Act V

Act Five: Czar Vexius.

Vexius is a Legendary. He maintains dominance in his territory by only taking Veteran and weaker demons into his household. Any demon that exceeds Veteran Rank is removed from his service one way or another. This is sometimes, but not always, fatal.

Scene One: Guard Stations

Denizens: demon guard (Veteran), various demons(Veteran)

If Vexius’ Spy Network (pg.120) is still in place a sneak attack is impossible and the Cohort will have to fight every step of the way through Vexius’ Keep.

If the network is gone, Vexius will be forced to spread his defenses out to cover all hours and all methods of possible ingress. The route to the throne room must pass through the gate house, the bailey and the reception room.

If the network is active, each of these will have a number of demon guards equal to the number of characters in the Cohort. If the spy network is gone or if Julivel is now King of Demia, there will only be one third of that number.

At each station, there will also be one or more demons who are Vexius’ officers and these will be Wild Cards.

Scene Two: Final Battle

Denizens: demon guard (Veteran), Czar Vexius

Vexius will be in his throne room with a number of guards equal to the number of members in the Cohort. Unless Vexius’ Spy Network was taken down, he will have two to four lieutenants present as well.

Vexius will be in dragon form when the Cohort arrives and he will use his breath weapon without regard for his own guards’ well being. Vexius is a 2x Duplicate dragon; each of his first two turns, he will split off a duplicate. He breathes magical fire that does 3d6 damage to demons. His throne room’s floor is a grate with wall to wall demons bound to the floor with iron straps. These demons will constantly grab at players feet. Random bursts of flame erupt through the grate. These do insignificant damage but will cause the air to be inhospitable for flight. Basically, every round, on a character’s action, any trait roll will be needed to be made to move. They will outsmart, outwiggle, overpower, outwill or out-tough the grasping hands or wild thermals.

Vexius uses the thermals of the room to lift himself by spreading his wings, he then dives at his targets.

One of the party members will see a demon hanging on hook on a wall that looks just like them. Vexius will, through telepathy, attempt to pretend to be the character’s memories of splitting from Vexius to orchestrate the ultimate and final destruction of the party in order to convince that player that they are a duplicate of Vexius himself.

This is a ruse but, don’t roll dice, try to convince the player their character really is a duplicate of Vexious. The character is told they are just pretending to be the demon that is hanging on the wall. They will remember that the plan was to get to this point and then backstab party members during the fight. Chances are the player will opt to stick with his character and stay friendly to the Cohort, but it might be interesting if they side with Vexius. They are, of course, not actually another body of Vexius.

The wall demon appears to be of Seasoned Rank. It’s a real demon, a duplicate of the character that was made ages ago and has long since gone insane. It can remerge with the character, giving the character an advance with the Edge: Duplicate. If the player points out that they wouldn’t have respawned if they had a duplicate out there, correct yourself and say it’s just a look-alike and they can’t merge to gain the free Advance. If another player points out the same thing, just shrug and call it Game Master’s prerogative or unexplained magic.

Aftermath

Once Vexius is defeated, There will be a power vacuum in the local territories. Demons who got on Glacia’s good side will have little problems establishing themselves. Demons that died in that battle probably faced Judgment and went on to either mortal lives or Paradise.