Tersa Primer

Tersa Primer

Tersa is the campaign world and the continent your characters are from is known as Cyrillia. Your characters were powerful adventurers in the year 74BF [Before the Fall (known as 432AA, After Aurelian, to you)] in an era known as the Crises of the Final Centuries by later peoples. You all lived in the Empire of Cyrillia and in some form or another had a connection to the Ancient Empire of Cyrillia. You were well known adventurers during the time, although your last adventure ended in catastrophe. You were hired (or ordered) by the Emperor Valens to investigate a fleet of ships from the Diabolical Hosts that evaded and destroyed the Imperial Fleet two years prior. The fleet forced its way through the straits of Auriliapolis suffering many losses. Despite this, the Imperial fleet took even more losses itself as the enemy ships used some strange and dark magic to force itself through this hitherto thought impassable barrier of fortifications.
After a year of no word the diabolical fleet remerged to the north of Alba destroying the fleet of Vinland, a region under the control of rebellious former Legate name Garl Vinland. The fleet than began to raid the Island of Alba, but it also fought with the Piccish Pirates in the north of the island. These raids laid waste to all monasteries and churches of the Seven Aspects. This did not raise much suspicion at first, monasteries contained large quantities of wealth and were undefended in this period. This mysterious fleet kept growing in numbers as it accumulated many former Piccish raiders and gained a base of operations near the Eyrie Pass to the North of Alba. Soon after the raids stopped all together.
The affects of this were noticed almost immediately, the lands in northern Alba started to sour. Crops failed and the common folk claimed that babies were being born with tails and other abnormalities. Most alarming, however, were the claims of the common folk that the dead were rising. People started to burn all corpses as well as exhume graveyards in the region to burn the remains. Garl Vinland allied himself with a famous Pirate Queen, Darleen the Storm Keeper, to supplement the remains of his navy and ended his war with the Drennish Tribes to East to combat this new threat. SOME but not all of your characters can be someone who was operating on the behalf of Garl Vinland, not everyone so coordinate.
Watching this chain of events unfold the Emperor Valens saw opportunity. If he could send powerful adventurers to save the region he could potentially sway the common folk to his side and undermine the rebellious Lord Vinland's hold on the region. As such he sent his own representatives, however, they needed to travel by land as the Empire's fleet was largely destroyed and what remained was needed to defend the capital.
Setting out to reach the Cultists' stronghold the adventurers braved the tumultuous regions of this collapsing empire and reached the bloody gates of Vinland in disguise. Their disguise was quickly foiled by agents of Garl Vinland (this would be a good place to add a character whose origin is tied to Garl Vinland). Much to the adventurer's surprise, Garl had expected a response from the Emperor and welcomed the help, with his people gaining a share of the credit.
The adventurers were given some information that proved the situation far more dire than expected. The reason the diabolical fleet was able to grow so rapidly was not due to Piccish Raiders joining the fleet, but rather the dead of defeated pirates were used to man undead ships with some form of powerful Necromancy. These ships were nearly impossible to avoid when ferrying over to Alba due to their constant and unstopping patrols. Invisibility spells were ineffective as the undead could see invisibility. Thus, seemingly there was no way over to the Island. Garl Vinland had a plan however. The Witch of the Black Veil was deeply disturbed by the events taking place near her border and was starting to see the natural order become warped along her borders. Whatever ritual was taking place was clearly getting stronger and progressing ever more rapidly. She agreed to cast a power spell to allow the adventurers to be ferried over to Alba undisturbed. The ship would be piloted by Darleen Bon. (A Character can either be a pirate under Darleen Bon, or a Witch under the Black Witch, either of these would work for a back story).
Upon reaching the lands around the Eyrie Pass north of Alba the adventurers departed and Darleen Bon sailed back. The adventurer's investigations led to disturbing revelations. The entire region had been corrupted with some unknown and vile magic. The few towns that weren't totally destroyed either lived in fear and were besieged by hordes of undead. The adventurers fought and defeated the hordes of the undead, however, in their fight realized this undead were not normal undead, but much more powerful. They bled ichor and nothing short of full body dismemberment and destruction in total of all limbs would stop them.
The surviving villagers told the adventurers that the cultists who started this had held up in the mountain pass and would travel down periodically through the pass to the shores. With no other leads the adventurers went to the mountain pass which was guarded by a mighty fortress, the Black Redoubt of the North. Inside the fortress the adventurers fought many undead and cultists whose bodies had been warped and deformed. Notes left by the cultists praised some ancient, and as far as the adventurers knew, forgotten God Ob-Nyarleth.
As they went deeper into the fortress, and deeper into the mountain, the adventurers encountered a little girl in a jail. They took the frightened child with them after all diving magic came up negative for foul play. They were deceived however, and the little girl soon revealed her true face, a withered old man who possessed unimaginable strength and unbelievable magical acumen. He collapsed the adventurer's path of retreat locking them into the heart of the fortress. The old man was also very insane, and kept repeating in fits of mad cackles and in various orders: "It has risen! I return! Incomplete! Tha-tak!"
The adventurers battled this entity but could not gain the upper hand. Throughout the fight the creature randomly transformed into different people, all with the features common among the peoples of Northern Alba. These transformations did not look intentional, but rather as if the creature could not control its powers. The battle continued to worsen with the creature only gaining power as the adventurers continued to get weaker as they expended resources. In a desperate attempt to prevent this aberration from escaping the adventurers cast a powerful spell of petrification given to them by the Witch of the Black Veil. The spell was powerful, an 10th level spell, but had a major drawback, it turned every living thing into stone within a mile, including the caster. Thus, the adventurers were turned to stone along with the creature, locked in a dark collapsed tomb within the heart of a forsaken fortress.
Now, an unknown time later the adventurers awaken, and see in front of them a wizard attempting to hold in his intestines. The wizard uttered "Gods have mercy, we didn't know..." before dropping dead on the floor.