OttD Session 25: The day of Blessings

General Summary

Adoven Woodsoul and Zerrof are absent. These two head off to look for The Prince of Fools. Izar gives those two directions before returning to the rest of the group. Izar first asks where the party wants to go, and they say they want to go find Corellon Larethian. Izar says that since today is the Day of blessings, Corellon Larethian is probably up north to attend some of the celebrations. The question of time comes up, and Izar goes looking for "Poke". Pestle helps in the search, and Poke turns out to be a hedgehog wearing a top hat. He and Izar converse in sylvan briefly, then Izar returns to the group and says that time is moving pretty quickly at the moment compared to the Prime Material Plane, so they should have a little time to relax. The party decides to make a stop along the way to look for Kaiser, who Izar says can probably be found in Kaiserburg, a town of satyrs that are all named Kaiser. Along the way pestle goes looking for herbs and gathers 3483 gold worth. Kaiserburg itself is a fairly small village, and the layout and architecture remind Pestle of the settlement of Kenku that used to live in Rainy Grove. Izar introduces them to three satyrs, all named Kaiser, who say "nice to meet you, I'm Kaiser!" in perfect unison. It is clear they have practiced this. After introductions are made, Tornac rolls a 25 to convince Izar to give him a ride around the town. Both parties seem to enjoy this arrangement quite thoroughly. They ask about how they tell each other apart, and it seems they all get nicknames. After receiving a brief description, one of the satyrs provides a few guesses for which Kaiser they might be looking for:

Lake-man Kaiser
Horny Kaiser
dirty scoundrel Kaiser
tube-man Kaiser

Pestle decides the most likely of these is lake-man Kaiser, so they ask and are told he usually hangs out around the triangular lake to the south, though it has been a while since they heard from him. The group decides to give up on the search, and instead ask about places to go shopping. He is told to look for either general Kaiser (who runs the general store, and is not actually a general), blacksmith Kaiser, or apothecary Kaiser. They visit first the blacksmith and then the general store, and Pestle obtains a pair of binoculars. There is quite a bit of small talk during their stay in Kaiserburg and the traveling after. Most notably, Izar bemoans not getting to be a cowboy and mentions that the Kenku have begun to repopulate Rainy Grove, and are starting to engage in creative works. They seem particularly fond of painting phoenixes. There is also a moment while talking to the Kaisers when Pestle accidentally lets slip that the lake is a portal to the Prime Material Plane. Izar also asks about Dave, because he has been telepathically asking a lot of questions about what its like to be a unicorn. They eventually arrive at a small village at the foot of a mountain. They attempt to secure lodgings at an inn called "the bald duck", but it was fully booked several months in advance. As they go to leave, they see Corellon Larethian, god of art and magic, standing in the doorway. Apparently he heard Tornac's prayer from earlier, and came to talk. He starts off by saying that Tornac had, at some point, used Dénouement on him and turned him into a mortal. Tornac does not recall these events, and Corellon Larethian eventually decides not to pursue the matter. He opposes getting involved in conflict, saying the conflict is "none of his business". He does, however, give them a list of who voted for and against telling the party the whole story of what is happening at their trial and gives the party a history lesson. first of all, he refutes the claim that the Dukes of Air initiated The Shattering. Instead, he says it was as if "life itself had rebelled" against the gods. In fact, the dukes lost a city of their own in the conflict. He says that after the fighting ended, none of the survivors were willing to take responsibility, and he was inclined to believe them. Corellon Larethian did not see any of the fighting himself, though, as he was born during The Great Rebirth immediately afterward. He says the surviving gods took much of the energy that was swirling around The multiverse after The Shattering and used it to create new gods to help replace the fallen. After The Great Rebirth, the new and old gods got together to discuss how to prevent another disaster on that scale. There was a great deal of heated debate about this, but eventually Bahamut proposed a treaty that would later be dubbed the Preservation Proclamation. The idea was to create mutually assured destruction: a treaty that all gods would sign and imbue as much divine might as they could muster onto. Any god who violated the terms would die immediately and violently by the power of the other signatories. The treaty had many terms, but it was primarily aimed at setting rules regarding how the gods could act against each other. Not all gods were fond of this plan. The evil ones in particular did not enjoy the idea of the loss of freedom. Vecna was the loudest opposition. According to Corellon Larethian, she kept saying that the proclamation was "a dangerous mistake". What finally got the gods to sign was a prophecy from Istus. She saw that the gods were doomed to kill each other. Said prophecy is fuzzy and does not state root causes, but even the most selfish among them were willing to capitulate to the terms if it meant ensuring their future survival. Unfortunately the proclamation was deeply flawed, and is responsible for the problems currently happening today. In particular, Corellon Larethian says the self-enforcing mechanisms buit into the treaty worked under the assumption that they were "the big fish in the pond", an assumption that turns out to be incorrect. Signing the treaty did nothing to change the prophecy. Vun Roade points out that Mazu and Penguin, and possibly even Zerrof himself fall outside of the bounds of the treaty and are therefore potential candidates for being the cause of the coming apocalypse. Pestle, getting back to business, proposes a deal that he will attempt to ask Dave how Corellon Larethian. His exact proposal is:

If I find out how you can retrieve your immortality, you will provide aid to Penguin in the fight to defeat Zariel

Corellon Larethian willingly signs said proposal, and then casts foresight on Pestle to assist in his save. Pestle asks dave:

How can one retrieve their immortality if it is taken by Dénouement?

Between advantage, resistance, and some mystic class abilities, he hits exactly 30, which was the DC for complete success. Pestle learns that the only real way to get divine immortality back would be to have it returned to him by whoever created Dénouement. Beyond this, typical forms of necromancy and immortality still apply. He also asks if immortality is a physical force that can be obtained or more of an abstract concept. He gets a 20 on an int check to comprehend the response, and believes that whatever is answering his questions has some amount of bias. It describes immortality as "an abberation against the natural order". Something that should not be known. Pestle, having learned the answer, tells Corellon Larethian that he is now bound to assist Penguin. Corellon Larethian protests, but Pestle points out that the papers he signed never required he actually reveal what the answer was. They go back and forth on this, and eventually Corellon Larethian manages to earn the answer anyway by casting Detect Thoughts. Pestle mistakenly believed the spell being cast was zone of truth or some similar effect, and therefore did not even attempt to resist it. Corellon Larethian bemoans the fact he had to do this, even going so far as to say Pestle would "make an excellent devil", but seems to get over it surpriingly quicky and turns to more light-hearted subjects. First of all, he reveals that he was the one who gave Serenity the Baduhenna. Corellon Larethian asserts this makes him, in a sense, Pestle's father. Pestle himself rejects this claim, saying he is no longer the tree. After some more banter, Corellon Larethian takes them over to the feast to get some food. Pestle sneaks one of the displacer beast hearts onto Tornac's plate, but he seems to enjoy the taste and not much comes out of it. The session ends there.