It was the second century in the counting of the years of the kings and queens of Galifar when the Reclamation of Lhazaar sailed through the mists of time and arrived upon the forested shores of Q’barra. And for reasons the surviving crew of the Reclamation could not comprehend, the vessel was no longer able to navigate through time as it had done countless times before. It seemed that the Reclamation was trapped in the distant past.

127 YK, Q’barra

In the jungle, the heroes heard a great commotion. Masses of lizardfolk, troglodytes, and other scalyfolk as well as a herd of dinosaurs of all kinds were stampeding through the tropical forest. They were being pursued by armies of humans from the nation of Galifar. Gerkin, being a tailor, recognized the soldiers’ raiment as being 2nd-century variants of modern Karrnathi outfits.

These were Gerkin’s own ancestors, tearing down the trees while slaughtering and enslaving all the the indigenous scalyfolk they could find. Yet these medieval Karrns were wielding strange psionic weapons, including whips that caused psychic agony and ectoplasmic armor that absorbed blows, the likes of which the crew of the Reclamation had only heard rumors of existing in the distant continent of Sarlona. How did the Karrns and Galifarans come to possess such weapons in this time period?

The question was answered by a stowaway aboard the Reclamation. It was the ogre mage whom the heroes had confronted off the shores of Valenar. Now, the ogre mage, who named himself Aku, offered a truce and such aid as he could offer, for he claimed that his goals aligned with those of the heroes.

Aku was also a time traveler, but one that traveled across the river of time through the realm of dreams. He had hoped to align himself with the Death Tyrant, who also possessed powers of chronomancy, and gain greater powers over time while evading the wrath of the Eyes of Chronepsis, a powerful order of ancient dragons that watched over the ripples of time and protected the timeline.

“If they are so powerful, why have we never heard of them before?” the heroes wondered.

“It is likely that you have encountered them, but such is their power that none of you remember it,” Aku answered. “For the Eyes of Chronepsis are tasked with defending the history of Eberron, and therefore the Draconic Prophecy, from being manipulated by mortal chronomancers.”

But now, it seemed that a rogue time traveler had indeed caused a great shift in the history of the world. Aku explained that an unknown time traveler had arrived years before the current date in another time machine, disguised as an abandoned lighthouse, and changed history by introducing Sarlonan technology to the ancestors of modern Galifar. The motives of the rogue time traveler were unclear, but the results of the change to history could already be seen.

As Aku created an illusory projection of the time traveling lighthouse, the heroes recognized it from the visions that they had witnessed. It was the same lighthouse that they had sought to reach upon the shores of Lake Cyre.

Before the heroes could unravel the newest mystery, Gerkin was in need of a relic to aid him in his arcane studies. He required an ivory figurine in his own likeness, but no one aboard the Reclamation possessed the skill to craft an object with such fine detail. Aku informed the heroes that one of the tribes of scalyfolk in Q’barra might be able to assist them, if the heroes rescued the tribe from the human invaders: the Cold Sun lizardfolk tribe, said to be ruled by celestials from the plane of Syrania; the Black Scale Dragonborns, who had conquered the territory of a lizardfolk tribe sharing the same name; or the Poison Dusk clan of lizardfolk, recently conquered and eaten by troglodytes, who had a few skilled lizardfolk crafters remaining that had not yet been eaten by the troglodytes. In addition, a Galifaran expedition led by a famous gnome big game hunter also had connections to the dragonmarked houses of this era whose artisans could provide such an art object for the right price. And, barbarian reavers, arriving upon the Q’barran shores from the distant Seren Isles, included carvers of bone and ivory among their ranks.

The heroes decided to approach the Black Scale tribe. They found that the conquering dragonborns had in turn fallen under the reign of a young black dragon. This dragon demanded ivory carvings in her own likeness, but she was never satisfied with the offerings. She threatened to devour the remainder of the Black Scales if her demands were not met. The heroes stepped in and worked together with the dragonborn crafters to magically animate one of their ivory figurines in order to impress the dragon. 

When they presented the animated figurine to the dragon, they were startled to witness a mystical connection forming between the dragon and the figurine, as if the figurine had gained true sentience and had become part of the dragon’s being.

It was then that the dragon called out to the heroes for help, for she was under the influence of an extraplanar creature from the realm of dreams: a quori spirit from the plane of Dal Quor. As the quori exerted its control over the dragon, the heroes were forced to fight the dragon. The quori inhabiting the dragon was defeated, but the dragon was tragically slain during the battle. 

When Aku the ogre mage saw the dead dragon, he was aghast. He revealed that the dragon was none other than Vvaraak, a powerful chronomancer who lived backwards through time. Vvaraak had been destined to teach druidic magic to the first orc Gatekeeper druids of Khorvaire, thousands of years in the past, when the hobgoblin empire waged a desperate war against alien invaders from the Far Realm. Without Vvaraak, the world, and its history, would be threatened by the alien invasion.

To save Eberron and its timeline, the heroes had to travel to the distant future, where they believed a younger Vvaraak might still exist. But how could they do so when the Reclamation was unable to navigate the river of time?

Aku revealed that the ivory figurine that had gained life and sentience now contained a remnant of the slain dragon’s essence. And more startlingly, it had transformed into a true dragon’s egg! The latent chronomantic power held within the egg could transport the heroes through time to find a younger version of the Vvaraak in the future.

Yet Aku also warned the heroes that they would be entering a wider ocean of time than before, and how far they would travel was anyone’s guess. It might be a week, a decade, or centuries into the future. Nevertheless, the heroes knew that they had to make the attempt, or else the world would be lost.

Myrnas manned the helm of the Reclamation and began to guide the vessel through a rising mist. The temporal gauge, which indicated the current point in time, began to rise as the vessel traveled across the timestream. The figures on the dial rapidly rose from three digits as centuries sped by, then to four digits as the ship traversed millennia… to five digits… and finally to six digits. The Reclamation had traveled over seven hundred thousand years into the future!