I suppose I should start by giving a bit of background on the setting. The campaign I joined was ongoing -- it was sold to me as a low-magic, human-only setting (I like low fantasy, so I was understandably eager to play). I learned the following much later -- had I known it beforehand, I probably would've been a lot more hesitant to join.

Namely, the setting had been the GM's ongoing project for a number of games. They generally followed the pattern of the PC's achieving epic level, ascending to godhood, then causing some sort of apocalypse while fighting off a cosmic threat, with the next campaign starting with fresh PC's having to deal with the aftermath. The campaign I joined was the third or fourth iteration on this theme.

Basically, a magical cataclysm happened a couple centuries ago, wiping out every race except for some surviving humans (though one of the PC's was a dragon) and warping magic to the point where learning to use it became very difficult. The human survivors banded into a single country under a king, though at this stage most of the power was held by five noble houses with each one doing their own thing. The two remaining deities were Selerik and Vraius -- ascended PC's from the setting's previous iterations (as it turned out, one of the players had played Selerik in the last campaign), but they kept to a mostly hands-off policy, leaving people to their own devices.

Also, a fair bit of what I just told you turned out to be a great fat lie.

When I joined, I was told to make a level 7 character to match the group -- they had been playing since level 1. I was to be a replacement for a That Guy who threw a shitfit and left. From the way my friend described their previous sessions, I expected a fair bit of court intrigue and politics, with some light adventuring on the side.

Enter Marcus Revaine, priest of Vraius and spiritual advisor to the nobility. Mechanically, he was a Rogue/Monk. If that sounds subpar, that's because he was -- but he was built to function in the setting as described to me, not in the setting as it turned out to be -- he had all kinds of skills, both practical and social, while his combat style was built around improvised weapons, surprise attacks and non-lethal takedowns -- the image I had was of him thumbing through his holy book to find a pertinent quote, the suddenly turning around and bitchslapping someone with it.

As a last-minute addition to the group, we had a tabletop newbie who's initial idea for a character was "I want to be an archer." His name was Dren Arlen, a minor noble in a major house, and Marcus would come to hold him responsible for much of what came to pass.

The two of us were to join up with Chance Castaldi, renowned scholar (Bard) and second son to a minor noble house and Wraff, a Very Young copper dragon, adopted member of one of the major noble houses and possibly the last of his kind.

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First session starts with Chance and Wraff arriving in the capital to report to the king on their mission to a city under the mountain -- something about assassins. It seemed important -- Chance kept bringing it up in conversations for several sessions, but it never amounted to anything -- I suspect the DM forgot about it in his hurry to get to the next plot point.

Dren and Marcus enter the city around the same time. Dren is carrying some sort of message for the king and Marcus is there for his own reasons. Dren ends up asking Marcus for help with finding the palace because he is pic related.

No, seriously. The player ran him as so perpetually clueless and lost, the DM decided to turn it into a minor superpower where he'd teleport through furniture, but only when he didn't intend to -- in the group, his character earned the nickname Sir Lostandfell.

Another thing of note is that the capital is showing significant battle damage -- apparently, it was attacked by an army bearing the symbol of Vraius a few days ago and although the attack was repelled, Marcus's cassock is earning him some dirty looks.

Everyone meets up at the palace gate, with Dren making absolute hash of convincing the gate guards to let him in -- the character had this baffling and difficult to describe habit of speaking as if he himself wasn't sure what the next word out of his mouth would be. Chance steps in, decides that Dren's message has something to do with his own discoveries, then drags him and Marcus along to talk with his father at the Castaldi estate.

Upon arriving at the estate, the group find it abandoned -- except for all the servant corpses nailed to the ceiling. While looking for Chance's father and/or brother, they get jumped by assassins. At the same time, Dren's Skype connection drops and the DM rules he gets knocked unconscious by some sort of poison dart, leaving Marcus to bear the brunt of the attack.

A lot of feinting and punching happens, with the dragon flying around breathing acid and Chance revealing some ridiculous power that lets him convert a round of bardic performance into an equivalent of a Dovakhin shout.

We kill the attackers and their garb identifies them as belonging to belong to an elite (read: homebrew PrC that can go invisible at will a few times per day) Vraius assassin brotherhood.

Also, the city is under attack by Vraius's forces again.

>>25795571
this campaign sounds really cool dude.

>>25795604
It started out awesome -- I will not deny that. I loved the first couple of sessions. Some of the things that happened afterwards though... ehhh, you'll see.


No warnings, no alarms. The army is already in the streets, fighting against noble house troops and the castle guard. In fact, some are already inside the castle, while the rest are pushing hard against noble forces, with the latter desperately holding onto the last city gate in order to allow the citizens to evacuate.

At this point, the party splits -- Wraff flies off towards the castle to try and aid the king, while Chance and Marcus head toward the noble house troops -- Chance hopes to find his father there, while Marcus is wondering whether he somehow missed the capital attack memo during the last sermon. He's also carrying Dren's unconscious body, which Chance magically disguised as a sack of grain.

Wraff flies in through the throne room window to find the king throwing chairs at enemy troops (apparently, it was a "thing" the king did when he was angry). He breathes acid, killing five or so soldiers, then gets pincushioned with arrows and flies back out with half of his HP missing.

Chance and Marcus make it across most of the city unmolested thanks to Marcus's clothes and Chance's diplomancy. The only hurdle turns out to be crossing the actual frontline -- the troops there are more alert. However, they find a quiet spot on the flank, where they locate a single soldier who demands to know who we are. Chance tells him they are carrying vital supplies. Then Marcus hits him with Dren's body.

Marcus and Chance rejoin the noble forces only to find that Chance's brother is there, but his father is missing -- in fact, the heads of most noble houses are missing.

Also, Vraius's forces are redoubling their attack, so Chance volunteers himself and Marcus for a precision strike at their commanders. He manages to talk House Heron -- the official "wizard house" -- out of one of their precious Fireball scrolls and off they go.

Meanwhile, Wraff reenters the castle through a different window, hoping to offer assistance in some other way, or at least to find out what's going on. Unfortunately, somewhere along the way he gets distracted by the treasure vault (because dragon). The way he justifies it to himself while using his acid breath to melt through the vault door, is that the more gold he eats, the less there is for the enemy to seize.

Once inside, he proceeds to gorge himself on as many gold coins as he can -- not that many, as it turns out, given that he's still only the size of a housecat. Somewhere along the way, he stumbles along the magic item vault, where he spots a particularly impressive sword that's giving off a rainbow-colored aura. Since the sword has "McGuffin" written all over it (and is also very pretty), Wraff grabs it and proceeds to try and sneak out of the palace.

Over with Chance and Marcus, they leave Dren in the medical tent and take to the roofs in order to get in range of the enemy's command structure undetected. Since Marcus is technically working against "his people" here, I justify it in character as him believing that this attack is some sort of schism that he wishes to be no part of. In the end, he turns out to be correct… in a very ass-backwards way.

In any case, as Marcus is the only one with actual ranks in Acrobatics, he ties Chance to himself with a rope and pretty much guides him every step of the way. After some mishaps and shenanigans, they get into position. The DM rules that the spell will take a couple rounds to fire off, so Marcus distracts everyone with a short speech and some evil laughter (I honestly forget what the reasoning was behind thas -- I think I just wanted to show off my evil laugh, since I have so very few chances to do so). Fireball goes off, a whole lot of officers die and the two of them run the hell away.

In the castle, Wraff runs into a man dressed all in red. Red leather armor, red boots, red cape, red wide-brimmed hat with a feather in it.

It's Vraius himself -- in the flesh.

A word on Vraius. As mentioned, he was a PC in a previous campaign -- a rogue with insane social stats, who eventually became the god of lies, trickery, hedonism and all the other good stuff. At that point, his Diplomacy checks essentially produced compulsion effects with a sky-high Will save.

A Will save that Wraff promptly fails, as Vraius beckons him to hand over the sword, sits the dragon on his shoulder and heads for the throne room.

Session goes into full cutscene mode, as the DM begins to describe how the throne room is filled with Vraius's elite troops standing guard over the captive king and the heads of each major house -- except, notably, for House Bear. A large ritual circle is drawn in the middle of the room and Vraius places the sword in the middle.

The god begins the ritual, the heads of houses and the king get their throats cut, with their blood fueling the circle. Tentacles begin emerging from within the sword, killing random people around the room, with a few piercing right through Vraius who, unperturbed, tells them to "cut that out."

Out in the city, Chance finally fails a critical Acrobatics check and plunges off a roof, dragging Marcus along with him. Marcus manages to slow them down so that they both only take minor damage, but now they find themselves surrounded by the enemy.

At this point, a voice rings out in Marcus's head -- and, as it turns out, in the head of every follower of Vraius in the city.

"Thank you for all you've done for me, my children," it says. "I wish you luck -- as I fear that now I must abandon you."

In the castle, the ritual enters its apex. A spark emerges from Vraius's chest and enters the sword -- in turn, the sword open a portal, through which steps a huge, grayish-green be-tentacled abomination. Unfazed, Vraius greets it with something along the lines of "Good to have you back, buddy," and they both walk out of the room, leaving the bodies, the sword -- and Wraff -- behind.

Wraff, suddenly freed from the mental compulsion, investigates the ritual circle. He finds that the king's body turned into some creature with gray skin, warts and a froglike head and that the sword, while dulled and darkened, still radiates magical energy.

He grabs the sword -- and it immediately begins telepathically speaking to him. If I remember correctly, its very first line is "Oh, hello there. You know, I'm really hungry. Could you please find a brain and stab it with me?"

Wraff decides that he should find Chance and show him the sword.

>>25795649
>Then Marcus hits him with Dren's body.
why did i find that hilarious

In the wake of Vraius's last message to his faithful, the fighting in the city ceases immediately. Some of his forces are crying, most are on their knees, praying. Marcus, being quicker on the uptake than most, runs for the nearest clothier's shop, where he exchanges his priestly cassock for something less likely to get him killed.

True enough, the noble forces descend upon the praying army, killing them or taking them captive, while Marcus stands off to the side nodding and thinking "Yup, sucks to be them."

Wraff arrives -- at this point we've all leveled and he advanced a size category, so he is suddenly Small -- with the sword and news of what happened in the castle. Chance immediately convenes a meeting of the group, with Dren (this being the next session he miraculously recovers) and Chance's brother joining us. Chance holds the sword and it also begins speaking to him. It says "The person you call your brother over there? You should totally kill him."

Chance refuses, of course, but his brother is acting somewhat suspiciously, so the bard demands more information from the sword, getting little but an elaborate "Dunno -- but you totally should." He finally ends up touching his brother's exposed flesh with the blade -- which causes the "brother" to hiss and recoil, as his skin in the touched spot briefly turns gray and unnaturally smooth. The "brother" attacks and we kill him -- revealing him to be a doppelganger.

The sword asks that we stick it into the thing's brain.

After some finagling, Chance agrees to do so and there's a godawful slurping noise as the Sword extracts its brain along with the knowledge within. It then immediately demonstrates a newfound ability to change shape by becoming a set of metal claws on Wraff's forelimb, while Chance decides we need to head back to the castle and start sorting out the political mess this whole affair created.

By now, the castle is full of nobles of all stripes, looking lost and confused, and Chance declares that for the sake of the city and its people, he wants to form the new Royal Council and elect a Regent before the shock wears off and everyone starts politicking. He grabs Dren and drags him off towards the Council Chambers, while Wraff hires Marcus as his retainer/bodyguard and drags him off towards the treasury to continue looting.

At this point, we waste an hour on the DM rolling up random magical loot -- the only two things of note from the haul are a +1 Int book, which eventually goes to Chance, and a Ring of Blink that Marcus calls dibs on. The latter comes useful almost immediately.

Over in the Council Chambers, Chance is filling in the assorted nobility on the latest events, namely that Vraius has given up his divine spark for some reason and that there are doppelgangers among them. This prompts exclamations of mockery and disbelief, cut short by a large number of doppelgangers suddenly revealing themselves and starting to murder people left and right.

While the castle guards who survived Vraius's attack fall under the monsters' claws, Chance herds the nobles into the king's private library -- supposedly the most secure room in the castle. Said most secure room in the castle turns out to come bundled with a descending ceiling trap that one of the doppelgangers activates.

As all this is occurring, Wraff and Marcus are on their way back from the treasury, only to run into four doppelgangers standing guard over a lever, with a low rumbling and terrified screams audible from behind the wall. Marcus jumps into action, successfully tumbling through the doppelgangers, throwing the lever and proceeding to kick ass while the monsters miss every attack against him thanks to his shiny new ring.

The Sword, which Wraff is now carrying, having claimed it as part of his hoard, chimes in, offering to teach the dragon how to wield blades in exchange for "a miniscule portion of his life energy." Wraff agrees and uses the newfound knowledge to begin cutting down doppelgangers left and right.

With the ones by the switch dead and the nobles saved, Wraff and Marcus move on, only to run into a very confused melee between some castle guards -- it turns out these doppelgangers haven't shifted out of their disguises. With the sword providing guidance, we pick off the right ones -- mostly. One of the guards Marcus drops turns out to not be a doppelganger, but a supposedly extinct elf, which he almost kills with a particularly brutal critical hit before realizing his error. At which point he decides he's had enough of the Sword's shit with its vague hints and directions.

At some point during the fight, the Sword suggests that Wraff hand it to Dren -- the dragon reluctantly does so, at which point it morphs into a bow, allowing Dren to lay waste to the surviving enemies. It is at this point that Dren unconditionally falls in love with the Sword.

With the fight over, the Sword expresses desire to be held by Marcus. Marcus responds with "FUCK NO" and the issue gets dropped while the Sword eats a few more doppelganger brains.

Chance is currently calling the shots due to his apparent superior knowledge and the ability to not get everyone killed. He decides to go out on the balcony and give a heartening speech to the people of the city. He ends up rolling so well, the populace pretty much falls in love with him on the spot. He then turns around and heads back in to finally get the Council elected. Though first, the Sword informs the party that "they should really kill that guy over there." That guy turns out to be one of the highest ranked surviving members of House Heron.

Chance confronts him about it and the noble gets lippy, displaying disbelief and outrage. Chance's solution is to hire Marcus as his personal bodyguard/enforcer and give him the order to hit the offended noble a few times.

Marcus does so, at which point the noble summons some sort of demonic half-bird abomination, which we kill and Chance has the noble dragged off to the dungeons. Everyone decides to wait until the next day to actually elect the Council.

As the party -- excluding Marcus -- retires for the night, everyone -- excluding Marcus -- hears the Sword telepathically wish them a good night.

Marcus spends most of the night in the castle's library, researching the history of the sword before it became the Sword -- with a Natural 20 on the Knowledge check, he discovers its original name -- Narsillus, the Godslayer. He also finds that the blade never displayed sentience before, which leads him to conclude that the Sword's current state is the consequence of Vraius's actions (a "no shit" revelation, but it was good to get confirmation).

>>25795916
OP I am quite enjoying this storytime

The next day begins with Chance taking the Sword… ok, I have to stop here and explain something.

The Sword was simultaneously the best and the worst thing about this campaign. It was one of the most brilliantly executed instances of a villain you love to hate I've seen in a tabletop -- reveling in being unabashedly evil, while at the same time being just useful and personable enough for everyone to put up with it. I fear that my description of it will never do the character justice.

At the same time, the bloody thing shattered any semblance of party cohesion. Chance saw it as dangerous but too useful to get rid of. Marcus hated it with a passion and wanted nothing to do with it. Meanwhile, Wraff and Dren -- the latter, especially -- were like two toddlers left alone in a candy store when it came to dealing with it.

It goes without saying that the Sword was important to the plot -- but I also think it was hugely detrimental to the plot, because the amount of time we spent fucking around with it distracted us from everything else that was going on at the time -- and the DM used that against us with a vengeance.

So keep in mind that I may be a tad biased when it comes to talking about that damned blade.

The next day begins with Chance taking the Sword down to the dungeons to question the Heron noble and the doppelgangers taken prisoner. The former tells us nothing, while the Sword repeatedly expresses a desire to eat his brains. When talking with a doppelganger, it suggests that Chance hand it over to it. Chance decides it would be a good idea -- despite Marcus telling him "don't do it."

Surprise, surprise, it turns out to be a bad idea. As soon as the doppelganger grasps the hilt, the Sword takes it over and puts it in some kind of "superpowered mode." The doppelganger proceeds to run straight through several walls and into the necromancer's cell, where it stabs the Sword into his brain. Then it tears off outside, further weakening the castle's structural integrity, with the rest of us in pursuit.

Once on the streets, the group realizes that it's heading towards the Monks of Selerik monastery on the outskirts of the city. Fortunately, half of the way there, whatever force was propelling the doppelganger runs out -- and it collapses into an unconscious heap, its arms burned black up to the elbows.

Chance gives it medical attention, finds it another cell and chastises the Sword. The sword cheerfully informs him that it was just hungry and that there is some very powerful creature under the monastery. Also, that the Heron noble was a necromancer and that there's an enormous undead army marching on the city from the direction of the ocean.

Chance then decides it's time to go and elect the Royal Council.

>>25795997
I love this story. I'm totally stealing this sword idea, too

>>25795937
Thank you.
However, beforehand, Chance visits the elf Marcus almost killed -- the elf proceeds to gives him all kinds of sullen looks and refuses to say anything. Chance chooses to let him go -- with the full intention of stalking him using scrying spells later on.

The Council candidates fill a whole range of stereotypes. There's the merchant house with one candidate who already bought off all his rivals. There's the military house, with a total of three candidates -- with one of the being Dren of all people. There's the wizard house -- house Heron -- where one of the candidates is the necromancer's wife (I don't think we ever told her he was dead) and the other is the "good witch" archetype who was visibly falling for Chance. Then there was the "we take in weirdos" house with Wraff as the highest-ranked surviving member -- and thus the only candidate. And there was the missing House Bear, which Chance decided to continue without.

Elections hit a deadlock almost immediately, as House Heron and House Alder (Dren's house) can't decide on who will represent them. Everyone agrees that the Council should first elect a Regent, since he'll have the power to elect council members.

Chance is the obvious candidate -- the necromancer's wife immediately protests, which means House Heron is forced to abstain. The merchant house representative pretty much asks "what will you give me if I vote for you?" House Alder supports Chance. Wraff… Wraff proposes Dren for Regent.

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There's snorts of disbelief and snickers. But then the vote takes place and… House Alder supports Dren because they can see he's an idiot and they're more concerned about who leads the house. House Heron once again abstains, because the necromancer's wife thinks her husband would make a better Regent. The merchant house gets an outrageous promise out of Dren and votes for him. A majority is achieved.

Dren is elected as Regent. He then gives a very drawn out and awkward speech that involves praising the Sword for the help it has been and how he intends to use it to protect the kingdom. Marcus and Chance facepalm heavily throughout, while Wraff wears his best trollface.

Dren's first act as Regent is to commission the creation of a suitably impressive hat to fit his new position. Then, with some heavy prompting from the rest of the party, he actually elects the Royal Council -- we get the "good witch" from House Heron and the older guy from House Alder -- it turns out that the remaining two candidates were in fact father and son. This also turns out to be completely irrelevant in the long run.

Somewhere in all this, Wraff decides that the necromancer's wife has insulted him and demands satisfaction. She agrees to a duel and Wraff hires Marcus on as his champion. The next day, Marcus gets to beat up a former assassin of Vraius.

Chance and Marcus get hired as the new Regent's new personal advisors. Funds are allocated to begin rebuilding the city. Chance speculates that the aforementioned massive undead army may be the reason for House Bear's absence and decides that he should scry on what is happening.

Somewhere in all this the Sword asks Wraff to take him down to the late king's crypt so that he can suck out his brains before they completely decay and Wraff agrees. Sensing trouble, Marcus follows and tells Wraff to stop. They have a brief tussle, then Wraff suddenly changes his mind and walks out, leaving the Sword on the floor. Still refusing to touch it, Marcus gets a pair of blacksmith's tongs and a box to carry it around in.

Shortly afterwards, Dren decides that he should be the one carrying the Sword and demands that Marcus hand it over -- Marcus has little choice but to do so. The Sword reveals a sudden desire to start making deals with people -- granting them special powers or abilities in exchange for tiny bits of life essence or future services. Wraff and Dren immediately begin getting ideas.

The Sword convinces Dren to take him to the Selerik monastery, where the party fights an ancient undead monstrosity that jumps out of the well. The DM belatedly realizes that Dren's archer build plus the Sword's "demon bow" form make him stupidly powerful (he later sheepishly admits to upping the monster's HP mid-fight, as the damage Dren dealt in the first round would've outright killed it).

The Sword wants to eat the monster's brain. Marcus argues against it, but realizes no one will listen to him, so he instead agrees on the condition that the Sword stops being a "cagey motherfucker" and starts giving straight answers when asked a question. The Sword agrees and gets stabbed into the monster's head.

Immediately afterwards, it begins groaning and "vomiting" sparks and rainbows -- it turns out that undead brains aren't part of the complete breakfast. Whatever -- a deal is a deal.

Somewhere in all this, Chance decides to cast Speak with Ancestors, hoping to find out what happened to his father (who's still missing). Instead, he gets Selerik.

As in, the god, Selerik.

For reasons I forget, Marcus is also part of the entire scene, so he hears everything. After the prerequisite "Wait, does this mean you're dead?" "No" exchange, Selerik spouts off some vague musings on how Vraius is being the typical an impulsive idiot and that he won't achieve his goal, no matter how many villages that thing of his wipes out in the north. He also makes it clear that he has no plans of getting involved in the entire mess. After that, he departs, putting Chance "on call" with his father, confirming that he, at least, is dead.

When Chance asks dad about Selerik, the latter remarks "we don't talk about that" and to ask Chance's (also dead) grandmother. He also offers no constructive information about the circumstances of his death or his body's current location.

In the meantime, there is an assassination attempt on Regent Dren -- we find out of it is when we find him in his chambers, alive but unconscious, clutching the sword in hands that are blackened up to the elbows (as I recall, the player's connection dropped again, so the DM decided to get creative about why he's missing). This time around, the Sword is silent as well -- though it recovers after Chance casts a couple Cure spells at it. It states that it had to do the same thing it did with the doppelganger earlier in order to save Dren's life. He calls "awakening the divine spark" inside a person -- this later turns out to be a complete and utter lie.

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>He hires as a bodyguard
>Hires as a hireling
>Hires hires hires
>commission the creation of a suitably impressive hat to fit his new position

Keep going OP, I miss storytime

The next day, Chance scries on the head of House Bear, revealing him to be on the ocean shore, battling undead. Contacted through a Message spell, he yells out that they've been battling the undead for several days straight and that the corpses don't stay dead when dropped -- they rise back up and continue fighting.

Also, the ocean is rising -- the shore he is on isn't the actual shore -- it is several miles inland by now.

The Council begins making immediate plans to send relief to House Bear. The problem is that no house wants to send its own forces, justifying it as them being needed in case of another attack at the city. Wraff suggests that they give the imprisoned warriors of Vraius a chance at redemption by fighting the undead. After Chance and Marcus patiently explain to the Regent why this is a good idea, he agrees and appoints Wraff as the general of the newly formed army. Wraff turns to Marcus and hires him as his second in command.

The group sets off to collect the imprisoned soldiers from around the various city prisons and noble estate dungeons. Some of them agree, many do not, preferring to sink into apathy in the face of their god abandoning them.

I can't quite recollect what order the following events unfolded in, but in a short sequence of revelations, the group finds out that House Alder has been unlawfully executing its prisoners, that there is an impostor Regent turning the city guard against the real one and that House Alder has pulled an army out of its ass and it is currently laying siege to the merchant house's estate in the city.

Somewhere in all this, Wraff and Marcus hatch a plan to get Chance married to "good witch" Lady Heron. Upon hearing of this, Chance's player OOCly remarks that "grown men should not be shipping."

This does absolutely nothing to stop us.

Marcus leads the small group of freed warriors to reinforce the besieged estate, with Wraff in tow and the Sword in a box on his back (he took it after Dren was found unconscious "for safekeeping" -- in reality, he intended to go forward with a plan of his, but circumstances interfered) and Dren himself (whose player thought he still had the Sword on him and immediately started bitching when it turned out he didn't). Chance chooses to stay out in the city and wait for the House Heron troops to arrive.

Chance uses magic to disguise himself and mingles with the besieging army, undermining morale while making his way towards the command tent. He gets Marcus (we were all communicating with Message spells) to unleash the warriors who use their special PrC powers to beat the shit out of the army's officers. He himself confronts the enemy commander, who turns out to be the older House Alder member -- or rather, a doppelganger posing as him.

Here, my recollection is a bit hazy on what exactly happens -- the whole thing ends with Chance finding out that there is some outside influence forcing doppelgangers to mess with the kingdom, as they themselves would prefer to stay out of sight, the commander dying and the surviving house Alder forces falling under the control of the younger Alder, who is still himself and loyal to the crown.

Somewhere in all this, the head of the merchant house convinces the Regent to become betrothed to his daughter, who is thoroughly unimpressed with the subsequent awkward attempts to hit on her. Also somewhere in all this, Wraff gets stabbed by a child.

To elaborate: in the previous session, Wraff got into a subplot involving his house's children who went missing during the attack in the first session. With the aid of Chance's scrying, he tracked down the children and their kidnappers, lost them again because the kidnappers were, of course doppelgangers, while the children themselves were half-doppelgangers (later I found out that the mother -- the previous head of the house -- was half-drow half-doppelganger and that her father was somehow Vraius, and I don't fucking know anymore).

Wraff eventually finds the kidnappers, but not the children, but he somehow manages to persuade the doppelgangers to start working for him and also to return the children to him. And so they do, once the battle with House Alder forces is over.

The children proceed to shank him with a poison-coated dagger in the middle of a hug.

The poison turns out to be some sort of dragonsbane and after Wraff blows his Fort save, it nearly outright kills him, dropping him down to 3 Con and single-digit HP, as he took some damage in the earlier fight. The player goes wtf, the children start crying, then they explain that people told him Wraff wasn't who he claimed he was and eventually they make up.

The last remaining outstanding issue is the Regent impostor, who's currently holed up in a precinct with a number of the city guard. The group arrives there and Chance attempts his diplomancy, but it turns out that the guards have all been either deafened or had Silence cast on them specifically to prevent that from working.

The group fights their way in, Marcus's nonlethal takedowns coming in useful, and they confront the impostor and the remaining guards in the main courtyard -- we catch him in the middle of giving a speech, seemingly oblivious to the fact that everyone around him is deaf. Dren flies into a rage when he realizes that the impostor has a more impressive hat.

Chance digs up a Dispel Magic somewhere and does his thing, while the impostor turns out to be a terrible swordsman -- also, contrary to all expectations, he also turns out to not be a doppelganger. Instead, he claims to be a hired actor who just happens to look similar to the Regent.

Marcus manages to persuade Dren not to execute him for the grave crime of Having Superior Headwear, instead arguing that having a body double would be advantageous in the light of the recent assassination attempt. Dren eventually relents -- but only on the condition that the impostor does not have a more impressive hat.

Lady Heron finally arrives with her forces. To the surprise of everyone present, Chance proceeds to drop to one knee and ask for her hand in marriage.

Flustered, she agrees.

Nice story so far.

Fun, and a little lulsy.

Everyone understands the need to hurry in the face of the looming undead threat, so they decide to dispense with the ceremony. Chance hires Marcus on as a priest and shortly afterwards, the group gathers in the castle chapel.

The vows are said, Marcus proclaims that if anyone has anything against this union they can shut right the hell up and the newlyweds kiss. Immediately afterwards, Chance startles slightly, frowns, then asks his new wife to excuse him for a moment. He takes the group off to the side and loudly exclaims "SUNOFABITCH."

See, earlier during the battle, Chance made a deal with the Sword -- he asked for immunity to mental and emotional influences -- or at the very least, to be alerted when the Sword detects such influences upon his person. In exchange, the Sword asked for the ability to control Chance's actions for a set amount of time. The bargain was struck and the Sword invoked his side of it almost immediately in order to troll Chance straight into marriage.

Of course, in this campaign, there are no good news if bad news don't immediately follow.
After the wedding, the most veteran of Vraius's warriors -- Gunter was his name, I believe -- appears before the council, announcing that he and his fellows decided to renounce their vows to Vraius and instead to form the Order of the Sword, swearing upon the Sword to protect the kingdom.

Marcus thinks this it a terrible idea -- and states so loudly -- but as is par for the course by now, everyone ignores him and decides it is an awesome idea -- or at least does not say anything to oppose it.

It is at this point that Marcus realizes that the rest of the group is made up of colossal idiots and that he should not expect any help from them when it comes to curbing the Sword's growing power -- previously, it has plainly stated that it grows in power with every deal formed between it and another person and it has also been pretty open with its ultimate goal of forming the perfect society where everyone is well-fed, cared for and educated -- and thus has a delicious brain full of knowledge.

Thus, it is perhaps not surprising that Marcus has his own moment of idiocy when a stranger asks to talk with him that night, before the group departs to aid House Bear. The stranger reveals himself to be a vampire who's been making a secret living as a butcher up until now and professes abject fear of what the Sword is capable of -- he claims that he wants to aid Marcus in destroying the Sword (he also calls the thing "Bob"), handing him a book that supposedly contains such a method.

As I mentioned, Marcus commits an act colossal idiocy by taking the vampire's words on good faith and not giving thought to any possible ulterior motives.

In the morning, the group rides off to confront the undead army. The journey takes several days, though it is shorter than expected, as during that time the ocean continues to progress dozens of miles inland (because magic, shut up). House Bear is on its last legs despite their legendary stamina (custom feats that make you resistant to exhaustion and able to hold your breath for ages -- because magic, shut up). I have to leave that session early, but I later hear that Wraff's player did some quick math and realized that his acid breath would allow him to melt 5000 or so zombies in the space of 10-15 minutes. The DM went "ohshit" and pulled the undead back into the ocean after losing 3000, at which point the session ended.

Next session, Chance manages to get his hands on some ingredients somewhere and makes several water breathing potions, so that the group can go down underwater and negotiate with the merfolk, who are behind the undead attacks. Wraff stays behind, as he declares himself to be useless underwater and still not fully recovered from the poison (we had no means to cure ability damage at this point, other than resting).

The group meets the merfolk, they agree to talk, but then their leader arrives and declares that he will only talk with group members one on one, loads Marcus onto his seahorse chariot and carries him off into the depths.

>>25796498
> but then their leader arrives and declares that he will only talk with group members one on one, loads Marcus onto his seahorse chariot and carries him off into the depths.
this can't end well

The leader shows Marcus destroyed merfolk homes and undead hacked to tiny pieces that still attempt to move and attack on their own -- he blames humans for sending the undead here to attack the merfolk and claims that what they are doing is justified revenge. Despite Marcus's best reasoned arguments and pointing out that one group of humans is different from another group and that they do not all have a common agenda (and rolling decent Diplomacy), the leader remains firm in his anger and rides off, leaving Marcus in the middle of nowhere.

Marcus decides to sod this and swims to the surface.

Meanwhile, the leader repeats the whole tour with Dren, with the Regent doing an even worse job of persuading him: "Well, could you pleeease just… stop attacking uuuus…? Maaaaybe…?" That, and the character has no ranks in social skills and negative charisma. The negotiations end as they did with Marcus, except that Dren decides to hang out in the spot the leader left him in, looking lost.

Then Chance's turn comes. He makes basically the same arguments Marcus did, except that his roll all but turns the merfolk to putty in his hands. Chance contacts the Royal Council with scrying and offers the merfolk a seat on it, then browbeats everyone else into accepting this. The merfolk decide to reveal the means by which they were raising the ocean and controlling the undead -- a giant magical talking conch that is brought up from the depths by a kraken (because of course they have a kraken, shut up).

The Sword, silent up until now, expresses an interest in talking to it.

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>merfolk
>leading the undead attack

Marcus, who is now back with the group because reasons, says it's a bad idea. That, in fact, it is a terrible idea and that nothing good will come of it. But by now you all know how that ends.

The conch is delighted to finally, after so many centuries, have a chance to speak to another intelligent item.

The Sword, for its part, is delighted to absorb all of the conch's magical power as it screams and begs for mercy.

The kraken does not kill us on the spot because the DM realizes he doesn't quite want a TPK -- it does tell us to get the hell out of its sight though. We somehow keep the treaty with the merfolk, but it proves to be absolutely pointless in the long run.

The DM then decides that the party needs some downtime, so he has the head of House Bear more or less kidnap everyone for a two-week sabbatical at his country estate.

>low magic campaign
>all this use of magic
>humans only
>merfolk, dragons, dopplegangers, and undead.
sounds like you got conned OP.

>>25796597

This is pretty entertaining I don't know what OP's problem is.

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>>25796595
>The conch is delighted to finally, after so many centuries, have a chance to speak to another intelligent item.

>The Sword, for its part, is delighted to absorb all of the conch's magical power as it screams and begs for mercy.
this sword is the pinnacle of fucking awesomeness so far.

The way I had it explained to me, House Bear members are essentially barbarian scholars. They are the keepers and collectors of old lore from before the cataclysm -- this includes magical tomes and items, history books, old weapon caches, etc. Thus, the estate the group arrives at contains an enormous library. Most of the group jumps at the opportunity to do some research -- there's a fair bit that happens during our stay, so I'll summarize:

- The aforementioned Bob was the third god of the setting's pantheon -- another former PC, who looked like a human-sized Cthulu in a mobster suit and became the God of Punching. He was/went evil and he died during the magical apocalypse. Vraius was a good friend of his and now he's trying to bring Bob back. Chance believes Bob is irrevocably dead, however -- he is neither the abomination with Vraius, nor the soul inhabiting the Sword.

- Chance finds and reads the Book of Exalted Deeds and from now on is one level ahead of the rest of the party.

- In a mini-session without Marcus's involvement, the rest of the group finds the Necronomicon. The book begins insulting Chance, who decides that the most mature response is to unfasten his pants and piss on the eldritch tome of evil. In turn, the Necronomicon attempts to kill Chance and is only stopped by the Sword -- who absorbs the book's power, the way he did with the conch.

- Upon hearing of these shenanigans, the head of House Bear says that if the group uses the sword again on the estate grounds, he will throw the guilty parties off his property.

- News arrives from the capital that the Order of the Sword is exposing hidden necromancers and vampires in the city and press-ganging them into serving the Order. Marcus buries his face in his hands.

- The Sword informs Wraff that there was a silver dragon soul trapped in the Necronomicon. Wraff decides that he wants some of that and strikes a bargain with the Sword through which he gains a silver dragon template. Meanwhile, Dren strikes a bargain that I'm not entirely clear on, but that apparently involved gaining some of the Necronomicon's powers.

- Upon hearing of these shenanigans, head of House Bear kicks Dren and Wraff off his property.

>>25796649
See? What did I tell you? The Sword was so fucking personable and badass, you couldn't really stay mad at it for long.

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>>25796595

This sword is stone cold

While all that is going on, Marcus manages to study the book he received from the vampire. It talks about something called soul-joining. In essence, it describes the process by which the Sword can grant people superpowers and claims that it is at this point that the Sword can be killed -- all it takes is also killing the murdergod currently wielding it. Marcus files that under Plan B -- or possibly D.

Instead, he researches the shit out of methods to destroy magical weapons and artifacts. He happens upon something called the Rust Plague -- essentially, a living Rust spell that House Bear members frequently have to deal with when unearthing old weapon caches.

For the sake of a clear conscience, Marcus tries to get Chance on his side one last time. All he gets is a noncommittal "but the Sword's useful for now" and a condescending "don't worry about it -- I'll deal with it when the time comes."

He then approaches the head of House Bear and calmly explains his reservations regarding the Sword and how it may affect the future of the kingdom. The head then equally calmly explains that he shares Marcus's concerns, but he cannot offer him any direct aid. To do so would mean moving against the Regent -- and that would be treason.

With that topic closed, he casually mentions that there is a free spot on one of the House expeditions heading into the mountains to open a newly discovered weapons cache.

Marcus says that he would be delighted to further his education by joining in on the discovery.

Before leaving, Marcus realizes that he will need some way to contain the spell. He finally finds a Magic Jar in the House Bear pantry -- it is being used to store jam.

Though it's apparently really awesome jam -- after Marcus obtains permission to take the jar, the cook packs him jam sandwiches so that it doesn't go to waste.

Then he spends the next week freezing his ass off in the mountains, hoping that one of the caches contains what he needs. Luckily, one does -- he collects a piece of a sword undergoing rapid decay into the jar and also grabs a pair of magical boots that later turn out to be Boots of Skating. He then returns to the estate just in time to set off for the capital with Chance.

Meanwhile, in the capital, Dren and Wraff gather an army to march against Vraius and Bob the monstrous resurrected Cthulu-thing. In fact, they leave before Chance and Marcus arrive, but since it's an army on the march we are talking about, the latter two quickly catch up.

Sword: "Hey Marcus… *snff* *snff* I feel you have some new magic in your pack."
Marcus: "Oh yeah, I got these new boots from House Bear. They're pretty awesome."
Sword: "Yeah, but… *snff* *snff* I can sense something else."
Marcus: "Oh, that must be the Magic Jar."
Sword: "And what's in the Jar?"
Marcus: "Jam."
Everyone: "…"
Marcus: "Oh yeah, House Bear gifted it to me. They were using the jar to keep it fresh. It tastes awesome."
Sword: "That… actually sounds totally like something House Bear would do. Never mind."

Chance scried on Vraius and his buddy a few days earlier, so the group detaches from the main army and goes to visit the village our targets were at. Naturally, there is nothing there anymore, save for a pile of decaying villager bodies, so Chance scries again.

This time, Bob detects the scrying attempt -- and also senses that the Sword is with us. It loudly proclaims that it feels it and teleports in. Sudden boss battle!

Dren draws the Sword and activates the super mode. The Sword morphs into a bow and they begin laying into Bob. Bob begins laying into Dren, dealing serious damage. Marcus is punching Bob in the kidneys and Wraff is flying around breathing acid, while Chance does his shout thing. After a few rounds of this, Bob drops. The Sword eagerly demands that Dren stab him into Bob's skull.

"Don't do it, Dren," Marcus says, his hand slipping behind his back, grasping the Magic Jar.

>>25796772

Was the DM worse, the same as, or better than, your portrayal of him?

Because although I understand you did not receive what was advertized, I would have loved to be in that game; its definitely my preferred balance between madcap, luls, and serious drama.

"But I want to do it," Dren replies.

"It will not end well."

"The Sword says it's a good idea and I trust him. He's my friend."

"Please don't do it. I'm asking you, as a friend."

"Why should I listen? You're not our friend. You don't like me or the Sword. You're only ever saying mean things about him. I'm going to do it."

"I can guarantee that if you do it, you will regret it immediately afterwards."

"Look, he's regenerating. We need to kill him. I'm doing it."

"If that's what you want…"

Dren stabs the sword into Bob's skull. Simultaneously, Marcus seizes his hand, whips out the Magic Jar -- and shatters it on the Sword's blade.

The Sword shoots into the air, screaming. A string of light orbs begins to emerge from it, flying off and dissipating one by one. Dren gapes in shock in horror as cracks appear across the blade, which finally disappears in a deafening explosion.

Then there's only thousands of rust flakes raining from the sky.

Chance gives Marcus an infuriatingly bemused look, then casts Speak with Ancestors, hoping to get Selerik again, along with an explanation for what just happened. Instead, he gets his grandmother, who he asks about how the hell she got it on with a god.

Dren -- the poor bastard breaks. He goes full emo, weeping for his dead friend, disregarding the armor disintegrating on his body (Marcus took the precaution of not carrying any metal possessions around) and trying to collect the falling rust flakes into a jar.

Wraff has to suddenly contend with being a voice trapped inside the mind of an adult silver dragon female who is understandably very confused about what just happened.

Marcus… Marcus simply grins like a motherfucker while hacking up Bob's body into teeny tiny pieces, just on the off-chance that it decides to stand back up again. Mission accomplished. Two evils defeated for the price of one.

Of course, in this campaign there are no good news if bad news don't immediately follow.

Chance gets two magical messages, back to back -- one from the army commander, the other from his wife in the capital. Both virtually the same -- the Order of the Sword warriors have all fallen unconscious. The necromancers and vampires have turned on the human troops and are killing everyone in sight.

We need help.


>END OF PART ONE

moar

Apologies for the cliffhanger, but typing all of this up already took me something like 5 hours. I will be back in a day or two with the rest.

>>25796878
I tried to be as fair as I could with my portrayal of him. He had some good ideas, he had a talent for voicing NPC's (very helpful when you're playing over Skype) and he was very enthusiastic about the whole campaign -- and you could tell that this was an ongoing setting that he put a lot of love into.

At the same time, his execution didn't quite live up to the presentation. There was the inexplicable magic out the arse, the kraken out of nowhere, and other things that will start heavily showing up in the second part. He had no sense of scale -- see armies popping up left and right -- and he didn't give the players a sense of how much time was passing, whch almost resulted in a TPK once. A lot of the things we did didn't really matter and me and and another player often felt like he favored Chance's player over everyone else.

I don't know. As I said, I have conflicted feelings about this campaign.

If anyone has any more questions, I'll stick around for another hour or so. Otherwise, hopefully you'll be around for the next thread.

>>25796692
>another former PC, who looked like a human-sized Cthulu in a mobster suit and became the God of Punching.
A mobster mind-flayer who became the God of Punching?

Sounds like a hell of a PC. Would've been cool to have been in that campaign.

>>25795782
He did specialize in improvised weapons. That could do some decent damage.

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>>25797044
No surprise you feel conflicted about this game. If that's what the DM understands as low fantasy I'm scared to think of what he considers high fantasy. All in all, sounds like a fun silly campaign, the kind you play with your friends while having some beers, but yeah, you're not alone: if someone would've asked me to play a game such as the one you just described I would've told him to piss off.

Not because there is nothing wrong with the game per se, mind you, but because it doesn't fit with my gaming tastes. Anyway, could've been worse, no?

>>25795649
>find the king throwing chairs at enemy troops (apparently, it was a "thing" the king did when he was angry)
I'm stealing that for my next game.

>>25797342
I also took Improved Feint and that feat which doubles your SA dice when you make non-lethal attacks. Marcus could be a scary man in combat.

>>25797655
We also never got a clear answer about what the king was in the end, though based on the description of his body, I think it was a gray slaad.

He also had a house-sized horse that would not let anyone else ride it, until we rode it to fight the undead army.

Like most of these sort of things, it never came up again in the game.

Can someone screen cap this? This story is awesome.

>>25802064
Doing that now

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>>25802370
1/?

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>>25802813
2/?

>>25803018
3/?

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>>25803152
Shit forgot image

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>>25803172
4/?

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>>25803297
And, 5/5

>>25802370
>>25802813
>>25803018
>>25803152
>>25803172
>>25803297
>>25803368

Wonderful. Thanks dude.