The campaign so far

[Trandir]

So this is a summary of more or less 5 months worth of sessions. After the last one, my DM told the party that "the campaign has now officially begun" which seemed weird so why not ask here too if this looks like a prologue or not?

So our adventure begins in kingdom A ruled by King A.
King A makes a selected group of people go on a "secret" mission to retrieve a sword from a town.

On the way, we discover a subplot about an aasimar who steals the life force of others to extend his life span and a human who created a curse of undeath to extend hers. The former having taken control of a tribe of goblins and the latter turning the whole town into undeads. We kill the aasimar, the now wraith human, and call the army to deal with the undeads. The sword is still missing and we explore the rest of town with poor results. The last thing to check is the well which leads in what appears to be a demiplane inhabited by more zombies and ghosts.
After completing the dungeon to open the door in the cellar we fight the boss and get the sword.

After this, we return to king A which gives everyone gold and a mansion in the upper city. Then one of the PC (the one whose player was missing due to his job) got "cursed into an animal". The court wizard tells us that we need to go on an island north to kill a powerful enchanter who placed the curse. This apparently is also an enemy of the king since this is apparently a secret mission and we are even given a "magic key". The island is currently a theater of battles between kingdom A and B and our destination is behind the enemy lines. Also, we only have 10 days to complete the deed. After 9 days of forced march, killing wild animals, encountering a certain knight NPC in a forest, and sailing we get to the island. We arrive at the site where and there is nothing. Apparently, we missed an NPC that was supposed to give us instructions about how to use the key. After some trial and error, we get it right and we are presented "The Tower", which has no door nor window save for a trapdoor at the very top.

We climb on top of it and we meet the 3 gatekeepers, they warn us "you are free to enter but this is a one-way doorway, then you will be trapped there", and of course we entered. Inside we find a Dante's Inferno like structure: on each level prisoners are getting tortured in all sorts of manners in each one of them. We get to the penultimate floor we meet the "dragon riders" and it's exposition time: king A is more of an ******* than we thought, killed as many dragons and raiders as he could and trapped the rest here, apparently one of his ancestors built "The Tower", and we get a backstory for each knight that can still talk. And then the last floor is just a boss fight against a buffed basilisk (you can imagine how fun the fight was with the eyes closed at all times) and then we get to the cells where the enchanter is supposed to be (and we still have a couple of hours left for breaking the curse). But he is dead, by a lot of years judging by the state of the corpse. So we probably have been lied the whole time. The only other prisoner is "Jerard" which claims to be able to help. So we free him and he actually broke the curse, then he smashes a wall with sheer strength and we are all free.
This would probably be the end of the first Act

Now we got to get back and report the quest as successfully failed. And we decide to try to sneak past the enemies a second time and not look for king A's army. We get captured by the king B's army and interrogated at which point we go full betrayer mode and spill all the beans. The Tower is kind of a big deal since the defeat of the dragon riders both started the war and significantly reduced the military forces of B. And we even provide the key to reveal it. The problem is that we left another PC and a beloved NPC in the mansion back at A's capital. As well as the families of most other PCs.

So the plan is this (and I pity my DM) the rogue will bull**** King A and make all the relevant NPCs escape while the rest of the party gets to king B's court. The rogue put all the blame on the rest of the party for the betrayal and got all the families publicly executed with the rogue tasked to capture them. After that king A is happy with the rogue's performance he gives yet another mission to him, this time even bigger: awaken the old conquerors (long story short once the world was ruled by an alliance of 4 kings, near their death they made their wizards work together to make them and their army ascend to lichhood and undead respectively, the thing did kind of worked out but they also got sealed in their throne rooms now their crypts) since once freed they will be forced to fight for the one who freed them, king A since his blood is what is supposed to free them.

The other rogue got the first boat and crossed the sea while the last 2 party members managed to sink their ship and kill their PCs and everyone on the ship as well (a military vessel that was bringing back the wounded from the war incapable of keep fighting). So now the second rogue got two new companions. He got a sidequest where we played exorcists in a haunted monastery before getting to city B. Back to rogue 1, he goes to a temple where "the times flows through" to find the location of the conquerors. He managed to do that revealing the position to be in the "sirens' coast" and incidentally also caused the death of the time priestess. This apparently means that now the time flow might collapse at any moment, oops. One filler session later the party is united again.

So now we get to king B which is terrified now having to deal with: the war, the time collapsing, and the hunt for the conquerors' resting place. So we all are tasked to go to the southern continent where there is someone capable of resurrecting the keeper of the temple of time and to find the "sirens' coast".

The coast is likely on one of 3 islands in the middle of the sea and it's closer than the continent so we get there.

On the first island, we find some racist priests of some LG diety and almost ended in a fight since 3/6 of our PCs are tieflings. We even killed an aboleth there and saved a mermaid, fun times.

On the second island, we found a treant NPC that reveals to us that both kings got their homework wrong and the conquerors can't be bound to service mortals.

Then we get to the third island where we discover that either our DM doesn't read or she likes to change the stat blocks a lot since the sirens are mermaids there. Anyway, the one we saved got captured by pirates so we prepare to go and save her fishy ass for the second time, and so we did. So they offer to take us to their underwater city since their king "knows everything there is to know" according to them, but not before some pro gamer move.

A little sidenote: in this setting, there is a really powerful devil on the run offering deals to everyone dumb enough to summon him.

And so rouge n 1 summons this devil to share some info, we get back to the treant that tells us the story again, and apparently, the devil doesn't like the idea of the mortals dying to some undead scourge (no more customers) so he accepts to help in some manner. Now back to the triton's city the king knows very well where the fist conqueror is since its shrine is in the city. We saved his daughter twice so he accepts to take us there on the condition that we don't free the undead lord. Once there we destroy the clue to the second conqueror and summon the devil again and this time ask him to delete the memory of the conqueror from everyone's mind so to keep them sealed forever.

And in the last session, we discovered that the mausoleum has the funny curse to erase any knowledge of those who enter in it from the memories of the citizens of the underwater apparently. We get kicked out, and saved from a storm by a passing ship which gets us to the central continent where we are now.

Well little update about the campaign:
We got tasked, by the resistance against King A in the central continent, to deliver a letter to King B about the return of King C. Who apparently returning after disappearing for years kidnapped a woman there for some reson.
Then we cut 2 weeks of sailing where nothing happened and we are in the South, but the destination is west, miles away from the town. First we pay to have a place to put the ship 3 weeks, we expect to finish the job in 2 but you never know. Also a random street theater reveal us that King A and King C are twins zan zan zan. But we arrived too late and we couldn't find neither a shop to buy a carriage and a horse or just pay someone to drive one so we get to a tavern to drink. We meet a man who offers us "1500 gp to kill an evil guard that works for one of the most influent families in Kingdom C", we follow him in a alley where we get more info and here is the plan: we enter the brothel where he usually goes as workers and kill him when he is too drunk to defend himself. And 4 hours later and more **** jokes than I can remember we did it.
I suspect that we have been tricked and probably killed the head, or at least a member, of a noble family cause we took at face value what a stranger told us.

[BlackOnyx]

Mmm..I suppose it's hard to say without having the DM reveal their plans for the future of the narrative. The context of the "whole story" is what really defines an arc as a "prologue" in most cases.


That said, the fact that you've recently encountered the first conqueror and supposedly sealed him away seems like it could be a good starting point for the next "step" in your campaign.


Perhaps by encountering this conqueror and acting in the way you did, you set something into motion that will play a large part in what you experience down the road.


That, or perhaps something is going on in this "central continent" that will put what you've experienced into greater context, and shape your journey going forward.

[Trandir]

Mmm..I suppose it's hard to say without having the DM reveal their plans for the future of the narrative. The context of the "whole story" is what really defines an arc as a "prologue" in most cases.


That said, the fact that you've recently encountered the first conqueror and supposedly sealed him away seems like it could be a good starting point for the next "step" in your campaign.


Perhaps by encountering this conqueror and acting in the way you did, you set something into motion that will play a large part in what you experience down the road.


That, or perhaps something is going on in this "central continent" that will put what you've experienced into greater context, and shape your journey going forward.

Maybe. The weirdest part, for me at least, is that the mission was originally to free the conqueror but we didn't do that, and that the central continent has never been mentioned before. This feels more like the end of the first arc rather than the end of the prologue. Then again maybe the DM never got the chance to begin the real campaign since we sistematically ****ed up every single important quest we ever got in one way or another.

[liquidformat]

Maybe. The weirdest part, for me at least, is that the mission was originally to free the conqueror but we didn't do that, and that the central continent has never been mentioned before. This feels more like the end of the first arc rather than the end of the prologue. Then again maybe the DM never got the chance to begin the real campaign since we sistematically ****ed up every single important quest we ever got in one way or another.

So does everyone in the world now have no knowledge of your group or did only the mermaids get mind wiped? If it is the former then that indeed does sound like the real beginning of the rest of the game. A group of powerful adventurers mysteriously showing up trying to save the day that no one knows or trusts...

[Trandir]

So does everyone in the world now have no knowledge of your group or did only the mermaids get mind wiped? If it is the former then that indeed does sound like the real beginning of the rest of the game. A group of powerful adventurers mysteriously showing up trying to save the day that no one knows or trusts...

Good question. The resquers had never heard of us and and we have only meet them and the tritons. So maybe it's a total whipe ot maybe it's restricted or maybe it's global.

[liquidformat]

Good question. The resquers had never heard of us and and we have only meet them and the tritons. So maybe it's a total whipe ot maybe it's restricted or maybe it's global.

Or maybe you are in a different world with a different timeline...

[Trandir]

Well I now know why the prologue has ended. The third missing king has entered the table. So now we have to deal with king A, B and C. And apparently this third king has more power than the other two combined.

[liquidformat]

Well I now know why the prologue has ended. The third missing king has entered the table. So now we have to deal with king A, B and C. And apparently this third king has more power than the other two combined.

So no time line jump/alternate universe/ other sillyness then?.... Dang...

[Trandir]

So no time line jump/alternate universe/ other sillyness then?.... Dang...

Ye I too am a bit disappointed

[liquidformat]

well still sounds like a fun campaign

[Trandir]

well still sounds like a fun campaign

It sure is. Should I keep this post updated with what happens in the campaign?

[liquidformat]

It sure is. Should I keep this post updated with what happens in the campaign?

sure always fun to see what others are up to

[Trandir]

Well new session new stuff. I added it in the OP and here:

Spoiler

Show

Well little update about the campaign:
We got tasked, by the resistance against King A in the central continent, to deliver a letter to King B about the return of King C. Who apparently returning after disappearing for years kidnapped a woman there for some reson.
Then we cut 2 weeks of sailing where nothing happened and we are in the South, but the destination is west, miles away from the town. First we pay to have a place to put the ship 3 weeks, we expect to finish the job in 2 but you never know. Also a random street theater reveal us that King A and King C are twins zan zan zan. But we arrived too late and we couldn't find neither a shop to buy a carriage and a horse or just pay someone to drive one so we get to a tavern to drink. We meet a man who offers us "1500 gp to kill an evil guard that works for one of the most influent families in Kingdom C", we follow him in a alley where we get more info and here is the plan: we enter the brothel where he usually goes as workers and kill him when he is too drunk to defend himself. And 4 hours later and more **** jokes than I can remember we did it.
I suspect that we have been tricked and probably killed the head, or at least a member, of a noble family cause we took at face value what a stranger told us.