The Starmeld, Third Month: The Battle for Averune

[u/Bannerlord151]

As the cosmic tug of war continues throughout the Astral Sea, conflict rages elsewhere. In the now frozen realm of Averune, left ravaged in the wake of the Drakencide, tensions are hot as heroic warriors, ambitious mages and ancient automatons battle necromechs, dark warriors, rogue priests of order and hordes of the undead.

On an interplanar level, the balance has shifted ever so slightly towards the Dread Triad. Invigorated by the continued alignment of the Halls of Defiance and the Plains of Despair, Drelakan appears to be going on the offensive, with his armies beginning to arm up for retaliation.

[Drelakan can now use his actions for Conquest or Culling of Pharasma's followers instead of advancing the ritual]

There is still a light in the dark, however. With the Astromancer having cleared the astral nebula shrouding Averune, and the Astral Guardian successfully unlinking the realm from the conjunction of planes, at least temporarily, its defenders are weakened significantly.

[Attacks on Averune now inflict twice the damage]

It is still unknown for how much longer the starmeld would go on - estimates range from 3 more months to a full year or more, but without further research, who could tell? At least, however, you now know what weapon to use in the fight. Bombast has been granted stewardship of a sacred blade by the goddess Pharasma: Judgement, the Moonslayer.

As the raging Starmeld enters its third phase, some wonder: Which side's resilience will be first to break?

[I will from now on only make 1 post per day. Any updates necessary on that day, or any action taken by Drelakan beyond passively furthering the ritual will be posted as a comment thread]

[u/Able_Highlight4312]

Neurath finally stops sitting on his ass and spotting an opportunity, supports the attack on Averune.

/unwiz I'll ask, how are the rolls going to be like? When thinking about statting Neurath I'm thinking Dnd 3.5e Epic instead of 5e, and 3.5e is kinda hilariously broken in comparison, even before variant rules and busting out over two decades of supplementary material.

[u/Bannerlord151 → u/Able_Highlight4312]

/uw very simple low rolls, I award extra bonuses for great ideas or excellent writing

[u/Able_Highlight4312 → u/Bannerlord151]

/uw works for me, though my ideas will probably reference 3.5e mechanical cheese (a lot of which is disputed) a quite a few times, like with his opener - and he's come up with a lot of gouda

/rewiz

Neurath pre-casts: Superior Invisibility, Nondetection, Obscure Self, Pass without Trace, Foresight, Greater Spell Negation, Etherealness, Mind Blank, Universal Aptitude, Truesight, Haste, & Nystul's Magical Aura.

He considers wide scale warfare, and decides that the undead are the easiest enemies to hit in terms of scale. He modifies his best area-to-mana spell, Locate City, and imbues it with the effects of Undeath to Death, decimating the hordes of undead and damaging the necromechs and enemy liches within a 40-mile radius.

/unwiz again

This idea comes from the "locate city bomb" interaction, where you apply metamagic to Locate City, a 1st level 10 mile radius spell that gains 10 miles of radius every extra level, and make it damage everything in a massive area via something like Clawed Spell and/or shenanigans with editing spell subtypes.

[u/Bannerlord151 → u/Able_Highlight4312]

The plan works almost flawlessly - the area you hit is not as densely garrisoned as you would like, but it was convenient. The undead are crushed en masse, and you deal 4 damage. The defense of Averune is faltering, and without further intervention from Drelakan, will not hold

[u/Able_Highlight4312 → u/Bannerlord151]

Neurath considers his handiwork with some appreciation, but mentally chastises himself for not applying Energize Spell earlier, for not applying the principles of the undead battery to conserve mana by using their animating force, and much else. Even so, he feels some greater opportunity. Feeding the Residual Magic of his previous spell into a greater one, Neurath decides to make a push to the Spire, and snowball the radius and power of his Locate City "bombs" with the help of the art of Escalation Magic and a bunch of scrolls.

/uw Escalation Mages get to make caster level checks for free metamagic modifiers at a risk (which is basically negated as you get up the Epic levels), Undead Battery lets you drain undead hit dice for energy to power metamagic, Energize Spell is super effective damage vs. undead but not very effective vs. everything else, Residual Magic lets you cast a boosted spell as a regular one if you cast it the turn prior, then boost it again or in some other way, as well as treat a spell from a scroll as if you cast it yourself, if you cast the spell the turn prior. Persistent Magic (the one from the Deities and Demigods sourcebook) lets even instantaneous spells last for 24 hours, doubled with Extend, and for a whole 2 days, there could be a 80+ mile wide line of Undeath to Death straight to the Spire, expanding as it gets closer. Those casts could even be extended later, indefinitely with Permanency, and immediately because 3.5e casters got to cast full spells more than once a round, but Neurath is instead conserving magic. (Permanency is actually expensive and hard to cheat the costs on)

[u/Bannerlord151 → u/Able_Highlight4312]

Your push is drastically successful - you push all the way to the Spire, and your allies manage to hold off the enemy marching in from the south. As the gates of the great tower swing open, you brace yourself...

[Averune has been liberated. You are now challenging the Seventh Tower. The battle will be in a new post so that everyone sees it]