What an absolutely crappy day. 

Ullrich, you’re sitting in your dorm at the Soltryce Academy, a spring afternoon, a gentle breeze wafts the wondrous fragrances in through your open window, a bird of bright orange with a mask of charcoal around the eyes sings a rather lovely, spirited tune.  The warm sun floods half your room with a golden reaffirming light. The campus buildings are within view; a towering spire is most prevalent: Dreamhaven College. It’s a pretentious name, you think, for the department dedicated to the study of conjuration. But your papers, lying on your bed, the ink on the signatures by both the Headmaster and the dean of Dreamhaven still wet, give you unequivocal proof of your remarkable achievements and graduation from the college and Soltryce. 

This day is absolutely the worst.

The graduation, the pomp and circumstance, the adulation for adoring professors, family and friends was all to be expected. Your parents are here, yes, your father, who, while you were marching up the platform to receive your papers in front of the graduation assembly, created illusory pegasi, escorting you majestically to the stage. Yes, there were ooh’s and ahh’s from the ignorant crowd, easily pleased by party tricks, but it released an involuntary sigh from your mouth and resulted in difficult eye contact with Headmaster Margolin as he presented your papers. 

Still, The Headmaster did say, “Well done, Ullrich Netherdawn. We will be watching your career with great interest.”

The “we” didn’t mean the Academy. 

The “we” meant the Assembly. The Cerberus Assembly. Which meant that the first step in your plan for vindication had been accomplished.

Terrible day.

Because what wasn’t expected was the Wizard’s Duel. 

The Duel itself was a longtime honored tradition, where the two best students in the graduating class participated in a duel of magics and wits–with very few parameters, as they would have a number of highly-skilled wizards, clerics and necromancers on hand in case anything went wrong. 

Never, during your entire career at Soltryce Academy were you or anyone told who was the “best” student. Just who were the top two. And in your entire career, it was always the same two.

Ullrich Netherdawn and Bartholomew Harkness. Great Grandson of Timothy Harkness. 

What were the odds?

Barty focused on Transmutation and Evocation, while you embraced Conjuration (as well as excelled in all other schools, disregarding necromancy and most of divination and illusion)

Still, it was always you and Barty and then everyone else.

And you hated it. But the Duel was designed to identify, once and for all, the best student of the class. 

Finally, the truth would be declared far and wide. You were born for this.

Oh, just thinking about it pains the stomach.

Because, not more than two hours ago, you lost. 

Humiliating. If Barty knew more, or was better, or more clever, you could live with the result. But it wasn’t any of those things. Nothing Bartholomew Harkness did threatened you even once.  In fact, all Harkness used were the same three spells (all evocation) that he thought he used really well. 

But he valiantly telegraphed them, which made them easily recognized, avoided, or countered. 

Except for that fourth spell. 

You know that fourth spell. 

Harkness pulls out a small pieces of wet, spongy flesh and raises his hand as if to throw it to the ground.

You wind your hands in the familiar pattern to counter it, knowing the spell is coming.

And then stop. You can’t remember!

The spell…which spell uses spongy flesh? What kind of flesh? What are those, suction cups? Is that an octopus? What uses an octopus?!

Black Tentacles. 

A conjuration spell of all things! 

When did HE learn a conjuration spell?! 

The piece of tentacle slaps the ground about 9 feet ahead of you.

As the squirming, ebony tentacles sprout from the ground around you, you attempt to leap out of the way, but they wrap quickly and tightly all around your body. You can’t move. All you can think is, how on this green earth did you, Ullrich Netherdawn, forget something like that. 

You attempt to break your way out of the tentacle’s grasp. No dice. Instead you’re hit with a ringing in your ears that shakes you to the core. Toll the Dead. Necromancy. No materials, just voice & somatic.

You peer out at your opponent and even with your limited range of motion you manage the somatic and verbal while pulling the ash, envisioning the fire burst about to ignite around Barty. And just as you throw it, your hit with a gust of wind–your fireball, counter-spelled. 

Again, the ringing! You try to shake it off, but the pressure of the tentacles makes it difficult to think! Difficult to breathe. 

In desperation you call out a name and hold out a gilded daisy, a graduation gift from your mentor, Ikirys. And with a pifff and a sparkle a small, winged creature of light blue skin and dark blue hair appears right next to Barty Harkness and swings a formidable short sword towards him, slashing him across the face. Barty falls to a knee, and the tentacles immediately slide back into the ground. 

You’re free. 

But, before you can act, Barty raises his hand, a crystal rod within it. 

Lightning bolt. 

You raise your hand, attempt to counter, but you  realize summoning the fey drained you enough to prevent you from casting the spell! 

You leap, feeling light as a feather after being locked in place, knowing you’ll evade the brunt of the spell. But no wizard can completely dodge lightning bolt. 

Very few people in fact can. That’s why you learned it.

So did Barty.

You feel the shock for a brief moment before the world around you blacks out.

Black Tentacles. How could you have forgotten?

When you come to, you find yourself in bed in your dorm room, and see a familiar face, gruff and bearded wearing a silver tunic emblazoned with a crest of a sun and moon. 

Barrax just sits and smiles compassionately. 

“What?” you ask.

“Harkness was offered–“

“Oh, come on.”

“No, not that. At least not that I know of. He’s not joined the Assembly.”

“Then what?”

“The Golden Chain.”

“The sellswords.”

“Yeah.”

“The most famous sellswords in the Empire.”

“In all of Wildemount, but yeah.”

“The Golden Chain Mercenary Company, which prides themselves on no affiliations, no morals, no tolerance for failure. Ruthless hunters and enforcers.”

“Them’s the ones.”

“Want Harkness?”

Barrax nods, pauses to make sure you’re finished and raises to his feet.

“Hurry and get ready. You have obligations to attend to.”

“Family?”

“And others.”

Barrax heads towards the door, but before he reaches it, you tell him.

“I couldn’t remember,” you say, staring off as if rewatching the moment.

“What?”

“I saw Harkness throw down the piece of octopus. I couldn’t remember. A conjuration spell, and I couldn’t remember its components.”

“Well,” says Barrax, “you’ll never, ever forget now.”

“No,” you say. “I will not.”

“Look at it this way, Ullrich,” Barrax says, pulling on the door handle, “had you won–and you had him whipped, until, you know, the thing–but had you won, The Golden Chain would’ve asked you, and then we wouldn’t be able to form our own mercenary company…”

“Mmmm….wait, what?”

---

Consider the following:

When forming and naming Vanquish, you need to decide between the two of you how you came to recruit the other members of your party, which you learned about and engaged with one of them during Barrax’s Soulgate.

How do you know/learn of these people? Were they all willing or did it take some persuasion?

As a refresher, here they are:

• Leon Scarlett A shifty, charismatic but extremely talented human thief (rogue)

• Jax Maxis A tenacious fighter and former solider, but also a half-elf of few words,

• Jasmine Portis a nervous human artificer, who doesn’t really know just how good she is at her job.

 

The one-shot will begin after the group has been formed and you get word of your first “job.” I need each of you to combat-play one of your party members and I’ll take the 3rd.  Let me know who will play who and I’ll get you the stat blocks for them.

Hope you enjoyed!