The Tale of Fenna Montejay, the Halfling That Survived

The fickle fates bring salvation and survival, but at what cost?


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Several years ago, two friends and I ran through the majority of the Curse of the Crimson Throne Adventure Path. The party consisted of a stoic human fighter (Aelzara, played by the other player), a precious human cleric of Sarenrae (Varian, played by the GM), and my unfortunately lucky halfling rogue (Fenna). 

Admittedly, she had a really pretty backstory. Her parents died in a boating accident, which she survived by chance as a passerby jumped into the river and rescued her. She was taken in by the innkeeper- who died as well for plot reasons prior to the events of the campaign- and ended up indebted to a group of a thieves' after botching an attempt to steal from them. Nothing new here. The course of the adventure, however, created the greatest story arc the dice have ever blessed me with.

She was the sole survivor of a near TPK caused by the party being dazed for six rounds in a necromancer's lair. Aelzara was the only one who succeeded her save, and died fighting before we could do anything. Fenna and Varian were barely alive from being attacked while unable to retaliate. Once we were able to act, barely standing, the cleric turns back to my halfling and heals her. "Run." She does so, calling over her shoulder: "You better be right behind me." He never got the chance to respond. She knew his fate when the undead from the first room noticed her as she fled from the crypt (we had bypassed them originally by the cleric casting Hide from Undead on the group)

Fenna fled to the Dawnflower House- the orphanage that Varian had worked for- as she had nowhere else to go. They took her in, though the only space available for her was Varian's bedroom. The caretakers knew of her companion's fate, but she couldn't bear to let the children know of their beloved cleric's passing. She completely broke down, pleading to Sarenrae for forgiveness for her companions deaths, overwhelmed with guilt over all of the innocent people she has outlived. After the terrible crimes she had committed during her years with the thieves' guild and the evils she had turned a blind eye to, why was she the one to survive? Her pleas were answered. With the crescent moon on her wrist -the same mysterious mark that Varian had gotten not long prior to these events- she believed that it was her responsibility to take up the scimitar and fight in Sarenrae's honor to earn her own redemption. From then on out, Fenna stepped from the shadows and followed the path of sunlight as a warpriest of the Dawnflower. I didn't retrain her rogue levels, as those were a crucial part of her character foundation. 

The group later faced the necromancer (the son of the man who indirectly cause her adoptive mother's death) along with the reanimated corpses of Aelzara and Varian. In order to get her revenge, she had to cut down her now undead friends with her own hands; the rest of the party helped, but there were also several other enemies swarming us at the time. The necromancer almost escaped via Dimension Door, but she managed to get the killing blow on her Attack of Opportunity as he cast the spell. Unsurprisingly, promptly following that combat- knowing that we had cleared out the surrounding rooms and it was highly unlikely for other enemies to be close enough to hear us- Fenna fled the room and collapsed into a sobbing heap. 

The campaign also saddled her with lyncanthrophy. I rolled a natural 1 after she was bitten by a wererat. As luck would have it, she did not find out about this until about an entire book later when she transformed mid-battle for the first time (that she knew of) after being hit with a crit. Her companions knew about her condition a while before after finding her gone from her room one night and following a trail of increasingly larger dead animals to find her sleeping in a horse. I still can't imagine how a halfling- even in wererat form- could take down a clydesdale, but apparently the full moon can cause some crazy stuff. 

She nearly died from smoke inhalation as the group escaped a burning building later in the plot, but was narrowly saved 1 point away from death. This was a common occurrence for her when battles were tough, as she was the only primary frontliner in the group. Despite everything, though, she never died. 

We timeskipped from the beginning of book 4 to the final boss due to time constraints that would have prevented us playing through the rest of the AP. We really wanted a climactic conclusion to this fantastic tale, and we certainly got it. When the dust settled, one character died, another died but was close enough to be revived, and Fenna was the only one who rolled high enough to avoid being permanently blinded by the cataclysm of radiant energy that concluded the combat as the big bad's artifact of doom was destroyed. 

TLDR- Halfling rogue narrowly avoids a near TPK, becoming a warpriest of Sarenrae basically overnight following a breakdown due to survivor's guilt; gets the killing blow on the necromancer who caused the aforementioned near TPK just before he teleports away after having to fight through the reanimated corpses of her friends; contracts lycanthropy but doesn't find out until a long time afterward; gets knocked down to 1 point from death multiple times throughout the campaign before narrowly avoiding eternal demise; and walks out of the final boss battle as the only living member of the party who isn't permanently blind.

Second only to her insane bouts of luck and unluckiness is the story of the crescent moon marking and the pale, snake obsessed cleric that took Varian's place in the party: but that is a tale for another post. I hope you enjoyed!


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