Revenge in 121 Years

Revenge in 121 Years — Ch 0.4

Everything the world spends the next century trying to forget happens in the next few hours. A barber who has cheated death for a thousand years finally meets someone stubborn enough to make it stick — but a grave is not the same as an ending, and some debts are only rescheduled. Watch closely: this is the hour the whole story is named after, and nothing that walks out of it walks out unchanged. The clock starts now.

Chapter / Episode	0.4 — Revenge in 121 Years
Arc	The Forgotten Hour (finale)
GM	Dave
Date / Duration	2024-03-07 · ~3h35m (gameplay from 00:14:17)
Party	Father ITYS (Jesse), Jock Bjorn (Chris), Lashara (Steve), Old Man Jenkins (Hayley)
Setting	A flashback ~100 years before the campaign — the fall of Old Town
Ends on	Zen rolls a 121-year return, the southern tip of the land rips loose to become El Cinede, and a cleric founds a church on the word “I told you so.”

Synopsis

Picking up from the cliffhanger of Ch 0.3 — The Four Horsemen of the Zenpocalypse, the founder-heroes catch the millennia-old archlich Zen at the worst moment of his very long life. His self-described finest creation — the tabaxi Gray Star — has just fallen to his own Zen’s power-word-kill, Laurence Shâdos has disintegrated into “Cheeto dust,” and what’s left standing over the smoking ruin of Old Town is a stitched Abomination with an adult red-dragon head, a kraken-tentacle arm and a storm-giant arm sewn to a bat-winged body. It opens the fight by inhaling the rubble and loosing a 60-foot cone of fire; the party dives, Father ITYS burns Channel Divinity to sling seventy-five hit points back into the wounded, and — because Levitas had the presence of mind to grab the town’s children and run — there is, at least, someone left worth saving. Between breath weapons Zen finally explains himself: in The Infernal Plane a spectral thing cursed Laurence Shâdos, who etched controlling runes into the whole party, and Gog offered a bargain — fill his Well of Souls, get your dead friends back. The debt came due the instant Gray Star hit the ground. This is the deal with the devil itself, a fairy tale Jock Bjorn half-remembers, playing out live.

For one aching beat the villain is just a grieving old man laying Obsidian coins over his cat’s eyes while the rain falls like his own mood — and then his own reanimated dead turn on him. Kava Bacia, the dragonborn Horseman whose blood-curse finally breaks (her runes dispel and she reverts to herself, the last living dragonborn), rounds on her old master, while the Grim-Reaper specters of Yerlin, Krengrum and Laurence Shâdos shimmer up beside her, one of them cheerfully declaring death “the happiest I’ve ever been.” The whole party even piles onto a single desperate group-roll to snap the distraught lich’s neck — and botches so hard they hand the thousand-year-old archlich a satisfying chiropractic realignment instead. What follows is a magic-item-and-spell-slot arms race for the ages: Zen answers by freezing Kava in a Chronurgy Stasis bubble and catching incoming Disintegrates in his Azure Doorway to bounce them back; Father ITYS cracks the sky with Selûne’s Divine Intervention, raining stars, then conjures a feathered-serpent couatl via Conjure Celestial; Jock Bjorn and Lashara saw the red dragon-head off the Abomination and stuff it into the bag of holding so it can’t become a spare phylactery. The reveal that guts the party: the Clone signs on the corpse mean it was Gray Star who has been cheating death this whole time, jumping soul-to-clone across the planes — not Zen.

It ends the way world-endings should. With Zen tethered inside the frozen Kava, Father ITYS stabilizes her dying body at exactly one hit point — don’t give him any more life — so the lich can’t slip free. Then Old Man Jenkins — Hayley’s min-maxed human sorcerer, a character built to do exactly one thing — casts Disintegrate at disadvantage, rolls a natural 20, and lays a hand on Zen’s wrist; the archlich’s thousand-year-old beard crumbles as he smiles at his younger self, murmurs that maybe the adventure is over, and — without a word — turns to dust. Father ITYS turns to the party, says “I told you so,” and in that instant becomes the false prophet, birthing both The Fracture and The Church of ITYS. But Zen’s Undying soul refuses death: the GM rolls 3d100 and gets 121 years. The survivors rebuild in a rapid-fire “quiet year” map-game — guilds rise, The Ember Spire springs up, the Well of Souls festers into a swamp of skinwalkers and wendigos, and by week eleven the wounded southern tip of the island breaks off and floats into the sky to become El Cinede. Lashara founds The Rebuild Society (and, in the shadows, The Lashïngs); Jock Bjorn sails out past The Splinters to find Frostbjorn, The Forbidden Fruits Orchard and a fresh Veil-Tear. The revenge clock is ticking.

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

Scheme: AABB verses + chorus. Suggested vibe: big, mournful epic-folk with a war-drum build.

(Verse 1) The town lies in ashes, the dragon-head roars, A patchwork of monsters is battering doors; The barber weeps rain over one dead cat, “I filled up a well — is that worth all that?”

(Chorus) Told you so, told you so — turn the archlich to dust, Kiss the coins on his eyes, put the millennium to rest; The soul says no to the grave, and the counter reads slow — A hundred and twenty-one years, and revenge, don’t you know.

(Verse 2) Poor Kava reverts and she turns on her lord, The specters float up and they’re bored of the sword; They gang up to snap the old lich by the head — But he cracks his own neck and says thanks in his stead.

(Verse 3) The stars fall from Selûne, the couatl takes flight, His Azure Door swallows the Disintegrate light; One hit point of life, roll it low, roll it true — A twenty at disadvantage, that beard turns to blue.

(Chorus)

(Outro) So the south tears away and it climbs to the air, A church built on smugness, a swamp built on prayer; Lashara starts building, and Bjorn sets to sail — The Forgotten Hour ends, and the campaign sets its tale.

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

1. 00:13:57 · 📖 Recap — Lashara rewinds Ch 0.3: Old Man Jenkins disintegrated Laurence Shâdos into “Cheeto dust,” Gray Star fell to Zen’s power word kill, Kava’s runes dispelled and she reverted to her living dragonborn self, and Zen stitched his dead friends into a single Abomination.
2. 00:20:29 · ⚔️ Combat — The Zen-Abomination (adult red-dragon head, kraken + storm-giant arms) surprise-rounds the party with an 18d6, DC 21 fire breath; everyone dives for cover behind the ramparts.
3. 00:21:47 · 🎲 Mechanic — Father ITYS uses Channel Divinity (5× cleric level) to distribute ~75 healing across the battered party.
4. 00:24:14 · 📖 Lore — The GM sets the scene: Old Town is demolished, most inhabitants dead or missing — but Levitas grabbed a clutch of children and fled the carnage.
5. 00:38:17 · 🎭 RP — Zen’s confession: The Infernal Plane, Laurence Shâdos’s curse, the runes, and the bargain with Gog — “fill his Well of Souls and then I could have my friends.”
6. 00:41:33 · 🎲 Mechanic — Jock Bjorn passes an 18 History check and recognizes the whole thing as the fairy-tale “deal with the devil” — pure Gog manipulation, no party’s fault.
7. 00:45:44 · 🎭 RP — Zen lays Gray Star down and places two archaic Obsidian coins over the tabaxi’s eyes; Jock Bjorn scores it: “Kiss my eyes and lay me to sleep.”
8. 00:48:25 · 🎭 RP — Grim-Reaper specters of Yerlin, Krengrum and Laurence Shâdos manifest beside the reverted Kava; Yerlin grins that death is “the happiest I’ve ever been.”
9. 01:00:27 · 🎲 Mechanic — The party gangs up on a single flat DC-60 group roll to snap the distraught Zen’s neck; Kava does the twisting and botches — a mere “3” that just gives the lich a satisfying chiropractic crack.
10. 01:02:17 · 🎲 Mechanic — Zen retaliates with Chronurgy, casting Chronurgy Stasis to freeze Kava in a bubble; he quips that she was “never boring,” and the table rolls initiative.
11. 01:09:42 · 🎲 Mechanic — Father ITYS burns Divine Intervention; Selûne, goddess of stars and moon, answers by cracking the storm and raining sparking stars down onto Zen.
12. 01:18:38 · 📖 Lore — Reading the Clone signs, Father ITYS realizes it was Gray Star, not Zen, who has cheated death — soul progressively jumping to one-to-one clone bodies across the planes.
13. 01:21:17 · 🎲 Mechanic — On slothful amber, Old Man Jenkins gets four actions a round and leans into disintegrate after disintegrate.
14. 01:22:08 · 🎲 Mechanic — Disintegrate vs Azure Doorway: Zen catches incoming spells in an extradimensional space and bounces them back at the casters.
15. 01:27:59 · 🎲 Mechanic — Father ITYS casts Conjure Celestial, summoning a fiery feathered-serpent couatl (“some might refer to it as a fiery flying serpent”) to harry Zen.
16. 01:50:00 · ⚔️ Combat — The party saws the red dragon head off the Abomination and crams it into the bag of holding to deny Zen a spare phylactery component.
17. 01:55:27 · ⚔️ Combat — Zen answers with Crimson Vivisect — a DC 20 wound that opens a pinprick vortex, forcing repeated saves and blocking healing.
18. 02:57:27 · 🎲 Mechanic — With Zen trapped within the frozen Kava, Father ITYS makes the call to stabilize her at 1 HP (“don’t give him any more life”) so the lich can’t heal himself loose.
19. 02:58:44 · 🎲 Mechanic — Cast at disadvantage, Old Man Jenkins rolls a natural 20 and lands the Disintegrate (10d6+40) that has missed all night.
20. 03:00:45 · 🎭 RP — Old Man Jenkins touches Zen’s wrist; the beard disintegrates as the lich reaches for his younger self, murmurs “maybe the adventure is over,” and Kava’s stasis bubble finally pops.
21. 03:02:00 · ⚔️ Combat — Zen doesn’t say a word. He just turns to dust — released from the material plane after millions of deaths.
22. 03:03:13 · 🎭 RP — Father ITYS turns to the group and says “I told you so,” birthing The Fracture and becoming the false prophet in the same breath.
23. 03:04:06 · 🎲 Mechanic — Undying: a slain Zen’s soul refuses death and fashions a new body in 3d100 years. The GM rolls — 121 years.
24. 03:06:16 · 🧭 Transition — The table shifts into a rebuild map-game (an A Quiet Year-style montage) narrating the century after the apocalypse, week by week.
25. 03:12:32 · 📖 Lore — Terry Ringer, a child Levitas saved, falls into a pit of three doors and dead The Spirit Engines and dies; Lashara later argues to study them, not destroy them.
26. 03:14:30 · 🧭 Travel — The Ember Spire (bell and all) rises in the channel dividing island from mainland; guilds form; the ruins of Old Town are renamed New Old.
27. 03:14:52 · 📖 Lore — By week 7 the religious impulse formalizes into The Church of ITYS; an amnesiac aarakocra washes ashore in a submarine (a lingering Levitas mystery).
28. 03:16:02 · 📖 Lore — The Well of Souls festers into a swamp breeding skinwalkers and wendigos; Terry Ringer’s older brother goes there and returns doomed.
29. 03:17:00 · 🧭 Travel — Week 11: the southern tip of the island breaks off and floats into the air to form the levitating city — El Cinede.
30. 03:18:09 · 📖 Lore — Lashara foils Old Man Jenkins’s coup and founds The Rebuild Society and her lab; Jock Bjorn gathers ten and sails out toward The Splinters, discovering Frostbjorn.
31. 03:20:10 · 📖 Lore — Father ITYS’s recovered journal reveals the Church’s central doctrine — “the name of the Church… I told you so.”
32. 03:21:42 · 📖 Lore — The Church of ITYS fortifies its temple under Captain Ramonai; its leader is later found “naked and murdered,” a note on the corpse reading “Ramonai did it.”
33. 03:22:37 · 📖 Lore — Jock Bjorn reports a fresh Veil-Tear and a forest of clearly-magical trees — The Forbidden Fruits Orchard — on the continent.
34. 03:23:39 · 📖 Lore — Lashara’s followers found a female-only clan of assassins to topple the Church: The Lashïngs — the deep origin of the ch3 secret society.

Player Characters

Character	Player	Race	Class	Note
Father ITYS	Jesse	—	Cleric of Selûne (15)	Channel Divinity, Divine Intervention (stars), Conjure Celestial; says “I told you so” over the corpse and becomes the false prophet
Jock Bjorn	Chris	Human	Ranger (cleric dip), sailor	Taunts the archlich, saws off the dragon head; in the epilogue sails out and discovers Frostbjorn and the Orchard
Lashara	Steve	Rock Gnome	Artificer	”Size of a Dorito”; survives the century to found The Rebuild Society and (secretly) The Lashïngs — the future Ch 1 quest-giver
Old Man Jenkins	Hayley	Human (draconic bloodline)	Sorcerer	Last of the House of Old / Malor; min-maxed to do one thing — Disintegrate — and lands the nat-20 that turns Zen to dust

NPCs

NPC	Role	Note
Zen	BBEG archlich, ex-barber	Extended his life 1,000+ years via Chronurgy and clones; killed this session — but his Undying rolls a return in 121 years
Kava Bacia	Redeemed Horseman, last dragonborn	One of Zen’s reanimated Four Horsemen (Hayley’s former-campaign PC); her blood-curse breaks, she reverts to her dragonborn form and turns on him, then spends the fight frozen in his Stasis
Gray Star	Zen’s tabaxi “finest creation”	The real death-cheater: his soul clone-jumps far to the south, leaving the revivified original a husk
Gog	Devil / master in The Infernal Plane	Struck the Well-of-Souls bargain and controlled Laurence Shâdos; teased as the campaign’s possible true big-bad
Laurence Shâdos	Zen’s cursed gnome ally	Etched the controlling Infernal runes; already “Cheeto dust,” returns here as a specter
Yerlin	Zen’s slain ally	Grim-Reaper specter who declares death “the happiest I’ve ever been”
Krengrum	Half-orc friend of Zen	Rescued from the infernal cells; appears among the dead specters
Levitas	Rescuer of the children	Flees Old Town with the kids; later the amnesiac aarakocra in a submarine — a deliberate mystery
Grime the Mime	Another of Zen’s circle	Recalled fondly in the debrief as “awesome”; otherwise unelaborated
Terry Ringer	Child saved by Levitas	Falls into the pit of three doors and Spirit Engines and dies; his brother goes to the swamp
Captain Ramonai	Epilogue church-fortifier	Fortifies The Church of ITYS’s temple; implicated by the “Ramonai did it” note on the murdered leader

Factions

Faction	Note
The Church of ITYS	Born the instant Father ITYS says “I told you so”; formalized by week 7, fortified temple, its first leader later found murdered
The Rebuild Society	Lashara’s reconstruction effort and lab — guilds, technology, and research into The Spirit Engines
The Lashïngs	Founded in the epilogue as a female-only assassin clan to topple the Church — the ancestral secret society of the Ch 3 arc
The Dragonborn	Kava’s people; the Well of Souls bled through their clans, leaving Kava the last living dragonborn on the material plane

🎙️ Notable Moments

00:39:30 — Between breath weapons, the villain finally makes his case — and it lands like a gut-punch.

GM (Zen): Gog gave me a task. My task was to fill his Well of Souls, and then I could have my friends… and just as Gray fell to the ground, that deed was done. So I ask you one more time — why are my friends dead?

00:45:44 — Zen lays his dead companion to rest, and Jock Bjorn cannot resist scoring the moment.

GM: He takes two obsidian coins, puts them over the top of Gray’s eyes, kisses both of the coins, and lays them down. Jock Bjorn: Kiss my eyes and lay me to sleep.

01:02:28 — His own reanimated Horseman has turned on him — and Zen freezes her mid-lunge with something almost like affection.

GM (Zen): (with the biggest smile) Oh, Kava — the one thing I loved about you is you were never boring. …Roll initiative.

03:02:00 — Jock Bjorn invites the archlich on one last adventure. The archlich declines.

Jock Bjorn: Come on, Zen, let’s go on an adventure — GM: And he doesn’t even say anything. He just turns to dust.

03:03:13 — Zen is dead. Father ITYS has been warning them for four sessions. He picks now.

Jock Bjorn: What happens is, freaking Father ITYS turns to us and says — I told you so! GM: …the fracture. Lashara: You told us no such thing. Where’s your evidence? Source required.

03:04:16 — Death is not the end. The GM does the math on the title of the episode, live at the table.

GM: If Zen is slain, his soul refuses to accept its death and lives on as a disembodied spirit that fashions a new body for itself after 3d100 years. Jock Bjorn: …121. We’ll figure this out — that’s cool.

03:17:00 — The wound in the world gets a new geography.

Lashara: By week 11, the southern tip of the island breaks off and begins to float in the air to create El Cinede.

03:20:10 — A century later, Father ITYS's recovered journal reveals the single most important tenet of the faith.

Lashara (reading): I will now reveal the most important piece of doctrine — the name of the Church. And that name? I told you so.

🗺️ Locations

Place	Mentioned / Seen	Note
Old Town	Seen (destroyed)	The city Zen’s forces demolish this session; rebuilt in the epilogue as New Old
New Old	Founded (epilogue)	The rebuilt city on Old Town’s ruins — future red capital of Kouréas
El Cinede	Born (epilogue)	The floating isle — the island’s southern tip that breaks off and rises into the sky by week 11
The Ember Spire	Built (epilogue)	Bell-topped tower springing up in the channel dividing island from mainland; carries the rebuild’s tools
The Infernal Plane	Referenced	Where Laurence Shâdos was cursed and where Gog and the Well of Souls reside
The Swamp of Souls	Manifests (epilogue)	Gog’s Well made physical — a swamp breeding skinwalkers and wendigos
The Splinters	Sailed (epilogue)	The island chain Jock Bjorn voyages out toward, leading to Frostbjorn and the continent
Frostbjorn	Discovered (epilogue)	A land Jock Bjorn finds out among the Splinters
The Forbidden Fruits Orchard	Reported (epilogue)	A forest of massive, clearly-magical trees Jock Bjorn reports on the continent
The Veil-Tear	Discovered (epilogue)	A fresh rift Jock Bjorn finds on the main continent — a hook toward the campaign proper
Trinity	Seeded	The three founding cities that grow out of this rebuild (New Old + the future Commons + ITYS)

🎒 Items

Item	Used / Introduced	Note
Scissors of Severing	Used	Zen’s signature barber’s scissors that cut dimensional doors; their clip echoes whenever he strikes space
The Bag	Used	Bag of holding the party stuffs the Abomination’s severed red dragon head into, denying Zen a phylactery component
Obsidian coins	Introduced	Two archaic coins Zen kisses and lays over Gray’s eyes as a funeral rite
Slothful Amber Ale	Used	Potion granting Old Man Jenkins an extra action per turn — the origin of the fight’s four-action rounds
The Spirit Engines	Introduced	Ancient, no-longer-functional magical portals in the pit where Terry Ringer dies; Lashara wants to study them

⛩️ Pantheon & Lore

Entry	Mentioned / Seen	Note
Selûne	Seen	Goddess of life, stars and moon; Father ITYS’s deity, whose Divine Intervention rains stars on Zen
Gog	Referenced	The devil-master behind the Well of Souls bargain; teased as the campaign’s possible true big-bad
The Church of ITYS	Founded	”I Told You So” — the religion born from Father ITYS’s three words; the dominant faith of the world to come
The Forgotten Hour	This IS it	This session — the fall of Old Town and death of Zen — is the founding moment the whole campaign looks back on
The Fracture	Begins	The in-world schism kicked off the instant Father ITYS proclaims his smugness over the corpse
Chronurgy	Seen	The time-bending magic Zen mastered over a millennium — Stasis and Drift
Zen’s Undying / return in 121 years	Rolled	Zen’s soul refashions a body in 3d100 years; the GM rolls 121 — the campaign’s ticking clock and the episode’s title

Cliffhanger

The archlich is dust — but his soul is already counting. The GM’s 3d100 lands on 121 years, and the world he broke does not stay still: the southern land tears loose to float as El Cinede, a church rises on the word “I told you so,” and Lashara alone lives on with the memory of what really happened. Somewhere out past The Splinters, a fresh Veil-Tear opens. The revenge is scheduled.

Related

Echoes of ITYS · The Forgotten Hour · prev: 240222-ch0.3-the-four-horsemen-of-the-zenpocalypse · next: 240530-ch1.1-the-answer-is-conversion · Zen au Kouréas · Father ITYS · Kava Bacia · Lashara · El Cinede · The Church of ITYS · The Lashïngs · Zen’s Undying / return in 121 years