The Four Horsemen of the Zenpocalypse

The Four Horsemen of the Zenpocalypse — Ch 0.3

Time has stopped, and the barber is in no hurry. Bound and helpless while the world burns on the other side of the glass, the founders have exactly three things going for them: a stitched-together friend humming a secret, a cleric with more nerve than sense, and four familiar faces they would give anything not to meet again. Winning won’t be about strength. It’ll be about who’s willing to talk the longest — and who’s willing to say goodbye.

Chapter / Episode	0.3 — The Four Horsemen of the Zenpocalypse
Arc	The Forgotten Hour (flashback, ~100 years pre-campaign)
GM	Dave
Date / Duration	2024-02-22 · ~3h34m (gameplay from 00:13:45)
Party	Father ITYS (Jesse), Jock Bjorn (Chris), Lashara (Steve), Old Man Jenkins (Hayley), Levitas (Brin)
Adversaries	Zen & his Four Horsemen — Krengrum, Kava Bacia, Yerlin, Laurence
Ends on	Gray Star dead at Zen’s hand — the lich left alone above a ravaged Old Town as a stitched amalgamation rampages

Synopsis

Picking up straight off the Old Town throwdown, the session opens in the worst waiting room in history: the founders — Father ITYS, Jock Bjorn, Lashara, Old Man Jenkins, and Levitas — are magically bound in “barber chairs of doom,” suspended inside Zen’s Chronurgy time-bubble where a single outside hour crawls past in ten. The ancient half-elf lich, a barber before he was a necromancer, isn’t in a hurry to kill them; he’d rather sharpen his blade, sermonize, and use his Scissors of Severing to snip fingers and hands into nothing, then reset the party with restoration magic so he can keep collecting pieces. Asked why, he offers the only motive a 700-year-old immortal has left — “I’m bored” — and cuts out Jock Bjorn’s tongue for punctuation. The only creature in the room on the party’s side is Gray Star, Zen’s first creation, a tabaxi stitched together from spare parts over decades, who has been humming an inaudible spell under his breath for nearly four hours.

That spell resolves as a mass telepathic message — a whispered “group chat” — and the plan writes itself: keep the lich talking. Old Man Jenkins clocks that Zen’s murmured chant is literally the leash on the monsters ravaging Old Town outside, and that his Chronurgy is a concentration spell. So Father ITYS does the bravest, stupidest thing a cleric of Selûne can do: he flatters the necromancer into granting him a Mithril Tongue the scissors can’t cut, then filibusters him — “I consider death to be a gift” — while Gray Star secretly juices the pitch. The moment Zen’s attention breaks, Gray lunges, seizes his master, and drags him into a bubble of his own. The concentration snaps. The founders spill out into a version of Old Town that has been torn apart for ten straight hours, and standing in the rubble are the Four Horsemen of the Zenpocalypse.

They are not strangers. Each Horseman is one of Zen’s reanimated old companions from the Medina orchard days — Krengrum the orc, Kava Bacia a soul trapped a thousand years in a red dragon’s body, Yerlin the emo blood-hunter (and Lashara’s own retired character), and Laurence Shâdos, the horned-devil baker whose ceaseless Infernal chant keeps the Infernal Runes on all their skins burning. Worse, the founders learn the whole horror started as a kindness — when the orc first died, Zen bridged the Void to the The Celestial Sphere to bring him back, one of the world’s very first resurrections, and everyone came home changed. So the fight becomes an act of mercy: silence the baker’s chant for eight rounds and the runes die, freeing what’s left of the friends. Lashara obliterates her “old self” Yerlin and “say-cheese” disintegrates Krengrum; Levitas stuns Laurence long enough for Kava Bacia’s runes to fail; and a redeemed Jenkins Disintegrate turns the baker back into himself for one grateful heartbeat before he’s dust. But as the bubble collapses, Zen and Gray blast skyward — and when Gray Star heals a downed Jenkins, Zen answers with a Power Word Kill. The stitched cat falls ninety feet, dead, and the lich is left standing utterly alone.

🎵 Song Recap (rhyming — drop into an AI song generator)

Scheme: AABB verses + chorus. Suggested vibe: doomy folk-metal dirge with a gallows-humor lilt.

(Verse 1) A hundred years back, in the barber’s cold chair, Time froze to a bubble and death filled the air; Old Zen with his scissors just trimming away — Four founders stayed silent to live one more day.

(Chorus) Ride, ride, the Horsemen of the end, Bound to the runes of a barber-turned-fiend; Silence the chant and the shackles will break — The Zenpocalypse rides for the whole world’s sake!

(Verse 2) Gray Star kept humming a spell ‘neath his breath, Grabbed hold of his master and gambled on death; The bubble split open, the founders broke free To ten hours of ruin where Old Town used to be.

(Verse 3) Lashara unmade both her past and her foe, “Say cheese” to the orc and let Krengrum go; A dragon set loose swore she’d someday return, And Laurence the baker was cleansed as he burned.

(Chorus)

(Outro) Gray healed a friend and he paid with his life, Zen stands all alone at the end of the strife — The end is still near, though the founders survive… One hundred and twenty-one years — he’ll arrive.

📋 Point-by-point breakdown (player catch-up — everything that happened)

1. 00:13:45 · 🎭 RP — The founders come to bound in Zen’s “barber chairs of doom,” suspended in a frozen sphere of time.
2. 00:14:02 · 📖 Lore — Dave clarifies the Chronurgy bubble both binds them and is a concentration spell (one outside hour ≈ ten inside) — the night’s key exploit — as Zen strops his razor for a “nice shave.”
3. 00:17:20 · ⚔️ Combat — Instead of killing them, Zen snips pieces off each hero with his Scissors of Severing — fingers, hands, up the arm — then power-word-heals and restores them to farm more (a torture loop).
4. 00:19:10 · 🎭 RP — Jock Bjorn asks why; Zen (742 when he took up necromancy, now a full lich) answers “I’m bored,” and cuts Bjorn’s tongue out.
5. 00:22:40 · 📖 Lore — Origin of Gray Star: Zen’s first creation, Frankenstein-stitched from cat parts over ~80 years; he never got along with his later “brother” Pimp the Imp, and Zen’s soft spot for Gray is why Gray still lives.
6. 00:30:22 · 🎲 Mechanic — Perception catches flickers in the field and Zen inaudibly mouthing words — and that Gray Star has been secretly chanting a spell for nearly four hours.
7. 00:31:34 · 🎲 Mechanic — Gray’s spell resolves as a mass message — a telepathic “group chat” the bound founders use to plan.
8. 00:48:25 · 🎲 Mechanic — Old Man Jenkins’s insight: Gray’s chant is rhythmic to tenth-of-a-second increments, and Zen’s murmured words are literally commanding the monsters wrecking Old Town — silence the chanter, break the control.
9. 00:52:14 · 🎭 RP — Father ITYS wins the floor; Gray Star secretly boosts the persuasion (nat 20), and Zen grants ITYS a Mithril Tongue so the Scissors of Severing can’t cut it.
10. 00:56:36 · 🎭 RP — ITYS launches a filibuster sermon at the lich — “I consider death to be a gift” — to keep him talking and silent-of-chant.
11. 00:57:50 · ⚔️ Combat — The Chronurgy breaks: Gray Star leaps up, grabs Zen, and hauls him into a time-bubble of his own — the party is OUT, dumped into an Old Town that’s been ravaged for ten hours.
12. 01:00:40 · 🎲 Mechanic — Group initiative vs the Four Horsemen + flesh golems + drifting fire hazards; the party targets Laurence, whose Infernal chant relays Zen’s commands.
13. 01:03:44 · 📖 Lore — Laurence, a horned-devil former Medina Monastery baker, bellows commands in Infernal; Lashara translates (“a woman of science and apparently demons”) and the founders recall the old Medina orchard crew: a tiefling, a dragonborn, an orc, a blood-hunter.
14. 01:11:13 · 📖 Lore — History check: when the orc Krengrum first died, Zen bridged the Void to the The Celestial Sphere to resurrect him — one of the world’s earliest resurrections — and the group returned “changed,” under Zen’s control.
15. 01:19:34 · 🎲 Mechanic — Old Man Jenkins chugs the The Seven Deadly Sips (Envious Pinot Red for True Sight) at a “hipster-at-a-bar” pace; the party goes invisible via the Staff of the Magi to slip inside the walls.
16. 01:31:48 · ⚔️ Combat — Crawling Claws swarm up out of the ground; one climbs Father ITYS’s codpiece and he splatters it with his mace, while Jock Bjorn shotguns a granny-headed flesh golem (“Nana”) into pieces.
17. 01:36:48 · ⚔️ Combat — Lashara summons her mount Pet Peeve and rides it into the fray; a toppling giant root-tree crushes another golem as the founders punch inside the walls.
18. 01:58:57 · ⚔️ Combat — Yerlin the emo blood-hunter fires his crossbow at Jock Bjorn; Bjorn’s Corpse Slayer miss-redirect turns Yerlin’s own scythe swing onto Krengrum, setting the orc’s shin alight.
19. 02:20:15 · ⚔️ Combat — Lashara’s crossbow obliterates Yerlin — literally “my old self” — the Infernal Runes crackling off him as the first Horseman falls.
20. 02:26:08 · 📖 Lore — With true sight the party confirms Infernal Runes carved into every Horseman’s skin (Kava included) — enslavement magic none of them can read.
21. 02:32:25 · ⚔️ Combat — Old Man Jenkins cuts loose: an 8th-level Chain Lightning then a Sunburst blind Kava Bacia and Krengrum; the blinded dragon tumbles out of the sky.
22. 02:43:53 · 🎲 Mechanic — Boosted by Lashara’s Flash of Genius, Father ITYS recalls the rune-lore — the runes fade only after ~8 rounds of the chanter’s silence — and drops Silence right on Laurence’s mouth.
23. 02:58:00 · ⚔️ Combat — Lashara flips her crossbow to its Disintegrate setting — “Hey mouse. Say cheese.” — and unmakes Krengrum, freeing the orc who’d been pulled from the Abyss to serve Zen ~1,000 years; he flips off Laurence and dies free.
24. 03:05:54 · ⚔️ Combat — Levitas swoops in (sheltering schoolkids clap for bardic inspiration) and Stunning-Strikes Laurence silent; the chant broken, Kava Bacia’s runes dispel — a soul trapped a thousand years in a red dragon — and she grabs a hammer and dimension-doors away, vowing vengeance.
25. 03:15:12 · ⚔️ Combat — The bubble collapses; Zen and Gray Star blast ninety feet into the air (“like Iron Man”), Zen’s Scissors of Severing slicing dimension-doors into the dark.
26. 03:18:05 · ⚔️ Combat — Old Man Jenkins lands a 7th-level Disintegrate on Laurence; the curse melts, his true self surfaces with a thankful look at Jock Bjorn, and he crumbles to dust — the last Horseman gone.
27. 03:23:19 · ⚔️ Combat — A giant amalgamation of stitched monster-parts (sent to raze every town around Old Town) busts the wall and drops a 6th-level fireball; Old Man Jenkins fails his save and goes down.
28. 03:30:32 · 🎭 RP — Gray Star casts Power Word Heal to save the fallen Jenkins; Zen answers with Power Word Kill — Gray falls ninety feet, dead — and the session ends on the lich alone above a broken city.

Player Characters

Character	Player	Race	Class	Note
Father ITYS	Jesse	—	Cleric of Selûne	Doomsayer “the end is near”; wins a Mithril Tongue and filibusters a lich; Silence/Ice Storm/Firestorm
Jock Bjorn	Chris	Half-goliath / half-dwarf	Ranger	Sailor; loses his tongue (twice) to the scissors; Corpse Slayer shotgun/crossbow redirect; argues the Horsemen are controlled, not willing
Lashara	Steve	Rock gnome	Artificer	Speaks Infernal; rides Pet Peeve; personally puts down her own retired PC Yerlin and “say-cheese” disintegrates Krengrum
Old Man Jenkins	Hayley	— (draconic)	Sorcerer	Last of the House of Old; cracks the chant-rhythm, then Chain Lightning / Sunburst / the final Disintegrate on Laurence
Levitas	Brin	Aarakocra	Monk	Wings Zen keeps trimming; scouts invisibly and flurries + Stunning-Strikes Laurence into silence

NPCs

NPC	Role	Note
Zen	BBEG lich / necromancer	Ancient half-elf, former barber; froze time and grooms/dissects the bound heroes; commands the rune-enslaved Horsemen; survives, killing Gray at the end
Gray Star	Zen’s stitched tabaxi companion	Sewn together over ~80 years; secretly chants the message that saves the party and drags Zen into a bubble — then dies to Power Word Kill shielding Jenkins
Laurence Shâdos	Horned-devil Horseman	Reanimated Medina Monastery baker/cook and Zen “frenemy”; his Infernal chant sustains the runes; disintegrated, redeemed in death
Krengrum	Orc Horseman	Pulled from the Abyss and enslaved ~1,000 years; his first death drove Zen’s original cross-Void resurrection; freed by Lashara’s Disintegrate
Kava Bacia	Dragon Horseman	A dragonborn soul trapped 1,000 years in a red dragon’s body; freed, she takes a hammer and dimension-doors away vowing vengeance
Yerlin	Blood-hunter Horseman	Emo scythe-wielder — Lashara’s former PC — who cuts his own arm to power up; destroyed mid-fight
Pimp the Imp	Zen’s other creation (mentioned)	Gray’s “brother”; the two never got along

Factions

Faction	Note
The Four Horsemen	Zen’s four reanimated old companions (Krengrum, Kava Bacia, Yerlin, Laurence), bound by Infernal Runes; defeated or freed across the session
Zen’s Converted Townfolk	Citizens of Old Town converted by Laurence’s preaching that death is a blessing — the “exalted” of the Forgotten Hour
The Church of ITYS	Father ITYS’s faith; its allegiance pledge doubles as a code phrase / force-field motif over the city

🎙️ Notable Moments

00:19:10 — Bound and bleeding, Jock Bjorn asks the lich why he's doing any of this. The answer is worse than a grudge.

Jock Bjorn: So would you care to elaborate on why you’re doing all this stuff, Zen? Zen (GM): I’m bored.

00:50:32 — Zen pitches his death-cult like a man three levels deep in an MLM.

Zen (GM): …will you go to the celestial sphere, or will you stay here and decide— Jock Bjorn: Sounds like a pyramid scheme.

01:00:07 — Freed from the chair, the party picks its first target: Lawrence, Zen's reanimated baker.

Jock Bjorn: It’s time to focus on Lawrence, it sounds like. Yes? Father ITYS: That’s right. Time to bake that bread.

01:03:44 — Lawrence bellows his commands in Infernal — and it turns out the artificer took a language elective.

GM: So he yells out in Infernal. Does anyone speak Infernal? Lashara: I am a woman of science and apparently demons.

01:18:18 — The party's escape plan comes into focus, and Lashara says the quiet part out loud.

Lashara: So you’re going to filibuster a lich, right?

02:20:15 — One of the enslaved Horsemen is Yerlin — Lashara's own retired character. She ends him herself.

Lashara: I obliterate my old self. GM: It’s fitting that you just killed yourself. Very emo of you.

02:58:00 — Lashara flips her crossbow to the one setting nothing survives.

Lashara: I click it onto the Disintegrate setting, aim at him, and say: Hey mouse. Say cheese.

03:22:54 — The last Horseman is dust, the freed monsters are gone, and Gray is the only thing Zen has left in the world.

Old Man Jenkins: He’s really all alone now. GM: …and Zen twirls his mustache.

🗺️ Locations

Location	Mentioned / Seen	Note
Old Town	Seen	Old Man Jenkins’s walled hometown, torn apart across the 10-hour assault; tavern, school, and giant root-tree
Medina	Mentioned	The place the old world once centered on, near the orchard of the Seven Deadly Sips
Medina Monastery	Mentioned	Where Laurence grew up; his fork bears the crossed-off names of his fellows there
The Forbidden Fruits Orchard	Mentioned	Zen’s home/workshop orchard (now redwood-sized), source of the Sips
The Celestial Sphere	Mentioned	The demiplane crossed in the world’s first resurrection; the companions returned “changed”
The Chasm	Mentioned	The Void/Abyss first bridged to retrieve a dead companion — the seed of Zen’s necromancy; where Krengrum was dragged from
Levitorum	Mentioned	Map location recently changed to hover/float
The Gullet	Mentioned	Map location beside the Swollen Wastes
Swollen Wastes	Mentioned	Region named on the world map, just above Oovuãn
Oovuãn	Mentioned	Swamp region named on the world map

🎒 Items

Item	Used / Introduced	Note
Scissors of Severing	Used	Zen’s barber scissors that sever and vanish body parts — but can’t cut ITYS’s mithril tongue; later slice dimension-doors as the bubble fails
Mithril Tongue	Introduced	Granted to Father ITYS by Zen; resists the scissors and powers his silver-tongued filibuster
Lawrence’s Vicious Fork	Introduced	Laurence’s giant fondue-fork, engraved with the crossed-off names of his Medina fellows; spews pearl-white flame
The Seven Deadly Sips	Used	Zen’s seven sin-themed drinks (True Sight, extra actions, luck…); Old Man Jenkins drinks Envious Pinot Red — max three at once
Staff of the Magi	Used	Looted 50-charge staff; the party uses invisibility to slip inside Old Town’s walls
Hither-Thither Staff	Used	Looted staff opening paired teleport portals (à la Portal) to cross the field
Quarterstaff of Warning	Mentioned	Magic staff that prevents surprise within 30 ft and wakes sleepers
Pet Peeve	Used	Lashara’s summoned construct-mount (the “Pending” homunculus); ridden into battle, mauls a flesh golem
Crawling Claws	Fought	Disembodied-hand monsters erupting under the party; wiped out by Jock Bjorn’s Conjure Barrage

⛩️ Pantheon & Lore

Entry	Mentioned / Seen	Note
Selûne	Invoked	Moon goddess; Father ITYS’s patron, whose death-as-gift doctrine fuels his filibuster
The Church of ITYS	Invoked	ITYS’s faith; its allegiance pledge doubles as a code phrase over the city
The Kouréas	Seeded	The apocalypse/necrotic force behind the “Zenpocalypse” — the shape of the ending the founders are racing
Chronurgy	Seen	Zen’s time-dilation: a bubble where ~1 outside hour = 10 inside; also a concentration spell — its weakness
Infernal Runes	Seen	Runes carved into the Horsemen that enslave them; sustained by Laurence’s continuous Infernal chant, fading after ~8 rounds of silence
House of Old	Mentioned	Old Man Jenkins’s draconic bloodline — he is the last of it
The First Resurrection	Revealed	Zen bridging the Void to the The Celestial Sphere to raise the dead Krengrum — the origin seed of all his necromancy

Cliffhanger

The Horsemen are broken — Yerlin and Laurence destroyed, Krengrum and Kava Bacia freed (the dragon vanishing through a dimension-door with a vow of vengeance) — but the win costs everything. As the Chronurgy bubble tears open, Gray Star rockets skyward with his master, heals the fallen Old Man Jenkins one last time… and Zen repays the loyalty with Power Word Kill. The stitched cat drops ninety feet to the rampart, dead. A stitched monster-amalgamation smashes through the wall behind them, and the immortal barber is left utterly, coldly alone above a ruined Old Town — twirling his mustache.

Related

Echoes of ITYS · The Forgotten Hour · prev: 240208-ch0.2-old-town-throwdown · next: 240307-ch0.4-revenge-in-121-years · Zen au Kouréas · Gray Star · The Four Horsemen · Laurence Shâdos · Kava Bacia · Old Town · Chronurgy · transcript: 240222-ch0.3-the-four-horsemen-of-the-zenpocalypse-transcript