Spelljammer – The Incursion

Chapter One — The Wyrm’s Tern

Strangers Among the Stars

Six unlikely adventurers found themselves aboard the Wyrm’s Tern, hired by the elven captain Anateus to investigate a lost outpost in the Grinder. What began as a straightforward mercenary assignment soon uncovered pirates, prisoners, and evidence of a mysterious magical ritual. The crew recovered enchanted teleportation rings, defeated the outpost’s defenders, and returned to their ship with more questions than answers.

Their next destination was the Wink, a remote trading port between worlds. But an encounter with a heavily armed pirate vessel suggested the journey would be anything but routine.

Chapter Two — The Crawling Curse

Something Rotten in Calimport

Arriving in Realmspace, the adventurers traveled to Calimport, where a series of grotesque deaths threatened the city’s merchant districts. Victims were mysteriously transforming into black pudding, and rumors of a spreading curse had begun to circulate. Their investigation led through quarantined warehouses, dubious merchants, and the secretive Calibi Company. They uncovered connections to an individual named Matala, a mysterious organization associated with the Crimson Asp, and a magical statue known as the Curse Breaker. Restoring the statue to its rightful place broke the immediate curse, earning the party considerable gratitude. Yet several clues remained unexplained, suggesting that the corruption had been only one piece of a much larger mystery.

Chapter Three — Trouble on the Wink

The First World Falls

After weeks traveling through Wildspace, the adventurers survived an attack by an unfamiliar squid-shaped warship. Their victory was short-lived. At the Wink, a sudden assault shattered the port’s tranquility. Explosions tore through its docks, magical portals opened, and Githyanki warriors poured into the streets. With the settlement falling around them, the party fought its way to a Dragonfly-class spelljammer and commandeered the vessel. As they escaped, they witnessed the arrival of an enormous invasion fleet, including a vessel so immense it seemed to blot out the stars. The attack was no ordinary raid. Someone had launched a war against the worlds themselves.

Chapter Four — An Urgent Message

The Warning Goes Unheeded

Fleeing the destruction of the Wink aboard their newly acquired ship, the adventurers attempted to warn the neighboring systems of the approaching Githyanki invasion. Their journey carried them through isolated settlements, including the asteroid garden of Greela and the frontier port of Frontier. News from Oerth confirmed their worst fears: another world was under attack, and communications were collapsing.

The crew continued toward Realmspace, encountering abandoned ships, dangerous creatures, and an immense Githyanki fleet gathering in the Astral Sea. They had escaped the first invasion, but the scale of the threat was becoming clear. The Githyanki were not conquering a single world. They were moving from system to system.

Chapter Five — Gone, But Not Forgotten

The Fall of Toril

Returning to Realmspace, the party discovered that the forces threatening the Wink had reached Toril. While resupplying and gathering information, they renewed their acquaintance with the sage Belthamius, only to find themselves drawn into a deadly confrontation. Belthamius escaped, and the adventurers fled Calimport as Githyanki warships descended upon the city. Portals opened across the skyline, unleashing destruction upon the world below. The crew made a final attempt to warn settlements near the Moonshae Isles, but their warnings went largely unheeded.

With Toril falling, they departed Realmspace in search of allies and answers. Their journey eventually carried them to Greatspace, where a strange technological discovery would change the course of their adventure.

Chapter Six — Have Junk, Will Travel

A New Way Between the Worlds

On the industrial world of Lagors, the adventurers became entangled in the affairs of a settlement built among mountains of discarded machinery and ruined spelljamming vessels. Their search for a missing autognome led them to Karl Mortenson, an eccentric inventor pursuing a revolutionary propulsion system. Unlike conventional spelljamming helms, his experimental Ethereal Engine promised travel between planes without relying upon traditional magical navigation.

The party ventured into the junkfields, battled scavengers, recovered stolen components, and explored an ancient wreck containing the engine’s mysterious power core. The discovery came with an unsettling revelation: the technology depended upon bound ethereal souls. Nevertheless, the crew helped Karl advance his experiments, gaining valuable knowledge and a possible alternative to the routes increasingly threatened by the Githyanki.

Chapter Seven — Traveling the Triangle

Across the Wider Multiverse

As the invasion spread, the adventurers undertook an extraordinary journey through distant systems in search of safe passages, allies, and information. Their travels carried them through the ruins of Herospace, the strange wonders of Faeriespace, and the domains of beings whose powers blurred the boundaries between gods and mortals. In a peculiar mushroom castle, they encountered Aelivere, the mysterious One King, whose hospitality concealed dangerous influences over memory and desire.

The crew continued through unfamiliar worlds, encountering celestial powers, strange civilizations, and warnings that the invasion could not be stopped. Eventually, the scope of the conflict became unmistakable. Realmspace, Grayspace, and Krynnspace were all threatened. The party pressed onward toward the great commercial routes of the Arcane Flow.

Chapter Eight — Into the Arcane Flow

The Price of Passage

The adventurers crossed the trade routes of the multiverse, surviving battles with powerful creatures, derelict ships, and the hazards of the Astral Sea. Among their most dangerous encounters was a terrifying solar dragon whose presence disrupted magic itself. After a brutal confrontation, the crew defeated the beast, recovered its treasure, and fulfilled a promise to the ghosts of the lost Sky Ranger.

At Refuge, they dealt with the Arcane, exchanging information about the Githyanki invasion for resources and assistance. Their ship and enterprise evolved alongside their mission, eventually operating under the banner of Shipping Unit LLC. No longer merely refugees fleeing a war, the adventurers had become experienced travelers with knowledge of the enemy’s movements—and the means to carry that knowledge across the planes.

Chapter Nine — The Rock of Bral

The Prince of the Comet

At the Rock of Bral, the party discovered that the invasion had devastated not only worlds but the great powers attempting to defend them. Members of the Council of Eight were scattered or dead, and surviving spellcasters struggled to understand the Githyanki’s ultimate purpose. Their investigations led to Sigil, the City of Doors, where they encountered Nethezed, a Githyanki exile committed to the dream of reuniting her divided people.

Through Nethezed, the adventurers learned of Orpheus, the imprisoned Prince of the Comet, whose existence threatened Vlaakith’s claim to absolute authority. A journey to a hidden Gith creche on Mystara revealed the terrible truth: Vlaakith maintained her power by consuming the souls of her own followers. Nethezed died during the expedition, but her companions carried forward the knowledge she had helped uncover. Stopping the invasion would require confronting the Lich Queen herself.

Chapter Ten — A World on Fire

The Seekers of Athas

Following the trail of the invasion, the party reached Athas, a dying world of blazing deserts, ancient tyrants, and dangerous magic. There, they encountered the world’s own twisted Gith, defended isolated settlements, and became trapped in a nightmarish dream realm shaped by a powerful Crimson Curse. Their escape brought them into conflict with the Ruby Heart, an artifact whose corrupting influence threatened to turn the adventurers against one another.

Even 4RTU15, ordinarily governed by logic, fell under its dangerous power before his companions managed to intervene. As they sought assistance from the rulers of Athas, the adventurers became known as the Seekers. Their struggle against the Gith continued through temples, fortifications, and mines, where they uncovered evidence that the invasion was connected to an older and far more terrible ambition.

Chapter Eleven — The City of Calamity

The Truth Behind the Queen

Deep beneath Athas, the Seekers fought their way through hostile caverns and Gith strongholds before discovering Yathazor, the mysterious City of Calamity. There they encountered a strange religious cult devoted to an earth spirit named Girdek. Their investigation ended in violence, but beyond the cult’s hidden chambers they discovered Fen’th’aza, a Gith rebel who confirmed the purpose behind Vlaakith’s conquests.

The Lich Queen was preparing a ritual of divine ascension, drawing power from the destruction and subjugation of countless souls. Fen’th’aza led the adventurers to Karluth, an ancient Gith sorcerer who revealed that defeating Vlaakith would require more than military strength. The key lay with Orpheus and an extraordinary artifact capable of rewriting the boundaries of reality itself. The artifact was the Codex of the Infinite Planes.

Chapter Twelve — The Quest for the Codex

The Book That Changes Everything

The Seekers traveled to Oerth, following the mysterious sword Malthindor and clues left by those who had once hidden the Codex from the world. Their journey led through Critwall and the Bandit Kingdoms to the Gate of the Severed Palm, the Tomb of the Wizard King, and an ancient complex guarded by mechanical sentinels and arcane trials.

Within the Five-Finger Vault, they encountered the enigmatic Hands, which chose Ch’k Tikka Tikka as their vessel. The party pressed onward through ancient chambers, elaborate puzzles, and deadly guardians until they reached a white tower concealing the artifact they sought. The Codex was an object of almost incomprehensible power. Its presence overwhelmed the adventurers, threatening to destroy anyone who approached.

But Pimo, the tortle druid whose curiosity had guided so much of their journey, stepped forward. The Codex accepted him. For the first time, the Seekers possessed the means to confront Vlaakith’s ritual—not merely by defeating her, but by changing the reality upon which her power depended.

Chapter Thirteen — The Door That Was Never Built

The Fall of Vlaakith

The Seekers entered Tu’narath to confront Vlaakith as the Lich Queen prepared to complete her ascension to godhood. At the center of the ritual stood Orpheus, imprisoned within a crystalline psionic lattice. The adventurers fought to disrupt the ceremony, freeing the Prince of the Comet and breaking the connection upon which Vlaakith’s transformation depended.

But the Queen’s power was immense, and defeating her through ordinary means was no longer possible. Pimo turned to the Codex. Drawing upon its reality-altering power, he created a doorway to a place that had never existed—a realm beyond the boundaries of the known planes. Vlaakith was dragged into that impossible space, removed from the reality she had sought to rule.

Yet her defeat did not end the danger. The power she had gathered remained, and Pimo made a final, terrible choice. Taking that power into himself, he turned upon his companions. One by one, the adventurers fell, until only Battle Unit remained, rendered unconscious rather than killed.

When the battle ended, Vlaakith was gone. Pimo had ascended in her place, and the company that had crossed the stars together was no more.

Epilogue — The Lock Behind the Silence

The Price of Saving the Worlds

Pimo had become something beyond mortal understanding. The Codex had shown him the possibilities of existence, the consequences of altering reality, and the terrible price of sealing Vlaakith beyond the multiverse. To close the Door That Was Never Built, someone would have to become its eternal lock.

He accepted that burden.

Somewhere in the deep reaches of the Astral Sea, an obsidian monolith now drifts through the silence. Seven names are carved upon its surface, accompanied by symbols commemorating the companions who challenged the Lich Queen.

Battle Unit survived the final confrontation, the last of the company’s mortal adventurers to remain.

And beyond the boundaries of ordinary existence, Pimo waits—no longer merely a tortle, a druid, or an explorer of distant worlds, but the guardian of a door that must never open again. He remembers his friends. He remembers their journey. And he remembers the price they paid.