Doomwood

Vordred and the Necropolis

As his Chaos infection worsens, King Alteon summons you, Artix, Beleen and Cysero to ask that you preserve the alliance between Good and Evil and defeat Drakath even if he falls. Keeping you behind, he privately sends you to investigate the reopened Necropolis in Doomwood, with one condition: Artix must not go there. Pain interrupts him before he can explain why.

You enter Doomwood without Artix and help defend the approach to Lightguard Keep, where the enemy includes undead paladins. A journal recovered from one of the fallen records his struggle to retain his mind.

Commander Arryd asks you to plant a teleportation stone behind the enemy lines and identify their commander, preparing the way for an attack from both sides. Sir Coat supplies the disguise, although the bones you collect fail his costume standards and leave you infiltrating the camp in a paper-bag skeleton costume instead.

At the camp, a paladin attacks the commander with Light magic only to discover it cannot harm him. Naming himself Vordred, the Paladin Slayer, he turns his challenger into his seven hundred and seventy-sixth undead paladin, leaving only Artix untaken. He can see through your disguise too, capturing you before you can complete Arryd's plan.

When you refuse to reveal Artix's location, Vordred turns you undead and sends you back to activate Lightguard's teleportation stone, using the paladins' own plan to bring his army into the keep.

Arryd mistakes your condition for an excellent performance until Sir Coat realizes you really are undead and Vordred's forces begin pouring through the portal. Vayle intervenes with the last power in the Spirit Shard holding her brother Edward, restoring you on condition that you keep Artix away from Vordred. She still considers his life hers to take.

Artix arrives indignant that you went undead-slaying without him, and learning that Vordred has turned the other High Paladins only strengthens his resolve to fight. Unable to persuade him and bound by your promise to Alteon, you lock him in Lightguard's prison while you investigate Vordred's immunity to Light.

Vayle directs you to Zorbak, whose supposedly secret hideout is helpfully advertised by a sign. Posing as the bearded master Zomboda, he sends you through necromantic chores until a battle with his Creature Creation exposes the charade and you can finally get him to discuss Vordred.

Zorbak helps you obtain a forged Necro University student ID and points you toward the Necropolis, while an optional climb through the tower above the campus brings you to Sally. The young necromancer explains that a voice taught her the art and that she restored Noxus, with whom she created Vordred. He still needs to kill Artix to reach his full potential, though she refuses to explain why.

At Necro University, work buys you lessons in necromancy's connection to the Plane of Darkness and in Vordred's unusual power, including his need to kill Artix in combat to take what he wants. Noxus assumes you imprisoned the paladin for his benefit, and while he boasts of discovering Artix's secret in an ancient temple, you take the map to those ruins.

Vordred reaches Lightguard to find Artix gone, but seizes the Blinding Light of Destiny he left behind. The axe hurts him despite his immunity to Light because its radiance comes from the spirits Artix freed, not Light magic. Corrupting it into the Shadowreaper of Doom, Vordred leaves to find its owner.

Noxus's map leads you to the Temple of the Light and the Stone Paladin, who was petrified while defending its sanctuary. He remembers Lady Celestia bringing young Artix to be trained there, insisting that the boy become a paladin even though he could neither heal nor cast Light magic. The guardian still wonders how much she knew.

During Noxus's attack on the temple, the Stone Paladin found Artix protecting the orphans with a woodcutting axe, apparently speaking to empty air between strikes. Only later did he understand that the boy was thanking the spirits he freed from the undead.

The Stone Paladin tells you that his daughter Anora died in the attack and asks you to save Artix as you descend through the crypt for the knowledge Noxus sought; you can also seek a cure for the guardian's petrification. Beyond the locked depths, you find a dragon tome that your Book of Lore offers to translate by eating it, then sending you after the missing pages to finish its meal.

The translated tome explains how the elemental rulers appoint Champions on Lore, but although it rules out Vordred as the Champion of Darkness, Artix tunnels into the crypt before you can learn who holds that title. He defeats a Dracolich and shows you the dragon spirits freed from Noxus's control, one of whom chooses to remain and help free the others. When Artix sets off for the Necropolis, you follow with Beleen and Cysero.

You find the Necropolis empty, its army already taken to Shadowfall by Noxus and Vordred. Claiming credit for the fortress, its legions and Sepulchure's rise, Noxus intends to replace Gravelyn with Vordred and end the truce. When she orders her soldiers to attack, he takes control of them instead.

You arrive to help Gravelyn as Sally draws Vordred away with news of ArcAttack's experiment at CastleMania. Chuckles frees his empress because, unlike the soldiers Noxus raised, she made him herself, allowing her to regain the army while you defeat the lich. Since Noxus insists that he cannot die, Gravelyn turns his skull into a mace, then gives you Sepulchure's Shadowscythe Amulet before you pursue Vordred.

At CastleMania, Vordred forces ArcAttack to amplify his power, hoping to turn all of Lore undead. You and the scientists try to overload him instead, repairing the equipment and channeling a lightning strike through it. The experiment appears to destroy him until he emerges stronger than before and leaves to confront Artix.

You find the unarmed Artix facing Vordred and send Beleen and Cysero for reinforcements, but jump to join him before Cysero can finish his Feather Fall spell. While you hold Vordred off, Artix prepares weapons from the dragon spirits he freed.

Vordred absorbs Artix's two spirit spears into his skull armor, whose enslaved souls block Light magic while his shadow regenerates his body. Artix knows that the freed dragon spirits cannot simply be enslaved again, and at his call they act from within the armor, giving you the opening to break it.

Vordred's attempt to turn Artix undead fails because the paladin is the Champion of Darkness, whose power can be taken only by killing him. Vordred says the attack on Artix's childhood village was meant to reclaim him, but Artix refuses to place that birthright above his chosen life as a paladin.

Since Artix will not wield Darkness against Vordred, you use Gravelyn's amulet to call forth his shadow and restrain the Paladin Slayer's. With the source of Vordred's regeneration pinned, you and Artix defeat him, although he still has one last attack left.

If Gravelyn answers your call, she defeats Vordred with Noxus's skull and accepts Artix's refusal to serve as her Champion; if Vayle comes instead, she saves him and hears Edward's spirit thank him without forgiving him herself. Zorbak claims the defeated enemy's bones as a throne when he intervenes. If Daimyo comes to Artix's rescue, the paladin entrusts you with the amulet and plans to restore his broken axe, while Sally receives Vordred's skull from Drakath to rebuild him.

The Necropolis Dungeon and the Undead Plague

Gravelyn dreams of Artix and Sepulchure arguing over whether birth or choice defines a Champion, and Noxus's skull suggests that she has seen a vision. Following his direction to Sepulchure's Forbidden Vault beneath the Necropolis, she sends you with her father's helm to open it and asks you to recover the scattered biography of the man he once was.

You work through the Necropolis Dungeon's guards and broken routes while gathering the manuscript of Loremaster Archillius Webcrick. He became undead to keep following Sepulchure, and his account, written before the assault on Swordhaven, begins with the knight Valen.

Webcrick describes Valen fighting beside Prince Aldon, later King Alteon, and the healer Lynaria against a tyrant. Both men loved her, but after a private duel it was Alteon who married her, only for the Champion of Darkness to abduct her on their wedding day. Valen pursued him into the Necropolis alone and lost the fight.

The dying Valen accepted DoomKnight armor from the Mysterious Stranger to save Lynaria, rescuing her at the cost of becoming Sepulchure. Webcrick explains that such Doom Items house beings of Darkness that only Blinding Light can destroy, although a damaged page leaves the rescue's immediate aftermath unclear. Later entries describe Sepulchure sending armies to destroy a shadowborn child destined to replace him. When Celestia and the paladins find the child first, he returns to his war, believing they would have dealt with a creature of Darkness. The same account says the armor struck Lynaria down when she later tried to free Valen with Light.

Sepulchure's helm opens the vault onto Queen Lynaria Alteon's tomb and letters rather than treasure, but Sally interrupts beside the Vordred she is rebuilding with Drakath's Chaos. Dropping you through a trapdoor, she releases a toxin intended to turn the lower Necropolis's living inhabitants into zombies.

Every attempt to climb back takes you farther down through the guards and traps, until you find Lilyandra protecting the last grove of Juniata, the forest that preceded Doomwood. She refuses to abandon it, offering refuge from Sally's toxin in her sanctuary and urging you not to lose hope.

Artix lowers a rope to rescue you, only for Sally to send him falling too and strand you both on the forty-second floor, where you decide to bring down the Necropolis literally. After helping defend Lilyandra's sanctuary, you defeat the Shadow Dragon and destroy a supporting pillar while Artix attacks the power source.

The Necropolis collapses, but Sally has finished Chaos Vordred and Noxus holds Gravelyn captive while you and Artix are in no condition for another battle. Facing the threat to her friends, Gravelyn wishes Sepulchure were there, and Lynaria's tomb answers her.

The figure that destroys Chaos Vordred resembles Sepulchure, but Gravelyn recognizes that it is not her father, whose soul the tomb cannot restore after Drakath annihilated it. Watching from afar, Drakath accepts an unnamed voice's challenge to see what would have happened without his intervention, using his power to let the wish change history instead.

You return to Swordhaven as Sepulchure attacks, but zombies now gather where you first arrived. In this altered history, Drakath never interrupted the assault.

You fight through Swordhaven again, confusing the defenders by speaking as though they have already lived through this battle. In the throne room, you warn Alteon and Sepulchure about Drakath, but he never arrives. When Sepulchure attacks you instead, Alteon takes the fatal blow and dies apologizing that he could not save his friend Valen.

Sepulchure expects Alteon's death to open the Plane of Darkness, only for the DoomBlade to reveal that the king was never the Champion of Light. When Sepulchure kills Death and the slain begin rising as zombies, Gravelyn realizes that he means to turn everyone undead until only the true Champion, immune to the transformation, remains. You escape Swordhaven as the plague spreads behind you.

You carry warnings and fight through the collapsing defenses, but the infection overtakes people you know: Rolith, Galanoth, Warlic, Alina, Cysero and Zhoom. The prospect of a cure disappears as the survivors retreat to Battleon.

The DoomBlade tells Sepulchure that Gravelyn is the Champion he seeks. In Battleon, she reaches the same conclusion, remembering her failure to use Darkness as a child and the Light that protected her from a zombie. She fears her father raised her only to kill her, but you and Artix refuse to let her face him alone. You ask what your own role must be; their surprise that you have not worked it out gives way to Sepulchure's arrival before they can answer.

When Sepulchure attacks Battleon and challenges Gravelyn, you and Artix fight through his undead dragons to reach her, only for him to drive Artix aside and throw you into Yulgar's Inn. To return to the battle, you must overcome your zombified friends, including Alteon.

With Gravelyn defeated, the DoomBlade orders Sepulchure to kill her, but he refuses and lets the sword fall. When Drakath attacks her instead, Sepulchure shields his daughter and loses his soul once again, leaving Gravelyn to pursue his killer as her Light takes the form of wings.

The DoomBlade takes over Sepulchure's empty armor, and although you and Artix defeat it, only Blinding Light can destroy the being within. Forced by Drakath to choose between revenge and her friends, Gravelyn returns to you, takes up the DoomBlade and transforms it with Light to destroy the possessed armor.

The altered world ends, returning you, Artix and Gravelyn to the collapsed Necropolis with your memories intact. Resolving to remain Empress of the Shadowscythe, Gravelyn orders Sally to rebuild Vordred for the war against Chaos. Later, you return to help Lilyandra protect Juniata's surviving grove.

Doomwood III and Deadtech

Stellaria and Thorngarde

While fighting undead beside Artix in Doomwood, you are interrupted by an urgent need for an outhouse. You reach a golden one, only for a Chronomancer to insist that the future needs you immediately, and no amount of protesting can postpone the trip.

The Chronomancer brings you to Thorngarde and is struck down by a spear. A young Paladin recognizes you and helps you face the Deadtech, an army of cybernetic undead. Before she can attack the High Technolich's fortress, she needs your help defending the village.

As you rescue captives, recover supplies and fight the machines assimilating Thorngarde's people, your companion identifies Kalron the Cryptborg as the Technolich's commander. You also see his subordinate Asherion, a Doomknight helping direct the occupation.

You find Kyger, a frightened boy who asks you to keep him safe. You protect him and free his friends, then provide a distraction so he can approach the enemy in disguise.

Kalron converts Zyrus into a BioKnight, calling the upgrade mandatory and claiming that Deadtech will end war, hate and humanity. You defeat the transformed Zyrus to protect the villagers.

When a NecroDrone carries Kyger away, your companion plans to rescue him with the Blinding Light of Destiny, but tells you Artix is dead when you suggest asking him for it. Realizing you came from the past, she introduces herself as Stellaria von Krieger, Artix's daughter. In her time, you helped raise and train her.

Stonewood and the Blinding Light of Destiny

In Stonewood Forest, Queenadent Odessa warns that the High Technolich is building a time machine that could carry Deadtech's conquest into the past. You continue searching for Stellaria's father's hidden axe.

While fighting off Deadtech patrols, you gather what Stellaria needs to counter the spell concealing the Blinding Light of Destiny. The revealed path leads to the axe in its stone, where a BioKnight demands that you retrieve the relic and submit to assimilation, threatening a humiliating future as a cleaning appliance if you resist. You defeat it rather than accept the upgrade.

Remembering your adventures with Artix, you draw the axe, and his spirit appears with one final quest and the assurance that the ideals you shared can never die. He asks you to put the weapon back: defeating the Technolich yourself and returning to the past would destroy this future, so someone who belongs here must wield it. When you wonder who can do that if Stellaria cannot, he reminds you that he had more than one child. You return the axe and continue the rescue.

The Tech Dungeon and Artix's Children

You and Stellaria infiltrate the Tech Dungeon and free the prisoners. A disguise made from DoomBorg equipment gets you through the remaining guarded door to Kyger.

Stellaria welcomes Kyger as her younger brother, Kai Krieger, another of Artix's children and a possible wielder of the axe. Kalron and Asherion interrupt the reunion; Kalron sends Asherion after Stellaria and turns his attention to you and the escaping prisoners.

You defeat Kalron, and the freed villagers join in his disposal while you joke about recycling. Back in Stonewood, Stellaria says she never even saw Asherion during the pursuit. You tell her the axe remains in the stone and keep your meeting with Artix to yourself.

When Stellaria leaves to attend a secret meeting, you find cat ears along her trail and follow them, only to encounter Asherion. You prepare to fight him before she intervenes.

Asherion is Stellaria's older brother, an infiltrator whose affinity for darkness and position inside Deadtech give the family a way into the fortress. You trained both older siblings in this future, but not Kyger. Stellaria begins to explain that he was too young to fight, then trails off. When you ask whether you are dead in this future too, the siblings fall silent.

You take Kyger to the axe and begin the training he missed, guided by Artix's spirit. Afterward, you explore a nearby cave.

The undead villagers inside ask for peace, and when Kyger treats them as enemies, you stop him and listen. They escaped assimilation with your help, though their bodies had already died, and you urge him to show them compassion.

When Sir Kut, a converted Pactagonal Knight, threatens you at the stone, Kyger is afraid, but you urge him not to give up. He draws his father's axe with a cry of Battle On, and together you defeat the knight.

The Tech Fortress and Vortrix

Despite Asherion's warning that the coming assault has less than a one-percent chance of success, Kyger remains willing to try with you beside him. Before the attack, you and the three siblings take photographs together.

The High Technolich already expects Asherion to betray it for his sister and the traveler from the past. Outside, you disrupt the defenses and send a flare, and when the fortress door opens, Stellaria credits her brother and leads you inside.

You fight through the garrison, recover information and follow directions Asherion has given Stellaria. Beyond the Corpse Processing Unit, you find the time machine. Stellaria gathers circuitry so she can send you home before destroying it, determined not to let Deadtech keep using her father.

The High Technolich confronts you wearing Artix's face and orders the children to obey their parental unit, but you reject it. The real Artix would be making puns. Asherion explains that Deadtech stole his father's body and fused it with Vordred's remains, leaving a central computer in control of a host with both their defenses.

Asherion says neither his darkness nor Stellaria's light can hurt it, and if you attack first, it can use its database access to delete your account. Remembering the fight against Vordred, you tell Kyger this is the moment he trained for. His strike with the axe cuts the Technolich's connection to the database.

You take over the fight and defeat Vortrix, then overcome MechaVortrix when it changes form for another battle. As the time machine shakes, Stellaria says this future began when your Eternal Dragon of Time powers returned, first calling it your choice before admitting she does not know whether a choice was possible. When you ask who killed Artix, she answers, “You did.” She tries to warn you what to avoid, but you are sent back before she can finish.

You return to Doomwood and its golden outhouse, where a flying bone and Artix's shield turn your arrival into another disaster that ends with the outhouse going over a cliff. Artix and Twilly answer your alarm with jokes, but Artix promises you will find a way to win together. Later, the three siblings toast your photograph with moglinberry juice and a cry of Battle On.