When my parents finally relented and allowed me to play D&D, it was the era of 2nd edition. I met JFP through my high school art class; he asked me about my drawings from my super heroes games and we talked about how he wanted to run a D&D campaign.
NH and I went and joined JFP and his friend KG for some character creation. KG had a human fighter/wizard multiclass who had been fighting in an arena; his character's initials were DL. NH made a human druid with the initials PM. My half-elf thief was Merry Nill or MN. The first time we played I had no idea what we were doing. THAC0, AC, and weapon speeds, were foreign concepts to me. My character actually died in the first adventure (fighting either scorpions or dire badgers - I can't remember which, but we were on horseback and I had my character go down to the ground to fight them and he got surrounded. Oops). Luckily PM got Merry resurrected.
Sessions 451-475
Our characters started off in the Kara-Tur region of The Forgotten Realms world Toril, connected by being friends with a family there. PM had been living with an Asian family when Merry the sailor had washed up on the shore (after his ship was lost at sea due to a storm). The family took in Merry; he and PM helped protect the little girl in the family. At some point DL joined with PM and Merry, but he probably had some secret alternative purpose; we later found out he was part of a secret order of evil assassins and spies. The head of the family was assassinated. Hmmm. I wonder who did that?
(Above: Picture from the 2E Sages book that could have been DL & PM)
Once PM and Merry saved up enough money they bought passage on a merchant ship and sailed (for 6 months) to Waterdeep, where Merry had grown up as an orphan on the streets (with some help from a man claiming to be Merry's Uncle Hugo); Merry worshipped Waukeen and often quoted the "Rules of Profit" [inspired by Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's Ferengi Quark]. We had a lot of fun with low-level stuff. We had the character take downtime so that Merry could cross-train as a wizard (because I realized a low-level thief wasn't very powerful in the gaming world)...
*In Waterdeep, they dealt with the Fire Knives and met Jaluth.
*The group went to the High Forest to explore elven ruins, but were captured by Zhentarim troops.
*They escaped the Zhentarim, but ran into 4-armed halfling monsters in the woods.
*PM and Merry followed the monsters to a tower and assaulted the tower.
*Merry surrendered after PM was KO'd by the monsters. The evil wizard Gadzel took them prisoner and magically altered them; Merry turned gray-skinned and had shadow powers while PM got green hair and her own special abilities.
*Gadzel sent PM and Merry on missions; they had to go retrieve altered alien thri-kreen.
*The mission took them near the village of Fallenwood, where they met Captain of the guard TR and the elf scouts Kanesiat and "The Beastrider" who were investigating a murder. [Several years later, at the end of the campaign DL admitted that he was the one who committed that murder.]
*TR promised to free Merry and PM from Gadzel's control, but a portal opened up and sucked in the adventure party - which had dubbed itself the "Justice League" (because TR was a paladin of justice).
*The group had a huge battle with monsters, the room exploded, and they ended up in the Abyss.
*Eventually, they found their way to Sigil, where TR tried attacking the mountain.
*Merry's Uncle Hugo showed up and recruited the team to "rescue Waukeen" (a dead god) in the Astral Plane. The team fought githyanki guards and awakened Waukeen by removing a sword in her dead god-body. More enemies showed up and fought the group - it looked like Waukeen might have been killed again - and the team was taken by some sort of mists...
*The Justice League was unknowingly in Ravenloft! They ended up hunting werewolves, etc.
*As the Ravenloft adventures continued, the met with the local bergomaster (mayor) and went to Barovia.
*[Note: AJ joined us as a winged elf wizard, but got very frustrated with JFP's DMing and had the his character kill himself - which resulted in Merry getting the winged elf's gear, including some new spellbooks]
*In Ravenloft the team found out PM looked just like Lord Count Strahd's love interest Tatyana; the team tried fighting Strahd, but lost.
*Strahd, instead of killing off the team, recruited them to help kill liches that worked for Vecna.
*The group encountered the hand of Vecna! Emdar, a servant of Jergal, rescued the group and took them home.
*Back on Toril, the team interacted with some sages.
*[BW and AB had joined in the adventuring at some point]. Kanesiat, Hydrax, and TR were all killed when the team dealt with a dragon and a strange door.
*Merry bought a shop in Waterdeep and a tree that he named after Kanesiat (in honor of his good friend).
For these adventures I assume our DM used the following source materials:
Kara-Tur sourcebook, 2E Forgotten Realms, 2E Waterdep/City System, probably a modified Ruins of Myth Drannor, Planescape material with sigil, a modified version of the For Duty & Diety module, the Ravenloft sourcebooks/modules, the Vecna modules, and source material about Candlekeep.
No comments:
Post a Comment