#» holy water cannot help you now. ( supreme leader arc. )

[pastdied]

tag drop part two.

[boobtubedude]

The Tournament Of The Archomentals: Part 1

As background, which I may spell out later: I started DM’ing a game of Dungeons and Dragons last summer. It was my first time ever playing the game, AND I was running it. I got a few friends who were interested and we all kind of learned as we went. 

We started playing the pre-made intro adventure “Lost Mine Of Phandelver” in June, and segued into the “Curse of Strahd” about two months after that. I led a five-month campaign in which the vampiric Big Bad ended up sneezing to death, because Dungeons and Dragons is a weird game sometimes. This is the third arc, which narratively connects the adventures of four players and everyone they’ve met along the way. It’s my first attempt at a fully original campaign, although it borrows themes and plot points from some familiar pop culture pieces, as well as using some canonical D&D lore. 

At this stage, everyone is a Level 10 character. These are the notes I normally type out to the players, as they literally cannot remember things between biweekly sessions, but thought it might be fun to start posting them for all to read. We had two new players decided to join the game this time around, which is why a tournament celebrating eight gods has six participants. I bet you’d ask because the players asked and were kinda asses about it.

The story picked up right at the end of the last session, with the gnome Garrick hurrying over to your campsite. He noted that he was excited but a little annoyed you guys waited so long to come back. Turns out what felt like a few weeks for you was 10 years in Neverwinter. During that time, your efforts at Wave Echo Cave have essentially turned Neverwinter into a rich, bustling ecosystem. And since then, you have become folk heroes that helped turn this place from Brookyln in the 1980s to Brooklyn now. (Lots of skinny jeans in Neverwinter now.)

Garrick had been holding your place in The Tournament of the Archomentals, which celebrates the 1,000-year anniversary of the defeat of the god Asmodeus. Asmodeus arose thanks to the assassination of Mystra, a goddess in charge of maintaining The Weave. The Weave is like the Force, only for magic, and killing her set off a chain reaction in which reality itself was warped and changed. Asmodeus was a decently powerful wizard before Mystra’s death, but The Spellplague (also known as the “Blue Breath Of Change”) then ensued after Mystra’s assassination turned him into a god-like figure. He turned the lands into hell itself with his empowered Ruby Rod, and was only defeated when the 8 archomentals (beings of supreme power in the earth, air, water, and fire planes of the multiverse) combined for the first time ever to defeat him.

The tournament involves four contests, after each week one of the five remaining teams is eliminated. Each contest celebrates of plane of elemental existence. Garrick’s an organizer, but not an architect, of the arenas in which these contests take place. He’s sort of a coach, but more of a fanboy at heart. (He may or may not have playing cards of the four heroes of Wave Echo Cave.) However, it won’t just be you in the contest: Since the challenges are designed for parties of six, Garrick has two more people that he’s gotten to fight along side you in order to balance out your team’s strengths and weaknesses. In no way did anyone think this was all major foreshadowing for the return of Asmodeus at the end of the tournament, which pleased the DM as he did not have to massively rewrite the narrative he had been planning for a month and a half.

As he takes you into the cathedral in which the tournament’s festivities are arranged, you see Mystra’s symbol above the cathedral door: it’s a red mist rising to the heavens, with seven stars surrounding it. The seven stars represent the seven schools of magic in this universe. 

Inside, you see that Gundren Rockseeker (who gathered you all together on your adventure to find the Lost Mine of Phandelver) is one of the architects, along with three others: 

 Artin Battlehammer (Dwarf): A stout, keenly intelligent creature with an eye towards designing strongholds than looting them with treaure

Theren Amastacia (Elf): Think Cate Blanchett in LOTR, but somehow hotter

Kallista Orianna (Tiefling): about 6’, purple skin, horns that extend out from her eyebrows about 15’’ in a 45 degree angle. A large tail slinks back and forth behind her. She seems to regard you with distrust, whereas the others barely acknowledge your existence

From there, after exchanging pleasantries with Gundren, you met your two other teammates: a half-orc Fighter named Kieran Lonesword and a human Bard named Danfielding. You also meet a halfing named Vivienne, a gruff fashion designer/wizard who allows you all to create your own hero within the world of the Tournament. (In real-world parlance: This is a chance to re-spec your character.) Arzgarth Riffrocker the Paladin stayed the same. Peter Dinklage the Cleric switched his Domain to “Tempest” in order to indulge his inner Thor. Chad The Conqueror switched from Paladin to Warlock, which was badass on all levels. Demora the Rogue did not participate in this, as in real life she was very sick, so everyone established the canonical fiction that she had consumed room-temperature shrimp as her first meal in Neverwinter and was horrifically nauseous. This was not badaass on any level.

Vivienne also gave everyone a pin to help brand this team: a silver pin with the face of the monkey the group adopted in Barovia, Piccolo. Chad was greatly delighted by this development, as he loved Piccolo more than anything in the world. Garrick led you all the antechamber, a long hallway with paintings of the Archomentals on each side. He explained that this first exhibition honored the Earth Archomentals, Ogrémoch (generally eeevvvviiiiil) and Sunnis (generally pleeeeesssaaant). He told you that the fight was based on “Rock, Paper, Scissors,” and to avoid the dome protecting you from the audience that would be watching. Also, he noted that there was audience participation: Above the arena would be a wheel that would spin after everyone had completed a round of combat, in which something fun or terrible might happen.

You walk up to the final painting of the antechamber, and it’s of none other than Asmodeus himself. He’s painted as a twenty-foot figure crushing the hordes of fighters that had assembled to defeat him. In his hands is the Ruby Rod to which Garrick alluded earlier. This painting lifted up to reveal a circular platform inside, and a bright light illuminating it from above. Peter Dinklage kissed the three middle fingers of his left hand and held them up, because he’s a dick.

You all get on the platform, and ride it up. You see you’re in a dome that’s about 30 yards in diameter. On the periphery, two smaller but similar looking trees reside. In the center of it is a huge, beautiful tree. Facing it at forty-five degrees on each side are two stone statues, reminiscent of the Terracotta Army. It’s a beautiful, lush landscape, and your eyes go from that to realizing you’re surrounded on all sides by spectators. You can hear them, but the sounds are muffled due to the invisible dome. Due north in the crowd is a smallish section for the Tournament Architects, and the Wheel stands above them. The options on the wheel read:

Hale and Hearty

SkullCracker

Flight of Fancy

Ring Around The Posey

Amor-All

Broken Mirror

Well of Haste

Electric Slide

The fight begins when the fighters try to use magic to assess the area, which wakes up both the central tree and the stone golems. The tree does a lot of damage when it hurls a boulder at the entire party, forcing Danfielding to heal everyone up quickly. Just when it looks like the initial flurry was over, a dozen ropes descended from the top of the dome, and twelve men looking like Santa’s Elves gone to seed landed with a thud on the ground, wielding large sickles. “We’re the Scissors Gang, here to kick your ass!�� the leader declared. Much head shaking was done by all at the DM’s voice for these creatures, but they said nothing, for lo, the DM had bought the pizza that night. Rock (golems), Paper (tree), and Scissors (Bastard Keebler Elves) had finally all assembled.

Combat continued for a few rounds. After the first, the audience wheel landed on Ring Around The Posey, which had the effect of switching all the elements to which these creatures were either vulnerable or immune. That wasn’t too obvious to the heroes, who mostly marveled at the fact that Kieran could seemingly roll nothing but twenties on her first night. The initial batch of Scissors Elves were eliminated fairly handily, as Peter and Danfielding teamed up to essentially roll the elves into the electrified dome like bowling pins, but the group couldn’t make their way to the tree (which had raised up the other two to help attack) nor make much headway with the golems.

Round two started with Flight Of Fancy, which made the entire arena zero-gravity. A new group of Scissor gangmembers floated down like a group of skydivers, which the DM erroneously called “plane jumpers,” because the DM had had a fucking week, so back off. Once again, Peter and Danfield feasted on these creatures, singeing them all with fire. Arzgarth teleported on top of a golem, and struck him down towards the earth. Kieran then curbstomped this sucker to death, and wove the newly-formed floating pebbles into a cape, because apparently half-Orcs have proficiency in Etsy. The DM granted Kieran a point of inspiration, because holy crap, you guys. The audience, on the other hand, threw up in their mouth a little at the violent (albeit creative) display before them.

Meanwhile, Chad decided to use his Warlock abilities to take over the mind of the tree, which it then ordered to hit itself with the boulder over and over again. Not only did the central tree take damage because of this, but so did the other trees. Everyone enjoyed telling the tree to stop hitting itself.

With the combatants earthbound for the next round, the wheel landed on Electric Slide, at which point lighting emerged from the Piccolo pins and singed every player. No one enjoyed that, not even Chad.

Finally, Chad realized he had a Warlock spell that could essentially incinerate plant life, which probably would have helped them out in the first round of combat. Game, set, match, ex-masochistic sentient tree. Garrick ran into the arena, pleased by the results. He noted that they came in second overall in terms of quickest victory, as another team had used that plant spell off the bat, which made things much easier.

Just then, the sky went dark, the wheel started spinning of its own accord, and glowed red from its central point. Just as soon as it started, everything went back to normal. The architects retreated hastily, and a nervous Garrick told the group to rest up for the next event in two weeks’ time.