How I created a Cleric so lovable that my party’s main focus became his happiness

The story of how my party had salvaged their faithful Cleric's happy ending.


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1 comment, 1 point

So I’m relatively new to DnD as this story takes place right around my 4th campaign ever. For context I’ve only played an outdated artificer, a rogue/fighter multiclass, and just an average full on fighter. I had never made a character that could cast magic. (unless you count the artificer, but all I did was throw vials of acid and stuff) So this was my first caster… a Cleric by the name of Hishu Riler.

So the campaign we were playing is a sequel to a previous campaign I played with the same party plus a few new friends we’ve made some being newer to DnD than I was. Only 2 players among this party knows I like to change up my PC’s personality’s and motives in the most diverse ways just to expand my roleplaying potential. In the previous campaign that over half the party was present for witnessed me playing a bloodthirsty and murderous dragonborn gladiator of black ancestry who’s only objective was to grow stronger, return to her kingdom, and overthrow her rival through vicious gladitorial combat. At the end of that campaign she parted ways with the party and suposedly defeated her rival and became Queen of her vicious and unfriendly kingdom. (More context: This is basically a kingdom of Draconic Amazons… Only the strongest of female dragonborns are fit to rule.) The party generally did not get along with this character for she was Lawful Evil, but she did turn out to be a valuable ally in combat.

So the party was in a group making characters for the new campaign most of us kept our old ones. I personally like messing with my group so I hinted that I was making a new dragonborn PC (I like playing dragonborn especially with tails and horns cuz flavor) to replace my old fighter for it would not make sense for her to stick with the party after becoming Queen. I also told my party that my old PC may have sent her Royal Guard to take her place among the party. We were in a group voice call at the time, but even then I could feel the metaphorical exhange of glances. They were all expecting another violent and bloodthirsty PC that they were all going to have to restrain from “murder hobo’ing”.

The day of a session 0 one-shot happened… where some of us introduced our new characters to the old party. I intentionally went last to introduce my character as my PC was running late to encounter the party. The party was re-uniting with an old familiar NPC named Audrey who helped us defeat the BBEG in the last campaign. She was currently drunk in a bar due to the pressure of being a princess and sheer boredom from doing diplomatic stuff for 3-4 days. She’d rather go on adventures or be drunk, but the party had to retrieve her for some ceremonial election going on in the kingdom. As the party was collecting her from the bar and making new friends one of our barbarians comedically leapt through a broken glass window (previously smashed through by the same barbarian to get into the bar for he does not use doors) exiting the bar right around the same time my character charged through the front doors in a hurry and collapsed on the floor due to exhaustion. The bar-keep was frustrated with the barbarian as for he has been the cause of the loss of multiple panes of glass, but the party was more focused on the dragonborn who had faceplanted just in front of the indoor welcome mat. The wild-magic sorcerer and Paladin helped the poor blue dragonborn up and tried to talk with him. He spoke, but he stutters in his speech and appears to be very nervous. He had apparently ran all around the continent looking for them on foot with no directions at all, looking for a wild magic sorcerer who he had called out by name. In fact he knew almost everyone in the old party as for his Queen (my previous PC) had gave him a general description of the old party members. When he mentioned the name “Enyo” sending him to aid the party referring to her as his “ladyship” the party immediately understood what had happened to an old ally of theirs. He introduced himself as Hishu Riler the royal guard to the kingdom of Barkstone. Throughout the one-shot Hishu has been easily startled and had shown timidness when talking to anyone. The party expecting another murder hobo and felt something was off.  The party began to ask questions. How did this blue dragonborn become a royal guard?! He was too sweet and pure to be a bodyguard for the royal murder hobo that was my old PC. Hishu did not like violence and fighting and later revealed that he’s a Cleric to Eldath the goddess of peace. This was NOT what my party was expecting at all from me. Their voices of confusion were gold. As they now saw that I was going from murderous to wholesome mode. As the party slowly adjusted to Hishu’s character they tried to bond with their new Cleric. Hishu tells stories of his time as a royal guard… naturally there were a lot of questions about their old companion… whenever Hishu speaks of… her… he mentions how he lives in fear of his Queen as she is often hostile and angry. It’s also worthy of note that Hishu seemed to visibly shake at the mere mention of my old PC. (which we shall name “Enyo” because I’m sick of referring to her as old PC or fighter)

The one-shot reaches its conclusion and there’s a 5 year time jump to the first session of our campaign Wrath of the Far Realm. Throughout the campaign Hishu has shown his timid nature and outward shyness in social situations, and when initiative was rolled Hishu would attempt to reason with the enemy no matter who or what it was saying that “there is no need for needless fighting” or “nobody has to die today”. Hishu goes out of his way to seek out peaceful solutions to combat and avoids initiative rolls at all costs.
Overtime Hishu warmed his way into the hearts of my party members and even my DM too! They all didn’t just love Hishu. They adored him. Having him introduced to the party was like getting a puppy for christmas. The DM loved the idea of a jumpy life Cleric who’s afraid of almost anything. Though to my consequence of making such a lovable character the DM loved to pick on Hishu just to incur the wrath of the party. My DM loved Hishu, but to his credit he played the roll of a sinister and cunning DM to the end. He didn’t let his love for Hishu get in the way of the outcome of his campaign.

At the start of the campaign the party was given a mission to take on a Lich building an army of undead in the North. The party effectively convinced Hishu that the Lich was not going to talk peacefully until after we’ve been turned into a walking corpse… Hishu still tried anyway. After we mowed through undead with the help of our paladin we encountered the Lich in which both of our barbarians had pinned down the Lich. He failed the grapple check. He was forced prone. The Lich laughed as he cast Power Word Kill on our sorcerer who Hishu brought back immediately with Revivify before cowering in the corner. As the party was curb stomping the prone laughing Lich I noticed all the spells the Lich was casting and had a brilliant idea. The Lich was coy using his spells to attack the party even whilst grappled. On my next turn Hishu asked the Lich a question. “H-how w-would you r-r-rate you pain?” (“How would you rate your pain” became Hishu’s comedic catchphrase as I would usually say that before casting Inflict Wounds) Before the Lich could answer I had cast Silence on the Lich. The DM looks at the Lich’s character sheet in horror as he has realized what I’ve done. I have effectively taken away the Lich’s only means of fighting back. All of his spells were verbal. He could literally do nothing but surrender or accept his death. He chose death as for he’s already dead he had nothing to fear, his soul… spirit thing… exited his body and floated above the party laughing… that was until his soul was immediately sucked up by a weird blue sphere-shaped  artifact.

The party took the artifact with them and returned home victorious. Between sessions we realized that Hishu didn’t have magic items like everyone else and the DM allowed me to choose one rare and two uncommon items. I being still new to DnD asked the party for recommendations as I looked through a list online… Hishu ended up with a Wand of Web, (in which I never used) a Gem of Brightness so I can subdue enemies without violence, and the most important item… a Robe of Eyes which was recommended to me by my Paladin who lives in the same apartment as my DM. She said the DM winced in response to the robe’s ability to see invisible things. So with that kind of reaction I naturally took it! Anyways I’m paraphrasing the next few sessions here to keep this short.

The following session had us fight these alien looking creatures who seemed to want Hishu for some reason. He was tasked with protecting the artifact since he had the Robe of Eyes in which Hishu was uncomfortable carrying around as there was supposedly an evil Lich inside it possibly wanting vengence. The creatures came in a UFO in which we later found out was a Mechanis ship (I don’t know a lot about DnD lore so I just went with it) The alien looking things were holographically disguised to look like aliens as they were just big golem looking robots. When the aliens aggressively asked for Hishu to come with them the Paladin reacted with hostility as Hishu was in tears fearful for his life. The party tried to keep the Paladin calm and attempted to work things out peacefully for Hishu’s sake, but then our Paladin drew her sword and sliced off what appeared to be a weapon on the alien’s arm… it sort of looked like a ray gun… it was.

After a long combat we hijacked the ship to go to Mt.Celestia because our Paladin had a dream that her God, Lathandar was in danger to some God-killing ancient beings called the “Observers”. We arrived. Mt.Celestia was fine yet overworked as thousands of evil and good souls were being organized by the angels at the front gates and it looked to be a hassle as the line was all over the place. Hishu calmly waited in line as the party went to solve this crisis until finally the party got in. Our Paladin wanted to go see Lathandar and ask about the artifact, but Hishu wanted to see Eldath first. They ended up seeing Eldath first because they didn’t have the heart to upset Hishu. Eldath welcomed Hishu even though he was new to this Cleric thing for at the time he has only been a Cleric for about 5 years now and being in the physical presence of your god is overwhelming. Hishu asked Eldath for guidance on what to do with the artifact, but she was cryptic telling him that it was a dangerous artifact that she trusts he’ll do the right thing with. She had complete total and utter faith in him, but wouldn’t give Hishu a straight answer on what he should do with it. To make matters worse she tells Hishu that the fate of the universe rests on what he does with that artifact. No pressure am I right?! After a friendly encounter with his god Eldath told Hishu to “follow his heart”. The angels waiting outside the party seem to speak about Eldath with some disdain as they respond with “She told you to follow your heart didn’t she? Yeah she does that.” This made Hishu somewhat sad and yet fearful of the power within his claws as he holds the artifact. Hishu hands the artifact off to our Paladin who went to go see Lathandar to ask about it since “he’s more straight-forward”. As the party struggles to register an appointment with Lathandar (It’s worth noting there was no need to register for an appointment with Eldath) Hishu proceeds to the Eldath church of worship looking for answers on the lack of respect for Eldath among the angels and realized that there were like… 2 or 3 angels in the house of worship. It was here that Hishu realized how few Eldath’s followers are, and fears that he may be Eldath’s only Cleric. That it was all up to him to restore Eldath’s dignity. Hishu returns to the party as the conversation with Lathandar was pretty shady. Lathandar kindly asked our Paladin to hand the artifact over. The party having plently more wisdom to know that something’s not right begged our Paladin not to hand over the artifact. Hishu in tears tried to get our Paladin to see reason, but our Paladin trusted her God over the party in which Lathandar teleports away with the artifact that Eldath had trusted Hishu with. The Paladin looks back at the party thinking she did good only to find the party furious with her as Hishu ran out the temple doors crying only to get arrested by angels along with the rest of the party for “stealing a Mechanis ship and harboring an illegal”. Lathandar had clearly betrayed us as the party was put in dimensional shackles and thrown on a Mechanis prison train. Our Paladin in disbelief of the betrayal. The train ride was eventually attacked by pirates as they robbed everyone onboard and comedically saved everyone including the party as they sent the train on a crash course for Mechanis. Hishu however escaped his own cell as he tore off the electrically charged cell gate with a shoulder charge. Hishu was a blue dragonborn so I took half the lightning damage and despite his gentle nature Hishu tore the gate off its hinges! (Pehaps it was just RNG but his strength was decently high so it was assumed Hishu didn’t know his own strength) Hishu with the help of the pirates, was able to recover the artifact that Lathandar supposedly teleported away with for it was onboard the train for some reason locked up in a safe. He decided to keep this secret from about half the party including the Paladin.

The pirates were organized by Audrey the NPC that I talked about earlier. Yeah I paraphrased some plot to keep this short, but basically she died at the end of the session 0 one-shot and her soul was directed to the wrong place that somehow led to her being a plane-traveling pirate? Death was weird in this campaign, but our DM explained that certain people who’ve died are alive-ish on every other plane except the plane they originally died in. As the party caught up and slowly got over their aggression with our Paladin. Hishu met up with a Halfling NPC who was also rescued… and robbed… on the train called Nancy Brightmoon. She was an investigator looking into why all the souls are being directed to the wrong places for she too has died on the material plane 200 years ago via spike trap. She responds with a similar timid nature to Hishu as she also stutters when talking to strangers. In fact her personality was the spitting image of Hishu! The party immediately shipped the two characters together. As she helped remove the dimensional shackles from the party.

Eventually we got to a point where Hishu revealed and handed the artifact to some Cosmic being made of stars that lived in Limbo for it was 1/8000000 of a piece of her. The entity tasked the party with retrieving the rest of her from the Mechanis on a heist of sorts, but we needed to go back in time to retrieve a powerful artifact that the party used in the previous campaign in order to pull off the heist. In order to go back in time to retrieve the artifact we needed to steal a time machine from Mechanis. The party spent days in The Full House planning the heist until one of Enyo’s messengers arrived to the bar asking for Hishu to return to Barkstone as his Queen had summoned him to return to her side as her Royal Guard for she had found a worthy replacement for Hishu’s position amongst the party. Hishu was freaking out quaking in fear for he did NOT want to return home. The party was not willing to part with Hishu, but the messenger could not go empty handed. The party went with the messenger in Hishu’s stead to reason with Queen Enyo.

My DM allowed me to take over as DM for this segment since I knew more about Barkstone than anyone else did. Our DM played as our Paladin’s Squire, Hazel who follows us around on adventures. So the party went to visit their old party member Enyo Godsbane. When they arrived in her kingdom which was in some strange demiplane, the residents were generally hostile… As the entire population were all Dragonborn, Kobolds, and anything considered Dragonkin. All other races are seen as “prey”. There were very few NPC’s there that were kind to the party, but they managed to get away with not getting immediately slaughtered by explaining they seek an audience with their Queen.
The party speaks with the evil Queen as she stares at the party with a cold expression expecting Hishu, but instead getting the entire party. She appears to be VERY confused on the party’s insistance on keeping Hishu, but she wants Hishu back badly… so she cuts the party a deal in exchange for Hishu’s freedom. In the previous campaign there were three shadow sisters that antagonized the party and Enyo had brutally killed two of them. She stole a creepy sword from one of the sisters that takes souls from people killed with it, and with that sword Enyo killed another one of the sisters and took her soul. Nobody knows what happened with that soul. The last shadow sister a dark elf by the name of Lyra had got away. Enyo had tasked the party with finding and killing Lyra with the creepy sword and retrieving her soul in return for Hishu’s freedom. With that promise Enyo was generous enough to let the party keep Hishu for a few months until the party can collect Lyra’s bounty. Before the party headed back they visited Hishu’s old home and acquired a stuffed rabbit from Suzita Riler, Hishu’s mother that was in his old room. This rabbit was Hishu’s security plushie and offered him some courage in social situations. They also found some baby photo’s of Hishu. (they asked for me to put that in the one-shot)

Afterwards the party returned to the material plane. Then it was off to steal a time machine! I’m skipping a lot of this, the main focus is Hishu afterall. The party steals a time machine and managed to talk to an “Observer” for a while. Who ran away in fear when the party mentioned who sent us on this quest. When we returned back to our present time we had found that the Cosmic being from Limbo had betrayed us and revealed herself as the BBEG! Hishu had felt defeated for he believed that he had truly failed Eldath as he was the one who handed the artifact off to the now apparent BBEG. Though our wild magic sorcerer took some levels in Cleric prior to this reveal (around the time we first encountered this Cosmic entity) and had claimed to the party that he was a Cleric to Eldath, but now he had to bring it up to Hishu that he had lied to him for he was a Cleric to “Cosma” the BBEG! Upon that reveal Hishu snapped and had attempted to kill our sorcerer with Inflict Wounds. Hishu’s gimmick was the more he dropped to 0 Hp under the course of the entire campaign the closer he is to snapping under emotional pressure. The sorcerer counter-spelled it as the party tried to restrain Hishu. The party was mostly on Hishu’s side though, as the party was very upset with our sorcerer for betraying poor Hishu’s trust like that. The sorcerer felt bad and attempted to apologize, but wild magic happened when he casted counter spell. The sorcerer rolled for the wild magic table… he rolled a 50. “For the next hour the caster bursts into a fit of evil maniacal laughter everytime they open their mouth”. So when the sorcerer attempted to apologize… he started laughing. The sorcerer realized this and immediately shut his mouth and grabbed his throat. The party was needless to say not happy with the sorcerer. Cosma had sent us a message to meet her on the material plane. The party then decided to confront the BBEG.

When the party arrived to the scene all of the friendly NPC’s and allies we had met over the course of the two campaigns were present and magically forced to kneel before Cosma. Our Paladin’s squire who we had left behind at The Full House before heading off to jack a time machine was now restrained by cosmic chains behind the BBEG. Cosma brags to the party and announces this to the whole universe for she has brought all the planes together stacked up on top of eachother. She brags about how she manipulated the party going into how she influenced each of our backstories and how many NPC’s she disgised herself as to lead the party to this moment! For Hishu specifically Cosma goes up to him as the party attempts to shield him from her and mentions how she gave him that vision that led to him becoming a Cleric of Eldath. In short we had been manipulated to make Cosma exactly 542 times stronger than the Gods of this world. At this point Eldath, Torm, and a bunch of other Gods, angels, and demons unite together and attack Cosma. She absorbed all of their attacks and then proceeded to fire some energy beam at all the attackers which then melted their bodies into the same starry Cosmic energy that makes up Cosma as they are all absorbed into the BBEG. Eldath’s final words to Hishu as he watched in horror was “I believe in you”.
Cosma then proceeded to announce that she will slowly consume this universe to give everyone time to live out their final moments as she has brought the planes together to reunite people with loved ones. The BBEG then vanishes taking Hazel with her. The party tried to comfort Hishu, but he was totally broken, a Cleric to a dead god. We have a 7 week time jump.

Afterwards the party hears of an artifact that would help us defeat Cosma and the party sets sail on Audrey’s plane jumping pirate ship. Where Hishu was finally reunited with Nancy. Hishu had been a sad mess over the course of the seven weeks after Cosma’s betrayal, but Nancy alone has managed to cheer Hishu up way more effectively than the party could’ve hoped for. The party thought the two were adorable together. So we travel to Carceri to retrieve a crown that has the power to help us defeat Cosma and conveniently enough Lyra was there and had beat the party to it! The party viciously defeated Lyra and obtained the special crown as our Dwarf fighter killed Lyra with the creepy sword Enyo had lended him fulfilling the party’s side of the deal. They also took Lyra’s head and placed it in a bag of holding. When the party returned to Audrey’s ship Hishu immediately ran back to Nancy making sure she hadn’t been consumed by Cosma yet… as people were getting consumed one by one at random as it is. She wasn’t. The party wanted to cast the “ceremony” spell which one effect of it involved a wedding between two individuals. So the party gave Hishu and Nancy a surprise wedding after nudging them out of their introverted states. They were happy together. Until Cosma had appeared and attacked the ship for we were on our way to confront her. We had a long combat which ended in the ship crashing into Cosma’s… floating base? She was consuming the universe from there. When the ship crashed Hishu was knocked unconsious as Nancy had been impailed by some broken off wood plank. Hishu was slapped awake by our Paladin in time for him to see Nancy get consumed by Cosma. All that was left of her was her pistol. (which obviously Hishu is startled by gunfire) Hishu attempted to kill himself with it but the party stopped him and convinced him to help them defeat Cosma. It was then we had the final confrontation with Cosma… the BBEG of the campaign. After a long 3 phased fight Cosma was defeated using the crown. And everything she had consumed was restored back into our universe and the planes returned where they once were. Everything that she had consumed came back. Including Eldath and all other gods she consumed. Hishu ran up to Eldath in tears apologizing for failing her, but she reassures Hishu for he did not fail her… he saved her. And for his efforts Eldath had brought Nancy back except this time she was truly alive this time and had a heartbeat! Hishu had managed to go through the entire campaign without directly taking a single life himself. As he had strictly followed Eldath’s dogma. For that he was rewarded with Nancy’s return to the living!

As the party begins to tie up loose ends they visit Enyo again to make good on the deal for Hishu’s freedom. The party returns the sword with Lyra’s soul still trapped inside and in return Enyo had granted Hishu freedom from his services to her cruel and unforgiving kingdom. The party also offered Lyra’s head which was somewhat preserved in the bag of holding. In exchange for Suzita to come with them to the material plane. For bringing the head of someone who claimed to be more evil than her? How could she refuse? She generously granted Suzita’s freedom as well. For the residents of her kingdom could not willingly leave without her blessing. The party went out of their way to ensure Hishu had the happiest ending by getting Hishu married to Nancy, reuniting him with his mother, and later restoring Eldath’s dignity. Even the DM was touched by this wholesome reunion! Hishu has touched all of our hearts and my party still misses him. I still miss playing him. The End.

Wrath of the Far Realm

You can watch the whole campaign here.

The party consisted of:
Night No Longer (Aasimar / Paladin)
Hishu Riler (Dragonborn / Cleric)
Travok Stormchin (Dwarf / Fighter)
Morphumax (Elf / Wizard)
Phil Strider (Human / Sorcerer)
Narburtte (Goblin / Barbarian)
Nova Levine (Human / Rogue)
Meatshield (Dragonborn / Barbarian)


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  1. I forgot to mention my wild magic sorcerer made it up to Hishu later after his unintentional betrayal. He was the one that married Hishu and Nancy together in which Hishu was a little disturbed with… that was until he used a homebrew magic item that had the power to wipe the memories of one wild magic event he was a part of from everyone within range. That magic item was acquired in a Christmas one-shot that we decided to make canon.

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