My emotions are still running high from it, it was so much fun!!!
I’m gonna go off on a ramble about things that I shall give no further context for, so just nod and smile.
Part of the big finale involved restoring a new faerie queen to the High Summer Court, specifically the same faerie who killed the old Queen with a weaponized song-story that the old Queen created her specifically to sing, not realizing that this commoner fae she had created had full sentience but lacked understanding. So the accidental murderer took the place of her victim-victimizer.
The Queen of Winter was actually also in a rough spot, having been captured by the Deep Order Priory, servants of the Great Outer Gods, and it was by freeing her that a new Queen of Summer could be promoted. So for taking part in this double-save, the entire group got empowered to call and join a Wyld Hunt, which everyone was all excited about, having their dice at the ready.
I explain in detail for like half an hour what they will be able to do under this empowerment, what limitations, etc. And then I utterly messed with their minds.
“So now you will just put your dice away. Because now you have the power of narrative. Tell the world the story of how you fix it.”
And it started so small. One player was like “I want to remove the priory from the face of the world.”
“Ok, how?”
“Uhh… They…”
Other player: “Wait, they’re all just corrupted, right? Can we just uncorrupt them?”
“Ok, how?”
Player One: “… I got it. We remove the corruption of the Great Outer Gods as like… A black, oily slickness, and we throw it back into their plane of existence!!”
And then I describe the effects of this, and the players suddenly get the concept. And then they go ham!!!
At one point, they even rewrote the narrative of a past war that left their parents traumatized. Describing how that works while not invoking time travel to alter past events in a way that changed the present was a task, but I knew. I already knew!!!
I knew every single thing they would think of, and watching them go crazy excited as I pulled out index cards for every scenario they presented was my moment of glory.
And then, when they were depowered and catching their breath, thinking I’d tied up all the big threads… I dropped their old arch-enemy that the players just love into the middle of everything. They had been searching for a way to “fix” her and maybe get her to join them. That thread was left hanging loose for three real world months, and they’d mostly forgotten it.
But not me, because I planned this!!! I am a plotting schemer!!! I had dropped hints from the moment they met this person that she was not under her own control!!!
And while they were catching their breath, as she started slow-walking up to them from a hole in space, a dark oval surrounded by a corona of light, I reminded them of every teeny detail, every small hint, every line that implied she might have been corrupted from her life as a Knight of the Eclipse, blending holy and arcane magics.
One of my players got all misty-eyed as she realized what was happening.
And then I said the lines. The lines that reminded them other threats were still on the horizon. The Great Outer Gods are not defeated, only their servants of the Priory. And the Lords of Nightmare still scheme from their prisons.
Gah!!! It sounds so silly without any of the context, but I assure you it was so good!!!
Me did good.
