This story was a… dramatic way for my first campaign to turn out. Our DND group had just recently formed, and after the first-ever campaign most of us played ended, I stepped up to DM the next one. The story was pretty basic: Powerful wizard died, everyone wants his powerful spellbook. What wasn't basic was the party escapades while searching for it. There were 3 characters of note. The first was a winged tiefling artificer, the next was a Tiefling genie warlock, whose Dao patron wanted the book to increase his wealth, and the third started the campaign as an Eldritch Knight fighter but…. you'll see. The campaign started off with the party meeting, and after a bit of investigation, finding out that a cult was located underneath the church. They needed to wait till nightfall, so to pass the time they decided to… rob people on the street… uh ok? Since I had written in a thieves guild, I showed them a guy also robbing people and they had a little fight. Then they went to the cult hideout, fought some undead, and came upon the boss, a special wight who disguised themselves as a human. Their master plan was to unleash a horde of undead upon the world, and kill all living creatures. As the party began to fight him, the artificer made the decision to join him. It was almost a TPK, but after a small interparty fight, everything was resolved. They then went to investigate the thieves guild, and burst into a secret meeting and killed several of the leaders. By threating to kill the head of the guild, they made off with high ranking positions and hundreds of gold pieces. This was when the Eldritch knight character was replaced. The guy brought in a high elf arcane archer fighter, who was once a member of a druid circle. His circle was being attacked, so he was imbued wth ntres power and wants the ook to help save his circle. Pretty cool character right? But there was one catch. The character… was a tree. His name: Thorny McBramble. Next session, because of the king enacting harsh laws, the party decides to stage a massive prison breakout. They don't disguise themselves, and a few of them end up being seen. Next session, Thorny is gone, and the party first tries to rob a gem store, then disguises themselves as nobles and deposit their money into a high end bank, and end the session bribing a guard. It was still pretty fine, despite some of their more evil actions, but next session, it all went downhill. A painter had recently painted a mural depicting thorny in the prison breakout, and as he finishes, the party walks up to him. Thorny steps out and says hi. The painter runs off to the castle, and instead of trying to intimidate, persuade, or run off to the forests they were about to go to, THORNY SHOOTS HIM THROUGH THE HEAD! The guards begin to surround him and he then decides to TAKE A HOSTAGE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE STREET! He eventually escaped to the forest and was able to take out most of the guards, but this is where he begins to get obnoxious. It's mid afternoon, and Thorny, while the rest of the party wants to go on a quest, wants to take a long rest. Since he's technically an elf, he spends 4 hours resting, and the party just sits there. They finish up their quest, and go home, but the next morning, some guards come to arrest them. They are promptly fireballed into oblivion, but as more come, most of the party turns invisible(by some divine happenstance everyone but thorny could), and runs of to the thieves guild. Thorny puts up a fight, but is arrested. The king makes a declaration that if they find the book and give it to him, they won't be executed. They do some searching and end up knowinng that it's at the bank. For some context, know that originally the wizard was meant to still be alive, and that he just wanted an group of heroes to step forward. I couldn't really do it, because nobody in their right minds would call this group heroes. Anyway, back to what was happening. They convince the owner to let them in and they find it, as well as some treasure. They get it all, but then decide to lock the bank owner in the vault. They hide the treasure inside the Warlocks ring, and head off to the forests. They are being watched, they just don't notice. After a heated argument, they decide to head to Thorny's druid circle by way of teleportation. They get a wizard they know to draw the circle, but as he is, the king approaches. They argue, and the king has his mages cast sleep on them. 2 of them fall asleep, but since artificer is in the air, he falls to the ground and wakes up. Thorny is an elf(not a warforged which would work a lot better with being a tree), so he is unaffected. This is as current as it is, but Thorny does plan to betray the party and get the book himself. I had planned to have the party be local heroes and adventure around, but looking at where it is headed, I have switched tracks to have them start Storm King's Thunder, so that by the time they come back to the city(which by the way, was meant to be the party's home base), emotions surrounding their abject villainy would have calmed down.
[zombify_post]
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