In the days leading up to our first session of our campaign, I was full of ideas for different characters that I wanted to play as. I am the type of player who gets really into my characters, and I love to play the quirky, memorable types. So I showed up to Session one, and made a character sheet for Aleksei, My teifling barbarian. Only, Aleksei was young. 12 years old, in fact. He was hyperactive, and always said the first thing that popped into his head. He was kind, and wanted to be friends with everyone. He loved soup and couldn't read. Aleksei weilded a huge battleaxe, was the absolute tank of the party, and didn't quite have a full understanding of the law. Everyone in the party (Including DM) asked me what made this 12 year old a barbarian. So here is his simple backstory I came up with:
When he was two, his parents died when his village burned down for no reason. He moved to a town called Straif, where he was raised by Asirbek, a mean old lady. You see, in this campaign, tiefling were extremly hated, so Asirbek would abuse him. When he was seven, he was caught stealing food by some corrupted guards, and was thrown into an illigal fighting ring. he would fight and win, all the time. He never lost. Five years later, he broke out, and ran into the party.
The party consisted of four other players. First there was Argoran, an older teifling Warlock who worshipped Cthulu and was Aleksei's uncle-figure (there was no relation) He also had a spider follower(Her name was Arachne), Xeron Nightscale, A kind and gentle dragonborn bard, Ollie, a halfling rougue, and Delaria, a drunk rougue.
Now, we were not a serious group. In our first session, We were walking out of a tavern, only for four ruffians to threaten us and try to force us to leave. Xeron tried to use democracy, and failed. Argoran and Delaria tryied to intimidate, but failed. Aleksei? He stepped forward and swung his axe, decapitating the biggest ruffian. Before anyone had any time to react, Argoran used Firebolt to hit one guy in the face, killing him, and Aleksei killed the third man. The last Ruffian ran away, leading us to a manor that we were supposed to explore. We filled the cellar with oil and burned the manor to the ground. As the manor burned, we went back to the tavern and had a concert, with Xeron playing Megalovania as everyone celebrated.
Fast forward five sessions later. Xeron had died in the last session, and he was replaced by Varrock, another dragonborn (I can't remember his class). We were exploring a dungeon to retrieve a sword for a guy named Addrick. About halfway through, out DM distracts us with a statue of a man who seemed to have been turned to stone. As we try to find a way to brin him back, we hear bloody murder screams from behind a locked door at the end of a hall. Argoran eldrich blasts the door open, launching it to the other side of the room beyond it. The room is empty. Argoran blasts a section of wall, revealing a secret door, and destroying it.
Inside is four cultists chanting "Rise, Chaos, Death, Rise, etc." And there is a mother and three young children. Standing above them is a huge guy, with a sword. thr hilt is decoreated with skull designs, and it emits black and purple smoke. He swings, decapitating their heads. Four new skulls are added to the hilt. The souls had been ripped from the bodies, and were now in the sword. This terrifies Aleksei. But the DM wasn't done. The guy hands the blade to another man, who seems to be his twin. The twin grabs a bowl of blood, pours it on the first guy, and shoves the sword into the first guys chest. The blood covered man is smiling. In undercommon, he says, "Finallly, he is back, finally, he is risen." and falls dead. A crack echoes from the room behind us. The statue we found is alive. In red and black smoke, a decaying man appears in the room we are in. "Finally I am back!" He announces, and snaps his fingers. Everyone else in the room falls to their knees, dead. This man now holds the sword. we roll in initiative.
Throughout this fight, the man keeps targeting Aleksei. I keep rolling Nat 20's, and we dance around for a couple of rounds while the rest of the party frantically try to killl this man. Finally, one of his attacks hit, and I have to roll a constitution save. I roll a 14. the Dc save was 15.
Our party is silent as this sinks in. The DM describes Aleksei, this source of light and laughter of the party, getting his soul ripped from his small body. Shock. Everyone then starts screaming, "No! not the child!" The DM lets Cthulu boost Argoran, who unleashes firbolt after firebolt, reducing the Man to ash. Anger. All that was left was the sword we were sent to retrieve. The party takes the sword and Aleksei's body, and goes back to Addrick. They plead for some way to bring Aleksei back. Bargaining. But to no avail. Aleksei's soul was stuck in the sword, and only a demon could bring him back (Although he also mentioned on the sword being used to either stop or aid The Scarred One. this is the first time we hear of him). The Party was once again silent. Depression. So they held a funeral for Aleksei. They cremated him, and keep his ashes in an unbreakable vial. the closest they could get to Acceptance. (I have actually told this part of my story on an old episode, "How a player's emotional death brought the party to tears")
Here's the thing. I had previously asked for Aleksei to die, cause i had another interesting character idea. So, the DM made a homebrew race, called Thra'en (They had one Angel wing, one Demon wing, and horns). According to lore, a while ago, someone combined Demon and Assimar genes, making a hybrid. This next character required a LOT of planning. I arrived the next session as Thra'Sharir (Sharir for short), a hooded Cleric Thra'en with a love of fire and who had her wings cut off. At least, thats who everyone thought I was.
So, at this point, our campaign kind of went into a reboot. The Player for Argoran left on a mission, so he couldn't play DnD with us. I was sick for one session, and Ollie managed to get everyone killed, so everyone made a new character that session I missed. Here is the new Party: Lars Venn, a human(or Half-elf) Paladin with a flame sword (Previously Varrock), Kyris, a ranger with his pet Mystwing, a small silver dragon, (Previously Ollie), Clementine (I have no memory of who or what she is, Previously Delaria) and two new players: Annun, a half-elf druid who loves owl bears, and The masked one, played by my little brother, and who didn't do anything, as he was still new to roleplaying.
In out first session since the 'reboot'. Sharir had caught the attention of everyone at first by taking the ashes of Aleksei. Then the first spell she had ever casted was Hellish Rebuke, which is not a spell normal clerics could use. As we kept going, it soon became clear that something was off about Sharir, as she rarely ever did anything cleric like (except proclaim her worship of fire), since Lars and Annun would heal everyone first. We were tasked with trying to free someone from inside a meteor-type thing. when we finally freed whoever it was, He revealed themselves as the God of Fortune. He explained that the gods were in a war over who should be king of the gods. There were mostly two contenders, One who i forgot the name of, but was basically thr Prince god, and Delmo (This special god was insired by the burning tickle-me-elmo gif. Just a fun fact.) who is the Demon/Devil of fire and destruction. Well, Sharir summoned her god, and Delmo took Mr. Fortune (Forgot his name). Lars, who is not only a good paladin, but is also a lieutenant of the guard, doesn't like me at all now. Kyris and Annun aer wary, and I dont think Clementine was there that session. Now thay realized that Sharir was not a normal cleric.
Over the course of the next few sessions, me and the DM start to lay hints at the dark past of Sharir. At a certian point, we meet an lich of the Scarred one, who mentions my horns, which Sharir doesn't have, for an intersting reason. We meet a Thra'en Mayor, who askes me where my wings are, since I dont have those either.
We are traveling between towns, and we run across our old buddy Addrick, who has the sword still, and is now trying to prevent the coming return of the Scarred One. along out journeys to find Seven liches before the Scarred One does, a shadowy figure leads us to a dungeon.
We kill off whatever Scarred One worshippers we find at first, and rest in a room. We wake up to a Worshipper knocking the door, telling us to bring the prisoner (Lars Venn died, so he was replaced with Chief Nightscale, Xeron Nightscale's dad) the others dress in the robes of the worshippers we had killed hours earier, and Sharir stays in her Cleric robes. (I should note that my little brothers character died as we were resting, after trying to steal from a dragon). The Worshipper leads us straight to the final chamber, where we disrupt the sacrifice of Chief Nightscale and fight them all. However, this is where the DM's planning went farthur than my own. The backstory I had planned for Sharir went like this:
Sharir was actually born unde the name Hymn, who was a schizophrenic teifling that was raied by a church in a small town. She knew the parents of a kid named Ignis (who grows up to becom Aeksei) when she was 12, Hymn was introduced to Delmo (He would speak to her all throughout the campaign) and started to worship his as her patron. Hymn became a warlock, and accidently burned down the town she lived in, killing Ignis's parents. She then got he rhorns cut off, and took a barely living Ignis to and orphanage in Straif. The teifling Warlock Hymn then became the Thra'en Ceric Thra'Sharir in her mind. that was all I had planned. Well, the DM added more.
Back to the fight. Everyone is fighting, but for some unknown reason, the voices in Sharir's head disappears. Sharir beomes useless in the battle as everyone else stuggles to kill all the worshippers and the head priest.
[zombify_post]
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