousands of lights from all across Valkheim streamed into the God Gash to be devoured by the black void. Valdryssil was claiming the entire Djorruk race, and all their souls were being consumed by the tree. The Eaters watched helplessly as the genocide of an entire race happened in an instant. The rush of power made Valdryssil hum with life, and the very world shook. And then the great cosmic tree fought back, using the life force it had reclaimed from the Djorruk to destroy the Wormborn corruption that polluted its roots and spilled onto the surface of Valkheim.
The Eaters had succeeded. The Wormborn plague had been ended, the corruption beaten back to the deepest roots of Valdryssil where Nidaugg chewed away, undeterred. Valkheim would be safe from this horror for centuries, until the Wormborn corruption could build up enough to spill onto the surface of the world once more.
But for the Eaters, victory was bittersweet. The Djorruk, a benevolent race of light and warmth, was the price of victory. But for Lar it was more personal than that. Roba was his friend, his best friend. Bursting into a rage, the Jotenmyn pushed Helka toward the God Gash, threatening not only her but the entire elven race. Luckily Helka reacted with a quick spell to vanish before falling into the God Gash, reappearing a short distance away. Seeing his true love threatened, Bjekmir attacked Lar. Horrified as her companions fought each other, Ana was torn, but eventually sided with Bjekmir. It took only moments for the three combined Eaters to slay the enraged Lar.
And upon that sad note Ana finished her tale, and the companions listened.
The companions asked many questions of Ana. She disclosed that after the Second Plague she left the Eaters, disgusted by what had happened. Many years later she discovered that her former master Hrolf and the other Traitors Three were not dead as believed but had found a way to control the Wormborn. She rejoined them and underwent the ritual to control Wormborn as they had. She claimed the cost for this power was her soul.
When asked what her intentions were, Ana stated she just wanted the companions to know the truth so they could make the right decisions when deciding who to trust. She told the companions that she and the Traitors Three sought to establish a new world order, free of the chaos and violence and racism that currently existed in Valkheim. They planned to use the Wormborn as an unstoppable weapon to remove those currently in power (namely the Lodge Eldritch and the Clans of the Throat) and then enforce their new vision of peace and equality. She made no request for the companions to join her or do her bidding, but said they knew where to find her if that is where the truth led them. And then she left, turning west towards the Lodge Eldritch where a horde of Wormborn and its masters laid siege to the magical fortress.
The companions had much to consider. Helka and the Lodge had asked for their help, asking them to slay a dragon to fuel a god trap that could be used to feed Valdryssil the power needed to end the Third Wormborn Plague. Yet Ana suggested that the Lodge was part of the problem and needed to be removed from power by using the Wormborn she and the other Traitors Three had somehow learned to control at the cost of their souls.
Svagnir, ever crafty, suggested a third course of action. Instead of using the god trap to help the Lodge or Ana, he suggested using it to attack Nidaugg directly, ending not only this Wormborn Plague, but the entire Wormborn threat forever. In theory it was a brilliant idea, but at the same time sounded utterly beyond the scope of anything possible! The companions all pondered this daring course of action and its possibility. All except Worhana.
The elven cleric announced that she was joining Ana's cause. Was she convinced by Ana's dream of a world free of violence where the elven race was no longer enslaved and persecuted? Or did her mysterious goddess, the lady of twilight and change, desire her to take this path? Regardless of her motivations, Worhana bid a tearful farewell to her companions and left upon her own, seeking to find Ana and the Wormborn. She took with her the magical hammer of blue steel that was born from the dying corpse of Kradar; the very instrument that was prophesized to change the world. Would the companions ever cross paths with Worhana and her divine war hammer again? And if so, would it be as friends...or foes?

Report Date

07 Oct 2022