Sunday, October 10, 2010

Good Bye Heavy Metal D&D Campaign




Last Monday night marked my last session in a weekly D&D 4E campaign that I was playing in. Weekly sessions combined with it being on Monday nights were taking a toll on me. Instead of just bailing, I wanted to finish Heroic Tier and the story arc before claiming back my Monday evenings for myself.
My character Memphis Green had died the week prior and while I wanted him to go down heroically, I was hoping it'd be against the big bad that we were introduced to in the very first session. For my newly created character, I came up with Huggles X.
A quick improvised burial was arranged for Memphis Green in the same place that he fell. He's laid on an arrangement of rocks and wrapped in the blankets from his adventurer's kit and then set ablaze. Just as his remains burn and the elven shape collapses, Skull notices Huggles getting a lot heavier while sitting on her shoulder. The little dragon hops off and primal energy begins to emanate from the ground and vines begin wrapping around Huggles forming a larger humanoid shape. The dragon familiar's face is the last thing to get enveloped and the transformation completes with what look like black and green eerie descent chitinous plates. He then bends down and picks up Memphis' old hat, places it on his head and pulls the brim down.
For this character, I stated him up as a Dragonborn Ardent. Why? Tiny was sick so our healer would be missing, so that responsibility would fall upon me. Not to mention that going from five players to three would make things a little harder. Yes, having heals is a good thing.

We charge through the great doors into the room where Babagya waits for us. Fully ready, fully prepared and she begins summoning her Zombie Turtle minions. She's is wrapped in a veil of darkness and gets into our Paladin's head a few times. She literally crawls into his head, causing harm to him and denying the rest of us the option of hurting her as we'd be forced to club on our Paladin unless he himself forces her out of his mind. Aside from her veil of darkness, the ability to summon minions and attacks that cause status effects, she wasn't a very "strong" character.
When the last blow connects with her, she cackles and laughs that she was the last of the Colossi which prevented a dead god from coming back. She had to be killed by those of pure intent (though I question that as we were trouble makers whenever we were left in cities). The big kicker that really got me was there that there was no apocalypse themed magic book that her death cult were after. She orchestrated the theft in the great library that would hire us to retrieve it so that we would kill off the colossi and in the end, her.
When she draws her last breath, the ground shakes with the floors splitting open and spilling out grey and pink flesh. Lando had the fireball, Indiana Jones had the boulder, we got brains growing. Our characters hop onto thier flying broomsticks and attempt to GTFO! A great skill check took place where we came up with fantastic ways to navigate through the halls of the dungeon and outrun the brains and the swarms of goblins running for dear life.
Alas, we failed the skill challenge and all turns black. When Skull and Triptych awake, they find themselves just in rags on a Drow airship. Their equipment are gone, Huggles X, Bruce Fitzyu, Brooke and the Chicken Hut are nowhere to be seen. When they look over the deck of the ship, they see that they are part of a massive fleet of airships, carrying away a huge land mass containing most of the city of Sternum. In the background, a massive skeleton with muscles slowing growing upon it as the dead god slowly comes back to life. Skull and Triptych sail away into the Astral Sea.
It was a blast and an awesome ending to Heroic Tier. I felt saddened that I would not be continuing in this adventure as I could not commit to the schedule. It really felt like watching the ending of a good tv series for me.

2 comments: