Description
From November 523 until June in the year 524 of the Royal Kildarian Calender: The Hadarian Crisis.
November 523 RKC: Hadar starts it's ominous approach towards Kildar. On November 8th, 523 RKC, a Titanic Eldritch Horror was revealed to be in hibernation beneath Torrica, the capital of Kildar. This being was contained by magical pillars etched with runes, under the watchful eye of the Eldritch Inquisition. The approach of the Red Star Hadar awoke the horror, which broke free from its tomb with explosive force. Ascending into the heavens, it left behind a massive crater where Torrica once stood.
December 523 RKC: Torrica is a disaster zone, with refugees fleeing what was left of the city, and lawlessness taking hold in the tent camps that were build around the crater.
As rescue parties decended into the crater and builders arrived to clean up and rebuild. The astronomers guild observe that the Eldritch Horrow links up with Hadar, growing its power.
January 524 RKC: The Red Star Hadar continues its approach towards Kildar, growing brighter in the night sky. Cultists of Hadar emerged across the land, proclaiming salvation through the star while vandalizing temples and abducting priests of the Kildarian pantheon. This marked the beginning of Hadar’s plan to consume the gods and assert dominance over divine magic.
February 524 RKC: The Cards of Fate, mysterious artifacts imbued with arcane energy, began appearing across Kildar. The guilds initiated investigations into their purpose, suspecting they were key to stopping Hadar’s apocalyptic ambitions. Meanwhile, pureblood orcs aligned with Hadar descended upon Kildar, further destabilizing the region.
March 524 RKC: Portals to the Feywild opened across Kildar, unleashing chaos as Unseelie Fey caused havoc.
April 524 RKC: The Guilds revealed their plan to save Kildar using the Hexagon Ritual—a powerful spell requiring six major cities and the Cards of Fate. Adventurers were tasked with gathering these cards while battling Hadar’s agents and star spawn. Poisonous vegetation began spreading across Kildar, reflecting Hadar’s corrupting influence on nature itself.
May 524 RKC: Grim Harrow undead surged across Kildar in nightly raids, searching for the Cards of Fate. The adventurers raced against time to uncover the cards before Hadar’s forces could secure them. The Red Star grew larger in the sky, heralding its imminent arrival and intensifying emotions across the region.
The Climactic Battle
By mid-524 RKC, the Red Star Hadar dominated Kildar’s sky, its crimson glow intensifying as it neared the Material Plane. The guilds of Kildar, recognizing the existential threat, orchestrated a desperate defense centered on the ruins of Torrica, the former capital destroyed months earlier by an Eldritch Horror linked to Hadar. Over 40 adventurers across multiple parties collaborated in a coordinated effort to disrupt Hadar’s apotheosis ritual, each assigned critical roles:
Dome Group: Arcane specialists tasked with maintaining a Globe of Invulnerability to shield Bimarat, the chosen champion.
Nature & Battle Group: Druids and warriors summoning natural disasters to slow Hadar’s hordes.
Champion Group: Divine spellcasters empowering Bimarat with the Cards of Fate. Siege
Weapons Group: Engineers constructing ballistae and bombs to repel star spawn.
Hunting Party: Wyvern-mounted assassins targeting key leaders like Heralds of Hadar and orc warlords. Hadarii Group: Former cultists offered redemption or tasked with sabotage.
Gathering Allies
In early June 524, Teams of adventurers secured alliances to bolster defenses:
The Dome Group recruited the Hexagon Cult, whose arcane expertise kept the dome intact a little longer. As star spawn battered against the dome.
The Nature Group allied with the Owlbear Protection Society, embuied in a retial that animated vines and trees to entangle Hadar’s forces, to slow down their infiltratation of the dome.
The Hunting Party neutralized orc chieftains in preparation of the battle, preventing their tribes from linking up with the main forces of Hadar.
Great Battle of Torrica, June 26th 524
As the crimson glow of Hadar bathed the ruins of Torrica, Bimarat, the chosen champion, ascended the shattered remnants of the city, the Cards of Fate blazing with divine energy in his hands. Below, Hadar’s legions descended in relentless waves: Star Spawn Hulks battered the faltering magical dome, while Manglers slithered through cracks in the defenses. Grues unleashed psychic screeches, disrupting concentration spells and sowing chaos among the defenders. From the shadows, Seers coordinated assaults, summoning reinforcements to exploit every breach.
Cabalists of Hadar entrenched themselves across the battlefield, casting Hunger of Hadar to drown entire sectors in necrotic darkness. Defenders caught in these voids suffered horrific casualties, their screams echoing as their life force was siphoned back to the Red Star.
Desperate Counterattacks
The Hunting Party, mounted on Destro Fortica’s wyverns, soared above the carnage. They struck with precision, assassinating Heralds of Hadar and disrupting star spawn formations. Their efforts slowed the tide but could not halt it.
Meanwhile, the Champion Group channeled a Prayer of Protection, weaving a divine barrier that weakened star spawn and shielded allies. Yet the barrier flickered under relentless assault, its stability tied to the fraying resolve of the spellcasters.
The Titan’s Descent
The battle’s turning point came with the arrival of the Eldritch Titan—the colossal entity that had destroyed Torrica months earlier. It descended from the skies, shattering the dome with a single blow. As the protective barrier collapsed, Hadar’s hordes flooded the ruins, overwhelming defenders.
The Siege Group redirected ballistae and bombs meant for star spawn toward the Titan. In a daring maneuver, they lured it into a chasm, planning to bury it with explosives. But betrayal erupted within their ranks: a Hadar infiltrator detonated the Feywild-infused Runepowder Bomb prematurely. The explosion obliterated the Titan but also killed scores of adventurers, leaving the survivors reeling.
The gambit
At the heart of the conflict, Bimarat, the chosen champion, stood atop the hill, his form silhouetted against the red stars. Clutched in his hand was his weapon, aglow with the radiant power of the Cards of Fate. The symbols etched along its length shimmered like molten silver, pulsating with a divine energy that spoke of ancient magics and forgotten prophecies.
The air crackled with tension as Bimarat readied his weapon, his gaze fixed upon the heavens where Hadar, the Dark Hunger, burned like a malignant wound in the sky. With a cry that echoed across the battlefield, Bimarat raised his weapon high in a sweeping arc, unleashing a lance of pure, incandescent energy. The beam tore through the sky, a blinding spear of light that struck the red star. Binding Hadar to the champion’s soul.
A great silence descended upon the battlefield. As the entire world seemed to hold its breath. Then, at the point where the lance had struck grew a spot as dark as the night sky. The spot turned into a crack that spread across Hadar’s surface like an ice surface breaking under too much weight. Then, as if bursting from within, a great, bright and blinding light. In unison, a great cry of pain is let out from all Star Spawn at once, the scream of the Dark Hunger amplified through a thousand voices.
The twisted and grotesque legions of starspawn faltered, their ranks thrown into disarray by the sudden loss of their master’s guiding will. Panic spread like a contagion through the starspawn, their twisted forms breaking and scattering as they fled in all directions as they tried to shield themselves from the blinding light. Then, when all on the surface recovered from the blinding light, where there was once a giant Red Star there was now nothing but a smaller burned out husk of a star.
Those revived by Hadar once again lost their lives as the souls placed into their bodies withered out. Those who made pacts with Hadar or worshipped the Red Star notice they lose their powers. The gods, being summoned, escape Hadar’s grasp and once again return to the heavens. Meanwhile, the surviving heroes gathered around Bimarat, their hearts heavy with a mixture of sorrow and pride. Their champion had saved the world, but at the cost of his own life.
Legacy
The battle had ended in pyrrhic victory. Hadar’s essence was fractured, its legions scattered, but the cost was catastrophic. The ruins of Torrica became a graveyard for heroes and star spawn alike. Survivors whispered of Hadar’s lingering presence in the Far Realm—and rumors spread that Bimarat’s soul now served as its prison.
The betrayal and bomb’s detonation left deep scars, with guilds purging suspected infiltrators in the following weeks. Though Kildar was saved, the Crimson Dusk became a cautionary tale of sacrifice and the insidious reach of cosmic evil.
In the days that followed, the land of Kildar began to heal. The tainted soil slowly regained its vitality, and the skies, once darkened by Hadar’s influence, grew clear and bright. The adventurers, hailed as heroes, carried the memory of their fallen comrade with them, his deeds forever etched into the annals of history.
A monument was erected in the ruins of Torrica, a testament to the bravery of Bimarat and his companions. Inscribed upon it were the words of the ancient prophecy, a reminder of the darkness they had overcome and the light they had restored. And as the years passed, the story of the champion became legend, a beacon of hope for generations to come, a reminder that even in the darkest of times, the light of sacrifice and heroism could guide the way to a brighter future.
The battle marked the end of Hadar’s immediate threat but cemented Torrica’s ruins as a haunted monument to the war. The Cards of Fate vanished, and whispers of Hadar’s return persist in hushed tavern tales.
Significance
The Hadarian Crisis resulted in the destruction of Torrica and with it, ended the Medvedov Dynasty and killed of many of the experienced representatives of the Landsraad, throwing the central government of Kildar into chaos.