link:: Campaign - Shadows of a Radiant Heart, Arc 1 - Seeds of Deception
Session 73
Information
- session_title::
- session_date:: 2025-11-20
- eberron_date:: Eyre 12, 998 YK
- player_characters:: Thirteen, Davira, Elrath, Sarodan, Took, Toriman
- level:: 8
- locations:: Flamekeep
Current Threads
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Storyline / Scenes
Scene 1: The Preparation
- Allow the party to make their final preparations before starting the infiltration of the Cathedral.
- Thirteen will want to install his “hand-gun”.
- Other characters might have other details to deal with…
Scene 2: The Infiltration (Skill Challenge)
Target: 5 Successes before 3 Failures. DC 14.
The party enters the maintenance tunnels marked on Silas’s blueprints. Instead of a map, run this as a Group Skill Challenge to keep the pace high. Describe a problem, ask who wants to solve it and how, then roll.
Obstacle Ideas:
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The Collapse: “According to the blueprints, this tunnel should be clear, but a section of the ceiling has caved in, blocking the path with heavy rubble and sewage.”
- Solution: Athletics (Elrath/Toriman move it), Mason’s Tools (#13 identifies a key stone to move), Acrobatics (squeezing through).
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The Old Ward: “Silas said these tunnels were unwarded, but ahead, the air shimmers with a frantic, sparking blue light. It looks like an ancient, malfunctioning Cannith security rune that has reactivated.”
- Solution: Arcana (Davira/Sarodan dispel or bypass), Thievery (disable the physical emitter), Religion (identify it).
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The Noise: “You hear echoing footsteps above you through a grate. A patrol is stopping right over your heads to talk. If you make a sound, they’ll raise the alarm.”
- Solution: Stealth (Group), Performance (mimic a rat sound?), Deception.
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The Vermin: “The tunnels aren’t empty. A massive, gelatinous shape blocks the corridor ahead, pulsing with acid.”
- Solution: Nature (identify it’s sluggish), Animal Handling (lure it away), Survival.
Consequences:
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Success: They arrive at the sanctum undetected.
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Failure: They arrive, but they have burned resources (lost HP from a trap, a spell slot used to force a door) OR Lira knows someone is coming (she is not surprised).
Scene 3: The Gut-Punch & The Breach (The Cliffhanger)
The party gets their 5th success. They climb a ladder and emerge from a grate into the Cathedral’s inner sanctum…
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The “Gut-Punch”: This is the moment we’ve planned. The room is silent. The Heart of Radiance is pulsing with a sickly, smoky-gray light. On the floor in a ritual circle is Kael’s body, desiccated and marked with dark runes. They are too late.
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The Villain: Lira is there, not frantic, but serene. She’s meditating in the corrupted light. She opens her eyes and looks at them, not with rage, but with pity.
(The party bursts in. Kael is dead. The Heart is corrupted. Lira stands there, bathed in the smoky-gray light. She opens her eyes and looks at you, not with rage, but with a cold, profound disappointment.)
Lira: “You. I should have killed you in the Mournland when I had the chance. I showed you mercy, and still… you cling to the past. You still don’t see.”
(She gestures, not to Kael’s body, but to the entire room, as if it’s a work of art.)
Lira: “You’re too late to ‘stop’ anything. The ritual is done. It’s all… finally in motion.”
(Her voice gains that burning, fanatical light.)
Lira: “The Church isn’t pure. You’re right. It’s a diseased, rotting thing. It’s a palace of cowards… a lie… a failure that lets the faithful die while they hoard their power and hide from the darkness!”
(She stops, and turns to the tall, silent templar guard on her right.)
Lira: “You know this truth better than any of them, don’t you? Show them. Show our ‘friends’ what the old Church’s ‘justice’ really looks like. Show them what they saved you for.”
(The templar steps forward. With a click of a latch, he removes his helm. Underneath is the scarred, familiar face of the shifter, Martell. He looks directly at the party, his eyes filled not with malice, but with a terrible, righteous certainty.)
Martell: “(His voice is quiet, resolute) …She’s right. She is the only one who saw the real corruption. The corruption everyone ignored. She is the one bringing real justice.”
(Lira smiles, a cold, sad smile.)
Lira: “You see? But now… I have everything I need to make it pure. The whispers of the true Flame… they gave me the power to burn the rot away. To build a Church that is strong. A Church that protects. A Church worthy of… of his memory…""
(She falters for just a second, a flicker of her old, broken self, before her gaze hardens into divine, terrible resolve.)
Lira: “It seems that you are the last, lingering infection. It is time I purge you, too.”
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The Confrontation: The party will be horrified. Toriman will be enraged. Let them have one round of pure, gut-wrenching reaction.
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The Cliffhanger: The moment the first blow is struck (either by an enraged party member or by Lira unleashing her new power), you trigger the Breach.
DM Narration: (Read this after Lira delivers her line, “You’re too late. The Church is finally pure.“)
“The moment the words leave her lips, Lira raises her hand.
In answer, the corrupted Heart of Radiance behind her flares. A blinding pulse of smoky-gray light surges outward, a wave of pure, agonizing pressure that staggers you all.
Then comes the sound.
It is not a sound you hear with your ears, but one you feel in the roots of your teeth—a brittle, deafening, psychic CRACK that echoes deep in your minds, as if a fundamental law of the world has just been shattered.
The stone floor beneath you does not break. It tears.
Like a sheet of black glass, a rift of pure, screaming void rips open in the center of the sanctum. It is a vortex of oily shadow and bruised, violet light, and from it erupts an impossible wind that smells of a sharp, coppery tang and ancient, disturbed dust..
This is not a wind that pulls at your clothes, but one that tears at your very souls. You are overwhelmed by a thousand, overlapping whispers in an instant—every failure, every fear, every dark and secret shame you have ever had.
The gravity of the real world is gone. You are weightless.
You see the sanctum, Kael’s still body, the corrupted Heart, the shocked look on Lira’s face—you see it all begin to stretch and shred away into impossible, sickening geometry as you, and she, are pulled tumbling, helpless, into the screaming, abyssal dark.
You are falling.
…And we’ll end the session there.”