Xancrown
After hearing about "The Demon Plague" a few times, the party finally met (and freed) a ghost named Feriae the Wise, who explains the following:
- The Demonplague is very real. It is a plague caused by a powerful demon named Xancrown who is entrapped in a prison under the Luna Valley. People infected with the plague go through the following symptoms:
- They become a lot stronger
- They become feverish and then start to lose their wits,
- Finally they die and rise again as deformed, pustule covered zombies with demonic traits. These plague zombies are like rabid animals, attacking anything that moves - including fellow zombies - and spreading the plague to any who they don't kill directly.
- The valley has previously experienced several outbreaks of this plague in the past.
- About 7000 years ago, the Luna Valley was occupied by the now extinct "Storm Elves". For some unknown reason, the powerful demon known as Xancrown had come to the valley to torment the elves. Xancrown created his Demonplague and the elves, as their civilisation started to collapse about them, managed to trap the demon in a dungeon far beneath the floor of the valley. Sadly, it was not enough to prevent their population from succumbing to the plague, and after less than a year, the valley was empty of all sentient life.
- About 5000 years ago, a group of dwarves came to the valley, and built a city and various structures in and under the valley. Whilst exploring, they stumbled across Xancrown's prison, and although they luckily did not release the demon, they got close enough to be infected by the plague - and after a relatively short period of time, the plague had spread again across the valley, destroying the dwarven civilisation.
- About 3000 years ago, a powerful orc leader gathered lots of orc clans together and established a type of civilisation within the Luna Valley. It starts to show signs of becoming truly civilised, when unfortunately, the orcs uncover dwarven ruins somehow manage to contract the plague themselves. Their budding civilisation is wiped out before it really had a chance to shine.
- About 1000 years ago, humans settled properly in the valley - fleeing from the horrors of the Dark Ages, a mix of people from the young Pacedonia and Al'Shekeim, and even some of the Island folk. This burgeoning civilisation grew rapidly, and before too long also uncovered and succumbed to the Demonplague. Realising the potential for the plague to spread so much further than the Luna Valley, a Druid's Circle named Minas Herion undertook a powerful ritual, the conclusion of which summoned a glacier into the valley, crushing the population that was already being decimated by the Demonplague. By doing this, and sacrificing themselves in the process, they prevented the plague from spreading to the rest of the world.
- Feriae believes that Ralekai Gravemore is a necromancer who was alive at the time that the Glacier came into being, but had already progressed far enough down the path towards un-death, that he was merely frozen in the ice instead. When the glacier melted, he awoke and continued what he had been working on before the glacier interrupted him - namely using necromancy to try to understand and potentially find a cure for the Demonplague. Feriae despises Ralekai, and not just for trapping her and questioning her, but because she believes her kill-everyone-in-the-valley approach to prevent the plague is better than his experiment-on-civilians-to-look-for-a-cure-that-might-not-exist approach.
- Feriae intends to return to her search around the valley, looking for her fellow druids, most of which, like her, are now ghosts. Over the last 1000 years, she has been working to understand what could have been done differently, and believes the ritual they used to bring the glacier down on the valley could be altered to actually destroy Xancrown once and for all.
The party have started to become aware of "The Demonplague". First mentioned by Harlyot Crushade when Cormir, Morthos and Drex met her in the basement of Fort Frostfell. She said she was working for a necromancer named Ralekai Gravemore - who had saved her life and persuaded her that she needed to protect the gnome Harlan Barrypot, who he had also rescued and tasked with researching anything related to something called “The Demonplague” that he could find in the basement library of Fort Frostfell. Ralekai had also recruited some hobgoblins and goblins plus an undead Wight (named Gothmog Plaguereaper that the PCs had already slain), to assist with the process of finding a cure for the plague. This involved the very questionable tactic of kidnapping people for research purposes into the plague and how it might be cured.
A later encounter with a bunch of cultists on the trail back from Fort Frostfell resulted in the recovery of a old book filled with goblin ravings, which, when translated constantly referred to the need to sacrifice people to a power named “Gartlemak” to gain protection from a “terrible plague”.
- The party met the ghost of Feriae the Wise in the basement of Fort Frostfell - a long dead druid who was part of a powerful druid's circle called **Minas Herion** who told a chilling tale about an ancient demon called Xancrown.
- Basil the Bizarre, although clearly mad, had murdered three people and had an altar in his basement and had raved about “a terrible plague that would return, turning its victims into zombies and demons!” He had an altar in his basement that had some abyssal runes that mentioned a demon called “Xancrown”, as well as some similar nonsense symbols that seemed to echo those found in the cultists goblin book. Basil claimed to have had a vision.
- Cormir, Morthos and Drex all shared a vision whilst unconscious at Fort Frostfell. The vision showed a kindly faced (*) old lady with twigs and leaves in her hair, who seemed to imply she was in the basement of Fort Frostfell somewhere and who needed freeing. (*) Only Drex thought she looked creepy rather than kindly faced... but then again, his standards aren't necessarily the same as everyone else's... :-)