April 8, 1987 – under Fantasy Hero

The date is July 21, 1131. It is a warm summer evening, but the weather belies the evil events about to unfold. For that evening, a flaming meteor will enter the atmosphere, lighting up the twilight sky like the best of magical fireworks. This meteoroid, though, is not the typical metallic variety. Rather, this is a crystalline fragment of pure chaos.

The Chaos Fragment: At the end of all things, a terrible battle will take place, pitting the lords of chaos versus the combined peoples known by the mortals as gods. So devastating and so universal will this battle be, that all things physical and non will be rendered in pieces, their fragments scattered throughout existence. This, however, is the ultimate goal of the lords of chaos, as this represents the ultimate in chaos: dismemberment of all ordered things.

These fragments did not simply scatter through space, but also through time. One such fragment was found by Sorgul and the rest of The Chosen on November 22, 1104. It was this fragment that released the hidden power Sorgul held in his mind.

The Effects of Chaos: The crystal fragment, after burning through the atmosphere, will impact in the eastern mountain range on the eastern continent. Before landing, though, it will pass over the Spindrift Islands, depositing smaller dust-like fragments in a hundred mile-wide path for over a thousand miles. In this area of effect, all life will experience detrimental effects. Sentient beings will have unsettling dreams, animals will behave erratically, and plants will start to die, withering to dust by the following evening.

Magic can protect against the chaos effect, though it will only delay the inevitable.

Through means unique to each of the participating characters, the party should get together to investigate the chaos. If no organization occurs, then the NPC Esham, one of the elder members of the council of wizards. Esham is the mage governing Psionic-based magic, having beaten out Pelham when the seat became available. Esham's talents involve travelling through the alternate planes of existence, thus gathering up the party will prove an easy task. Though he does not know each of the characters well, he knows of their reputation and will travel first to Sorgul and ask who else should be gathered.

When the meteor is traced down, the land around its crater will seem to shift oddly. This effect can first be felt at about a quarter mile, though it can be seen for several miles. When very close to the crater (within a hundred yards), a dizziness will be upon the group such that each character's DEX will lower immediately by 1d6 and thereafter by one point per three segments until it is one-half of their original value. Also perception rolls must be made each phase in order to focus on any individual object. A failure means that character's OCV is reduced by as many points as the perception roll was missed.

The crater itself is about ten hexes across, irregularly shaped. If the party tries to destroy the crystal, treat it as if it had DEF 10. Any BODY damage done will chip it away some and the dizziness effect will fluctuate, though not significantly reduce. Continued assault, though, will cause a Lord of Chaos to appear. As it turns out, the meteor holds a Lord of Chaos. Since he is surrounded by an ordered world (life being the ultimate in order), his powers are weakened due to his need to project his own chaos into the surrounding world. His ultimate goal is to revert the entire world to its primal state: chaos.

The Lord of Chaos is a formidable foe, but he can be defeated. In order to preserve his status, and further chaos, he will fight any who would interfere with him. His combat stats are as follows:

When he speaks, all who hear him will take a 1d6 Mind Attack, though this will only happen if he performs no other action that phase.

If he finds himself losing the battle, he will escape by teleporting back in time, taunting the heroes before he goes. “Your victory is also your defeat,” he will boast, “for now I will revert this world to what it once was and not one of you has the power to stop me!”

At this point, Claira will appear, flying in wearing bracers identical to Sorgul's (complete with the flight powers as well). Being a time-traveller, she became alerted to the event when she sensed a paradox. She will arrive and inform the heroes that unless she is mistaken, the entire world is now a paradox. Something dreadful has happened in the past!

Claira's powers have increased linearly over the years and so it is now within her powers to transport the entire group to the past. However, such an excursion is extremely tiring and will leave her so physically exhausted, that she will be unable to do anything else (Her Long-Term Endurance will be reduced to 0). Also, her powers are not exact enough to be 100% accurate. While the group will remain in the same physical location, they will miss the target time by several hours, arriving before the Lord of Chaos is to appear.

The date now is April 11, 1107 and since the party's younger selves exist at this time, they are now a paradox. Thus, the Time Lord Parádoxa will appear, judging them paradoxes and requesting that they leave immediately by the most expedient means available. Without Claira, though, no means exists.

Parádoxa, being the Lord of Time, knows what will happen when and so will not believe that a paradox will exist in a few short hours because, to his perceptions, it will not happen. Even were he to shift forward in time, no paradox would exist, because he would be following the original timeline, not the one altered by the Lord of Chaos. Thus, the party will be unconvincing and unless they surrender, he will be forced to resort to combat.

If Parádoxa is defeated by the party, then he will be unable to stop the Lord of Chaos from affecting the timeline as he is scheduled to do. Thus, it will be up to the party to battle him again. The outcome, however, will be no more decisive than the first combat. If near defeat, he will escape through some fantastic means.

If, however, Parádoxa is not defeated, then he will be able to deal with the Lord of Chaos. The two are about evenly matched, but Parádoxa will succeed in a prolonged battle due to the Time Lord's small-scale time tricks. The Lord of Chaos knows that Parádoxa is more of a match for him and so will distract the party with a more mundane challenge:

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