Rhiassa Presents: Echoes of Ragnarok: The Conclusion Yggdrasill

Hello everyone,

I would like to take a moment to thank everyone who helped make the final Echoes of Ragnarok event a success and talk a little bit about the series now that it has concluded.

First to the NPCs and staff who came together this past Saturday to tell a fun, lighthearted story that nonetheless was consequential in weaving the final threads of plot together in this long saga. Thank you to Lani, Xandri, Ben H, Tucker, Kyle, Steve, Nataliya, Greg, Ben L, Dani, Char, Max, and Nixon. All of you were at the very top of your game throughout the entirety of the quest, from putting together challenging dungeon set ups, to giving the players appropriate levels of engaging combat, to role playing perfectly to accentuate the aesthetic of the day. I couldn’t have done it without you and I am deeply grateful you were a part of the event.

And to the players who showed up to the site already ready to have the time of their lives riding their Saurian Steeds into battle, thank you for embracing the spirit of the event, laughing along with us, and bringing your A+ questing game to help bring this series to a close in a way that honored the years that went into it. I appreciate all of you.

The Echoes of Ragnarok plotline began in the summer of 2015 with the first ever Gilded Lion Summer Festival. After Rhiassa’s success with the What Lurks Beneath series, we wanted to push ourselves to tell a story that felt a little more dire and told the tales of people who were grappling with a fate that was beyond their ability to comprehend or affect. Coming up with that initial idea, of using Bedlam’s invasion of the multiverse as the launching point, felt so epic to us, and we looked forward to how our players would grapple with the tough decisions necessary to be a hero when the end times were nigh.

After a couple of events this concept had in fullness been communicated to our players through the story and characters. I expected what would come next were years of tough decisions and dealing with loss. Urlic was supposed to have succumbed to darkness long ago, for example. But I did not get what I expected. I got a unified player base that looked at me and my plot team and said… “No, that’s not how this is going to go down. We’re going to save everyone.”

Honestly, it was fantastic. People give the “murder hobos” of the Realms a lot of grief about treading the line between valor and villainy. About being apathetic about the consequences of their choices. About not caring what happens to the nameless denizens that must exist in our fantasy world. But I really saw no sign of any of that. I saw people who looked and acted like true heroes. Who had the audacity to look fate (my plot team) in the eyes and tell us that they had the temerity to save our entire universe of NPCs that we had already decided we were going to doom to oblivion.

How awesome is that?

And so we did what I think any good EH team would do. We put “no but” on the shelf and prepared for several years of “yes and”. We sent the PC’s to the depths of Hel and had them stamp out the remaining ghosts of what Bedlam left behind. We had them board an airship and fly to the moon to wind up the cosmic machinery that made the universe revolve. And we had them fight their own kind of battle of Ragnarok, a war across multiple worlds where the heroes forged allies out of primordial clay and then in the aftermath gave form and name to a new race of gods that would put the world back together. We told the story that you, the players, wanted to tell. A story of rebirth and recreation and triumph.

And also of dinosaurs.

Because it’s the Realms. And as much as we can tell epic stories and as much as we can decide with our actions the line between good and evil on a weekly basis, sometimes we just have to remember that we should have fun and love what we are doing and have a great time together.

So in the end, I’m glad we threw an event this past weekend that inspired all of those things. And I am endlessly thankful to those of you who came along for the ride. To those of you who were with us when we started in 2015 and stuck with us through all 12 events in the series, and to those of you who showed up to Norlund for the first time ever just to ride your dinosaurs. All of you were a vital part to the story that we were so very grateful to be able to tell.

And so concludes the Echoes of Ragnarok.

As Ulric would say

Strength and Honor.

- Jason 

P.S. - Please review the event