Best Epilogue Procedure

I think the best way to culminate/collate the Epilogues, in addition to just printing them out together, is to update the above map with all of the changes and developments noted in the various entries.   The other regions in the greater province are largely unchanged, but the Badlands is a whole new world.

The Fate of Tiberius

Tiberius Epilogue

Tiberius triumphant return from the battle of Mago’s Tomb was met with troubling news.  While the Hydra Legion has been successful at keeping order in the countryside, the Beastmen of the city of Hamatar have been chafing at subjugation under Tiberius.  Upon seeing the Skull Collectors facing an external threat they seized the opportunity to rise up in open rebellion.  Large bands of bugbears turned bandit and began attacking the tax collectors and merchants of the realm.

In a fury, Tiberius gathered his forces and set out to make an example of the beastmen.  Intending to turn the city into a pile of rubble as a warning to other beastmen that may harbor thoughts of rebelling, Tiberius marched upon the city with the Hydra Legion;  Murderface and Fan Club; and Manfred, Beavis, and Dead Eye Hayes.  Using his carpet, spells, and the newly acquired Rod of Deception to cloak their movements, Tiberius hunted down and destroyed a number of marauding bands outside the city.  After a week of skirmishes, the bugbears withdrew back into the city.  Tiberius then proceeded to lay siege to the city.  Purple Worms rampaged through the city, undermining foundations and collapsing buildings.  Eventually Tiberius led a strike against the leadership of the beastman revolt.  When the leaders fell, the rest of the rebels scattered.  The city was razed to the ground and the survivors either fled the realm or were hunted down.  Hundreds were taken prisoner and sold into slavery, many ending up in Yoesville.

After quelling the rebellion, Tiberius returned to Fort Hydra.  He invested heavily in improving the city, domain, and his personal tower.  Fort Hydra’s control expanded south and east into the unclaimed territory between Gatavia.   Over time, he used a series of Wall of Stone spells and Permanent Illusion spells to create the Hall of Wonders.  The Hall of Wonders is an outdoor garden/museum where citizens can go to view illusions of the fantastic creatures that the Skull Collectors have faced and defeated in battle.  With the Hall of Wonders complete, Tiberius withdrew into magical research.  Using his newly created library and workshop of legendary proportions, he started performing more and more radical magical experiments.  He researched several new power summoning spells to place fantastic creatures under his control, and created several rituals, including wish.  Constructs of various kinds with strange abilities began to emerge from his workshop, fighting alongside the Hydra Legion.  He also created several powerful magical artifacts of his own design, bestowing several upon Helpful Bill and the other Skull Collectors.  It was during one of these experiments that a strange green glow enveloped Tiberius’ tower.  Those looking at the tower could see it within as additional colors began to swirl around it.  With a loud sound like the ringing of a giant bell, the tower vanished.  Some say that the tower imploded, killing all within.  Others say it was transported to a distant time or place.  Divinations gave little information about what occurred, except to say that Tiberius would eventually return.  As years and generations passed the story became little more than a legend with most believing that Tiberius would never return. 

After crushing the Bugbear Rebellion, Sister Helena left Tiberius’ service and established a fortified Abbey to the south of Fort Hydra on the southeastern corner of Gatava, pledging to defend the tenants of the Neutral faith.  The small village of Sister’s Blade arose around the Abbey.  She trained the Sisterhood of Juno, a group of Bladedancers that would help defend the tenants of the neutral faith. 

Helpful Bill remained in Tiberius’ service, helping to rule over the beastmen in the Realm and serving as Tiberius’ second in command in the Hydra Legion.  As a reward for long term service, Tiberius formally made him the first Knight of Valdar, bestowing the title of Sir Bill, General of the Hydra Legion.  Sir Bill led the Hydra Legion for many years, personally training many of the new recruits and keeping the peace.  It was a common sight to see him riding into battle on the back of a Hydra that he summoned using the enchanted Hydra figurine that Tiberius created for him; and flanked by two golems in the shape of hydras, controlled by an amulet that he wore.  Following Tiberius’ disappearance, Sir Bill assumed full command of the Hydra Legion and became ruler over Fort Hydra.  He would marry one of Tiberius’ former apprentices, Valinia, and pass the realm down to his son Helpful Bill the Second upon his death.

 

The epilogue of Murderface

 

The shocking secret of Portchester having traded dwarves to the Old Ones in return for peace during the founding of the city caused immense anger to spread far and wide in the dwarven territories, and nowhere was this anger better personified with than Murderface Jack.

Murderface Jack personally began scouring the Badlands, ruthlessly slaughtering anyone wearing a symbol of Bor, or identifying as being from Portchester.  At least at first.  Murderface’s rage rapidly expanded beyond just hating Bor or Portchester, and quickly expanded to the nearly genocidal hatred of humans.  Villages discovered to have a worshipper of Bor were put to the sword and entire caravans traveling to or from Portchester were wiped out to the last soul.  The followers of Woden soon began following suit, and the rest of the Skull Coalition were forced to take action before any more innocents were slain.

Badaxe Jack, ever a shrewd dwarf, used every ounce of his religious and secular authority to set Murderface to a task:  war with Portchester.  Calling upon diplomatic ties with the forces of the elf woods, and taking advantage of Murderface’s recent rampages emptying the northern end of the Badlands of any humans (with the exception of a few small towns), Badaxe swiftly tripled the territory he directly controlled, creating a massive increase in the dwarf population of the Badlands. 

Meanwhile, Murderface was set to task expanding both Badaxe Jack’s army, as well as his personal army, The Sons of Woden.   Now based in The Tower Graf, The Sons of Woden utilized Skull Mountain as a training area.  One-Axe Jack and Two-Axe Jack used Murderface’s ring as a recruitment tool, gaining even more raw recruits to be turned into berserkers.

Murderface’s rage was occupied, but now he felt a great emptiness.  Killing weak humans was not the future that Murderface pictured for himself.  One night Murderface received a dream of Woden himself.  In the dream Woden ordered Murderface to sail out of the Badlands, never staying in one place for any longer than a month, until Woden orders otherwise.

And so Murderface made ready to leave.  He declared that One-Axe and Two-Axe Jack would be the new leaders of the Sons of Woden, to operate using the lessons learned during their time with Murderface, under the direction of Badaxe Jack and with the divine council of Fancy Jill.  The names of One-Axe and Two-Axe grew to become the titles of the nominal leaders of the Sons of Woden. 

Leaving a vast fortune in treasure and magic to the Sons of Woden, Murderface made off, stopping only long enough in Portchester to topple the bell tower at the church of Bor and scrawl obscenities on the roof of their chapel in the blood of its defenders.

Where Murderface went from there is the matter of stories to his friends and horror stories to his enemies.  But it is believed that he will return to the Badlands for his greatest, and final, battle.

The Masked Archer's Epilogue

The Temple of Mars Ultor and the Rise of the House of Nixon

Having recovered the lost Tome of the Mamertine Apocalypse, The Masked Archer of the Apocalypse put forth great efforts to rebuild the Temple and a headquarters for the revived Protectores. With this band of loyal spies and assassins, The Masked Archer turned his efforts toward driving every last Therk from the Badlands, and then to harass them in their homeland.

Meanwhile, the Masked Archer's henchman Mysterious Clive was granted the honor to examine the Tome of the Mamertine Apocalypse. Although he found many amazing and useful secrets of the ages, he had one piece of horrible news for the Masked Archer: the magic that the Old Ones must have used to break all the Augurs' Towers at once was irreversible, the demonic forces released could never be contained by similar towers again. Clive eventually leaves the service of the Masked Archer to establish his own research tower at Hod.

From this time onwards, the Masked Archer spent some token time protecting the temples of the Ardean gods, and some time bothering the Therks, but more and more he was consumed in hunting down and massacring the Old Ones wherever they might be found. He was a constantly pitching an alliance with Portchester and even Dengwur against the Old Ones. He became so obsessed that he was eventually expelled from the Royal Court of Gatavia and simply lurked in the Temple of Mars, only venturing forth to slaughter Old Ones from the shadows.

The only one to profit from the growing isolation of the Masked Archer was Trusty Nixon. Nixon at first began to manage the day-to-day affairs of the Protectores, making a tidy profit doing so. One day, he resigned the post in favor of a true believer called the Shadow Blade of the Apocalypse and took his sizeable fortune across the river to the east and established a mighty fortress at the site of an old Therkish outpost. Swearing loyalty to the King of Gatavia, Nixon became known as Earl Nixon the Warden of the East March and founded grand noble house.

Rinaldo's Story

a man we once trusted as a brother who had forced us down a path as outlaws now lays dead, as Rinaldo watches the smoke and flame billow from punchy's pyre he cannot help but wonder if he was a chaotic agent from the beginning, as the flames begin to die down word was received of a rebellion in tiberios domains dispatching manfred, beavis and dead eye hayes to quell the uprising

Rinaldo sets his sights on securing his domain

while spending time in the library researching the harvest ritual he met a young and aspiring venturer by the name of Ronald Frump, who he hired to administer the town of the diggers

this village was soon re-organised into the Diggers Excavation Company, hiring some of the greatest architectural and engineering minds in the province

Hearing of the death of King Amicus concerned Rinaldo greatly though at times he disagreed with the king he never disagreed with the gods who placed him upon the throne

as Rinaldo completes his harvest ritual, the diggers, the warlock keep the death troopers and remaining massacre men that have sworn fealty to Rinaldo all enjoy the benefits sewn

 and as Manfred Beavis and Hayes return from the rebellion rinaldo places them each in charge of a small domain

Manfred and his massacre men

Deadeye hayes and her death troopers

Mighty beavis see's to the warlock keep

each domain see's its population growing quickly as word spreads of food and farm work in abundance

for 2 weeks of every month Rinaldo calls upon his most trusted henchman to conduct small guerrilla raids against dengwur and the old ones, to ensure that they keep fighting  each other and keeping the south eastern flank of the badlands secure

Tiberius Epilogue

I'm going to write a more detailed epilogue eventually, but I had a question for the other Skull Collectors.

I was rolling dice to advance my domain and it turns out that while the Hydra Legion has managed to beat most of the beastmen from the old wormcult domain into submission, the ones in the city are turning bandit and going rebellious.  Would any of the other Skull Collectors be willing to help me raze the rebel city to the ground as an example?  I'd offer 1 month upkeep (12000 gold) to each full member of the SC's and full rights to plunder whatever you can carry from the city.

While this type of thing technically could maybe be a session, killing 3 HD creatures isn't really that much of a challenge for us anymore.  Some of my summoned creatures could tear through dozens of them.  I was planning on just writing up the conclusion by building units and looking at the DoW mechanics for the battle.  Probably variations of lost Hydra Legion soldiers and families will be the result.

Amicus' Ending

Some say it was a curse sent from beyond death by Archbishop Wardrick or Lucius Bastardo himself. Others say it was clearly the work of almighty Dengwur himself. In any case, following the battle of Mago's Tomb and the revelation that the "Exalted Master" was in fact the former Skull Collector Brother Punchy Amicus' heart was heavy. He was saddled with a powerful malaise that sapped his energy and made his breath rattle in his lungs. Pontifex Amicus knew he had little time left on the face of Baldgarth.

Using the Spade of Colossal Excavation, Amicus crafted a tomb for himself in the fallen city of Noviodunm for himself. It would be there that he stores away the artifacts of his rule. The Gauntlets of Ogre power he created for himself from the hide of Spunky the Cyclops. The Girdle of Giant Strength he won from the "Exalted Master" following his defeat. His protective holy vestments, his sacred tobacco and pipe, his mighty shield and chain armor all wrested from dungeons across the Badlands all found their way into the tomb. Finally, Amicus shut himself in and hid his mighty crown and the fabled Rod of Castor within the complex and never returned.

Some say Amicus was greedy and went to his death with all his equipment rather than leave it to an heir or companion. Others believe that Amicus used the Rod of Castor to preserve his spirit just as Dengwur himself had once done. The clergy of Jupiter left behind in Amicus' absence have created a tome that details how Amicus is to be awakened in the case of Dengwur's return, but the author is unknown and its content is suspect. In future generations, this tome would be known as Amicus' Treatise and it outlines the appropriate liturgy to be used by the faithful of Jupiter.

The old city of Noviodunum would never be reclaimed. The island's inhabitants spread out across the island, making the domain a bastion to the neutral gods. A modest cathedral to Jupiter was built on the west edge of the island, and Max Bemis would be given rulership over the island domain. The fallen city of Noviodunum would become the haven of the Crab Gods, and loose groups of mighty crab warriors would guard its borders tenaciously. Every now and again, someone would meet a southern warrior woman in emerald who stops by and asks for a favor or some sort of magical component. Those who have read Amicus' Treatise would know her as the heroine of the Rod of Castor.

Louis Impetuous, wielder of the Spade of Colossal Excavation would make a name for himself as a defensive-minded military leader. An abbey of bladedancers devoted to the goddess of Juno would appear to the East. Octavia, Amicus' bride once known as the Hag of Hod once more disappeared into her forest domain, leaving the rule of the locals to Mayor Clovis of Yoesville.