Xalthar, the Whisper in the Shadow, does not fight. He corrupts. He holds the elven king through a shard of mirror, he owns the spy network of the Five Rings, and the Maelstrom eating the southern border answers to him.
Against that: six adventurers, an undead knight who founded an order, five thousand soldiers out of Borak, and an orc priest of the Dawnlord that half the kingdom believes killed its king.
This is the campaign Celeste VD was built to run — every session of it played on the tabletop you can buy.
Six players, one table, and a campaign that has been running long enough to leave marks on all of them.
Paladin 17 · the Pivot of Fate
Ubato named her the pivot on which the fate of Tyria turns, and both sides believe it. She is the daughter of Lord Abracus, an undead demon lord who rules in the Abyss — a fact she carries rather than explains. King Torgun has given orders that she is to be taken alive, which makes every road she walks a trap. The virtual tabletop is named for her.
Rogue 16 · the pragmatist
Son of a herbalist merchant and a magician, born to a noble house, and none of it stuck. Young thief, then army, then deserter, then a shipwreck that cost him everything he had. An inquisitor lord found him at the bottom of it and explained the world to him. He fought the Faceless One and something stayed behind — the Whisper left a mark, and the techniques of the Ring of Shadow come to him unbidden. "The kid's right. We've stalled long enough."
Assassin 17 · the torn blade
The Faceless One has been working him for a long time, and the order has finally come: kill Celeste. He has not refused and he has not obeyed. Every session he stands one decision away from ending the campaign in either direction, and he knows it.
Ranger · one of the Awakened
She died, and the collapse of the six-month bubble sent her back. She carries memories from the Dread Plane that should not fit in a living mind, and elven techniques no one taught her. She holds a cold anger and does not spend it cheaply.
Chull kobold · level 11
A kobold of the Chull workshop-cities running with a company of legends, carrying a shield too big for him and a bag of tools for problems no one else thought to bring gear for.
Companion of the road
Quiet, watchful, and the one who knows Lathira Valewind — which is how the company hears what the elves are planning before the elves arrive.
The Order of the Black Sun, the garrison of Borak, and the ones who send word ahead.
Commander of Borak
A half-elf with five thousand soldiers under her and a disciple's loyalty to the Black Sun. Her elite include an orc battalion out of Pipon — the Fist of Dawn — who carry the Lord of Light's colours on their shields.
First Knight of the Black Sun
He founded the Order to stand against the ancient things, died at the head of it, and got up again as an undead knight. His army prays as it marches. He knows a secret path to Alboreg, which may be the only reason the Castle of Dawn still stands. He is Gromch Gar's adoptive father.
Master of the Stormcaller
Prince Altof's daughter. She knows exactly who her father is, and she chose her own course anyway — a ship, a crew, and her own name on it. He gave her Chain Breaker, a blade made to kill gods, and she does not know what she is carrying. When a sahuagin host came over the rail on Xalthar's order, a few of them refused to butcher her crew — she spared one who swore to her, and that is how the Exiled Sahuagin came to live among the land races.
Elven mage, informant
She sends word ahead of Torgun's marches and Maelith's schemes. Every warning she passes is a step further from ever going home.
High Mage of the Black Sun
The Order's high mage — the one they send when the problem is arcane and immediate.
Orc shaman, Council of Elders
He sits on the Council of Elders in Borak and stands with the Fist of Dawn — the other proof, beside Gromch Gar, that the orcs of Pipon belong in the light.
Orc warrior of the Black Sun
He carries Skullcleaver and goes first through the door.
Ancient entity, guide of the heroes
God of luck, trade and reptilekind. He always takes the same shape: a small person in a cloak of pink harpy feathers, with a smile that is hard to read — and you smell mango before you see him. He is bound to the Conflux and to the Kobolds of Chull, whose workshop-cities treat labour as worship, and it was Ubato who called Celeste the pivot of fate.
What the company is actually up against — from the Whisper that corrupts kings to the thing sealed under the Tombs that even he is smaller than.
The Whisper in the Shadow · prime mover
He does not fight. He corrupts. An ancient entity of pure shadow who took King Torgun through a shard of mirror, bought the Faceless One with survival, and owns the spy network of the Five Rings. The Maelstrom eating the southern border answers to him. He holds the South Dead Land — the most powerful domain on the map — from a throne he does not physically sit on. In the city of Whisperhold, his voice is the constant murmur the inhabitants speak quietly to avoid waking.
Sealed on the ocean floor — larger than Xalthar
Speak the name and you call it. That is why the archive of Tyria records only the place: the Chuculu Tombs, a crater of black glass under the deep ocean, where obsidian sarcophagi hold the heroes who fought the thing millennia ago — their weapons still down there, still cursed. The faithful of the Lumen Vet built the cage that holds it, adamantine driven into the seabed, and Prince Altof Doombringer lent them what they could not manage alone. It has never been enough on its own. In a flooded temple beside the cage, the faithful pray without pause, and it is the prayer that keeps the things of the deep from rising to the surface for the rest of us.
The chant that calms the deep
The song carried out of the drowned temple is what settles the monsters below. Sailors have sung it for generations without knowing why it works, and most of them hear nothing back. But some — the blooded ones — hear the temple answering under the water, and those are the captains who always seem to pick the safe passage. Ask them how they knew and they will tell you the sea told them. They are not being poetic.
Counsellor to King Torgun
A sorcerer in Xalthar's service who carries the shard of mirror that binds his king. He stands at Torgun's shoulder in every council. Break the shard and the elven war ends — which is why he is never alone with it.
Demon lord of the Abyss
An undead dragonborn who rules in the Abyss, and Celeste's father. Whatever claim that gives him, he has not yet made it.
The thrones they are fighting over — regency, law, bloodlines and corruption, straight from the campaign.
See the Powers of Tyria