If you came here looking for the King of RPGs Video Trailer, the correct link is here.
In between writing the script for King of RPGs volume 2, last weekend I got together with my friends Konstantin, Paul, Steve, Mark, Greg and Liz for a game of D&D 4th edition. This was actually our fourth game in a sort of rambling, intermittent pseudo-campaign, which started back in 2008 because some of Konstantin’s ex-coworkers had wanted to play Dungeons & Dragons. I decided to start ‘em out on the 4th edition rules adapted to an ancient, ancient module I have always had a soft spot for: The Secret of Bone Hill.
Anyway, several party member arrivals and departures later, including a brief prequel adventure using the D&D 3rd edition shipboard module Maiden Voyage (which was kind of a letdown — as a mystery scenario, it’s pretty uncompelling, and as an adventure, it’s railroady and only has one real fight scene), the characters had finally defeated the goblins who inhabited the upper ruins and captured their leader, the necromancer Telvar. The original party, consisting of Konstantin, Liz, Greg and Paul, were hired by the authorities to bring the necromancer back to town “alive or dead,” although the necromancer’s sister, the local baroness, had strongly hinted that there might be something in it for them if he was brought back alive. However, the newcomers, Mark and Steve, who were playing intimidating, reptilian Dragonborn outsiders, were hired by another faction to bring Telvar back dead, and deliver his severed head to prove it. Thus, when they met up, they immediately started arguing over whether to kill or merely incapacitate their quarry. The one thing everybody could agree on, however, was that they ought to finish exploring the catacombs beneath the castle. Entering the cobwebby chambers, they were attacked by swarms of undead rats, ghouls and other creatures. Eventually they descended a concealed staircase into a chamber where they were attacked by seemingly endless waves of zombies. In the midst of the fight, however, the zombies withdrew from the attack and stepped aside, standing in position like courtiers as a masked, white-robed figure — the undead wizard Turjan, the builder of the castle — came out of the darkness to beg the party to help lift his blood curse by giving him the one thing he needed… TELVAR’S HEAAADDD.
The party soon got the feeling, however, that Turjan was untrustworthy, even by the standards of undead wizards who tell you that they need to feed on the life force of living wizards or their unstoppable lifethirst will cause them to attack you instead. So now the heroes had to decide whether to give Telvar (a jerk who had already attempted to backstab them repeatedly) up to Turjan, to chop his head off for their own purposes, or to take him back alive, against all odds. Complicating the situation further was that there was another evil wizard, Ligotti the snake-summoning tiefling, roaming the ruins searching for loot and harassing the party.
Eventually the party decided not to give up Telvar’s head, and after making some excuses to Turjan, they camped out for the night inside the castle, trying to wait out the deadly “death rain” which had just started pouring from the sky around the castle, killing everything it touched and turning them into zombies, a plot device I stole from “The Breeze Horror.” Before going to bed, they also managed to kill and dismember Ligotti and toss his bodyparts out in the courtyard. But Turjan (another stolen name) would not take no for an answer, and sent his undead minions to attack the party and steal Telvar. Racing downstairs to the cellar, fighting through hordes of zombies, the party was unable to stop Turjan from using both Ligotti’s and Telvar’s corpses in a hideous necromantic scheme: to create a THREE-HEADED SKULL LORD from the combination of Telvar’s head, Ligotti’s head, and his own! Watching victory snatched away right before their eyes as Sklragagul failed his “Turn Undead” roll before Turjan could complete the ritual and take off his own head and put it in the creature, the party fled before the terrifying, three-skulled, nine-foot-tall, fire-breathing monstrosity!
Then it was 1 AM and everyone had to go home and collapse unconscious, leaving the adventure to be ended another day. Without giving too much away since my players can read this, this whole plot was basically my attempt to wrap up the “too many evil wizards” syndrome which has afflicted my D&D campaign since the beginning, by compressing them all into one AWESOME wizard, like how Cell absorbs the androids in Dragon Ball. The other thing I’d like to say is that the Skull Lord is one of the best new monsters in D&D 4th edition. It’s just so ridiculous and Yu-Gi-Oh! but the design is awesome in its simplicity.
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