Knights, dragons, kings, princesses, evil cults, dark sorcerers, the usual hooks but with almost zero finesse as far as making them new, exciting, or even remotely interesting. It still has the aforementioned staples of the genre but I like to think it far less...juvenile now that I've added a bit of my own ideas to the mix (though to be fair I was 16 when I first designed it). You can check out the wiki for it by clicking on the link to the right of you if you want to get some specific setting details (I'll probably casually reference them). The quick version is that the story takes place inside the Kingdom of Damocles which is basically two governments with a powerful, and fiercely independent, city-state controlling the other half of the kingdom.
The Party:
1. Libris the Holy (Formerly Jardak Tubbs) - The Paladin/Inquisitor
2. Andrissa D'Anastasis - The Spellcaster Cannon
3. Amara Shadowsong - Rogue
4. Dregshak Mor - Half-Orc Fighter
Unfortunately for you, dear reader, this party is more about the lateral thinking and getting the job done as efficiently and safely as possible (without straying into the realm of paranoia) so instead of wacky hijinks you're probably going to get a lot of me being a giant whiner, which I guess can be entertaining. These guys are serious business like all the time, they set ambushes, actually look at their equipment lists, and they make sure they understand their abilities and when to use them. Essentially they are the kind of party that GM's have nightmares about. Though their character builds are more or less average they routinely take down monsters four to six levels higher than them with ease due to a talent for adaptive planning. You would never guess that a party whose Paladin insists that his name be "Jardak Tubbs" would be very proficient at much of anything at all ever.
Also as a side note: I'm noticing now that the party makeup is 50% beards, which is an impressive amount of manliness.
Originally everyone in the party were basically mercenaries doing government work and helping to stop the constant sacking and burning of the King's Trade Caravans as a tremendous amount of resources and wealth were being lost which was not helping relations with the neighboring Empire of Eisenheim because the majority of these caravans are native to, or carrying goods bound for, the Empire. Many within Eisenheim are critical of Damocles for their apparent failure to stop these raids and have concluded that Damocles itself is cheating Eisenheim out of the goods and services they paid for.
This was found to be a falsehood as the party discovered elements within Eisenheim actually want a war with Damocles, seeing the upstart Damocles as a threat to the long-term dominance of the Iron Kingdom. The party found an informant and foreign spies within the noble courts of the capital city itself spurring the King and his Council to mobilize for war and prepare for the worst.
During all of this Jardak was assigned to the party as a token of the church and the state's goodwill, he is a Paladin in service to Beryllus (God of Knowledge and Technology) and very devout. Followers of the Dark Goddess Hrusia (Goddess of Deceit and Betrayal) had attacked and slaughtered the church garrison at one of Beryllus's Holy Sites. Jardak and Co. were charged with leading the counterattack and the recovery of an artifact of great power from within the chapel. It was here that Jardak received the Divine Hammer Collegia Titanicus, coming into contact with his deity directly and his name being changed as a result of his god's attentions. Beryllus Himself renamed Jardak to "Libris the Holy" so that all will know that this is His chosen messenger.
Well everyone in the party has had similar experiences, receiving artifacts from their patron god or goddess and fighting against murderous members of Hrusia's Following. Libris was brought before the High Sovereign of his order and inducted into the Inquisition, to root out the corrupt and serve the Church of Beryllus and protect Damocles from spiritual forces. The party is sent to the Elven underwater city of Charabesh to find out the reasoning behind the severing of diplomatic relations between Damocles and the Theonal Republic and also to investigate the apparent correlation between Hrusian activity and brutal attacks along the coast of the Kingdom.
Well they make it to Charabesh unharmed and with the welcome mat rolled out for them (something they did not expect and it was fun to watch them adjust to being waited on hand and foot). Now the Elven cultures are magic obsessed, almost all of their infrastructure is completely run on arcane batteries and very convenient. I designed this entire underwater culture based on Ancient Sumeria (Akkadia, Ur, etc.) symbolic names, exotic forms of entertainment (Dancers in the lobby of the hotel, Hotbaths, etc.), and of all the things I let them play with...
it was the toilet that did it. This setting is essentially medieval with only the rich society being anything approaching clean as we would know it. I figured a magic obsessed culture would develop some of the more convenient inventions via magical study, I did not figure that these modern conveniences would fascinate everyone into stunned silence (it was weird). The toilets have an enchantment on them that shifts anything dropped into it to the plane of fire where it will be incinerated almost instantly. Libris, Amara, and Andrissa all stuck things in it for a good twenty minutes before figuring that they looked like tourists. Uncivilized tourists.
They reluctantly stopped.
I threw a curveball their way with the Governor being a succubus in disguise but they took it down in short order. Turns out the entire Council of Charabesh made pacts with demons for power and they inadvertently damned the city to be the playthings of Demons and Devils forever and ever. They found an underground resistance who had the patrol route of a Fallen Angel Captain of the Demon Prince that took control of the city. Multiple attempts on her life had been made, all of them resulting in the torture and/or death of all those involved.
They plotted for a good while about what to do, eventually settling for Explosive Runes on parchment handing them to a guard runner who was part of the rebellion and would deliver the message to Paubi the Devil Captain. The runner was a terrible liar and immediately detained by her bodyguards while she read the message:
"aaaaaaand boom goes the dynamite"
the resulting confusion was followed by an explosion like a grenade doing a sizable amount of damage to her and her cohorts. Andrissa Fireballed right in the middle of them, destroying the Elven Patrol Paubi was leading. The others descended on them from all directions and the encounter was over in about three rounds with no casualties, including the runner whom they managed to save from certain death ( though Libris nearly died after some pretty righteous hits from Paubi's longbow). They beat the Captain into unconsciousness and bound her, dragging her back for interrogation.
Paubi's challenge rating was about 8 and did not include the bodyguards she had with her. Three rounds. No casualties. They were a level 7 party of four.
Seriously guys. Tarrasque. Mark my words.
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