[PD] Pharaoh Dynasty: Act I

Pharaoh Dynasty Plot: Act I - The Army Of Evil

"The earth will quake, the heavens will bleed, and the gods shall know fear."

The rise and fall of the Welldrinker Cult was just the beginning. It was only a matter of time before more ancient forces began to rear their ugly heads. Thousands of years ago, an Egyptian Pharoah was so bloodthirsty and bent on world domination that every record of his kingdom and even his name was stricken from history. That is, until, two of his loyal followers emerged in the modern day.

Power abhors a vacuum and the invocation & asceision sorceress Akh plans to fill it with her ancient king.

PROLOGUE: The Awakening

After a failure to prevent a mysterious summoner from acquiring a powerful relic, the world faces imminent upheaval. With the summoner's escape, the stage is set for a dark quest to assemble an army of mutants and mystics, heralding a new era of conflict. See: [PD] "Where's my Mummy?"


 
(Note: trailer was created heavily relying on AI generated assets)

Setting

New York City is in chaos today! An army of villains seem to have arisen overnight, pouring out of the woodwork to cause rampant destruction and anarchy to no end! Why is this happening? It feels coordinated, but who could and would do such a thing? The media is abuzz with questions but so few answers! So far, the villains who get defeated just talk about a strange lady who promised them wealth, power, or threats. 

Backstory: The Lady in Red's Vision

In her vision, The Lady in Red transports us into the ancient past, revealing the dark history of the sorceress Akh. Over 5,000 years ago, in a time before Egypt was unified, Akh was farmer whose village was destroyed by a warlord. Akh was saved by a warrior named Ka. She followed Ka as he single-handedly defeated the warlord's forces and waged war against neighboring lands, gaining power, glory, and followers along the way. Ka rose to the level of a god-king, leading armies of magic, mutants, and monsters to toppling kingdoms and claiming the world for himself as Pharoah. Akh remained by his side throughout it all, using her vast summoning and augury powers to support his conquests until the armies and champions of the ancient world banded together to see Ka's kingdom broken.

As Ka’s reign cracked and burned, Akh was torn from him by her lover, Quarry. Together, they fled, only to be transformed into sandstone by Quarry's power, locked in a lover's embrace for millennia. Awakened in the modern ere by a random Adapted's aura in a NYC museum, Akh sought out an ancient artifact, the Ankh of Ascension. An artifact believed to grant godly abilities to mortals, it's believed Akh plans to use it to give a person the gift of time travel, so she can use them to pull her god and king, her Pharoah, across the eons and begin a new reign over all the Earth.

But to make sure nobody gets in her way, Akh has arranged for an army of modern-day villains to descend on NYC to cause as much havoc as possible until it's too late.

What Players Need to Know for Act 1

As the plot unfolds, an army unleashed by Akh is rising, unleashing chaos around the city. Calls for help will come to the X-Men, SUPER, Haven, and the Veil. The chaos provides prime opportunities for the Syndicate to exploit or for individuals to step up as heroes. Characters who walk the shady side of things might even engage in wanton destruction themselves or have been hired by Akh to do so. Characters might even be approached by The Lady in Red and given cryptic clues as to where and when to be to stop something.

All characters will know that villains are attacking the city. These are all people from modern times, and maybe your characters have faced some of them before. Members of the X-Men, Haven, SUPER, and the Veil will also know details about Akh. Any unaffiliated characters might be able to get information about who set the villains up for this after they defeat one of said villains, but it's unlikely the villains will know anything about Akh's background. You'll have to get that info (if you want it) from asceision magic, a member of one of the aforementioned factions, or wait and see if the media gets ahold of that info.

Interactive Plot Details

• This plot is open to all characters, regardless of affiliation or moral compass.
• Act 1, The Army Of Evil, takes place across a single day. All threads in this Act should be confined to this day. You can have multiple threads per character for this event, as long as the timeline makes sense. For the sake of personal timelines, this takes place on August 28, 2024.
• Post links to these threads in the Discord channel: #pd-act1 so we can maintain a timeline. Feel free to ping that channel when the threads wrap up.
• Once the majority of these threads have finished and the villains defeated, we'll move on to Act 2.
• If you'd like to uncover specific information or get your characters more personally entwined with the plot, reach out to a mod and we can see what we can do or reveal.
• You may also request a mod to NPC a villain for you (and any other players in the thread) by way of the NPC account, if you want a true surprise.

How Do I Join In?

To participate in the plot:

• Start threads related to the plot with the [PD] tag in the title. For example:
  "[PD] I'm Barad-Dun with these villains!."
• Engage in battles against the rising army of modern-day mutants, mystics, Adapteds, and baseline humans who are doing their best to make the city burn down.
• Work together with others to contain the destruction, rescue civilians, and prepare for Akh's ultimate reveal.

NOW GO AND SAVE THE CITY!
And if you have any questions, ask a mod or post in the Discord channel #pd-q-and-a