Cursed (Blessed) Platinum Coin – Part Three of Three

The fall of the goblin happened as a cliff hanger and would only be resolved halfway through the next session. I had prepared another character, a cleric, to replace my dead one. But my GM had other plans for me.

As the dwarf and paladin managed to push back the oncoming horde, since the dragon left after a clean hit and being near-immortal, it decided that it would go back to its lair and lick its wounds over its horde.

They went looking for me to bury the body and what they found was me suspended a few feet above the ground. I was unconscious, and when they touched my body, I fell to the ground. An old wizard came out and talked with the group. This was when I was awoken and the wizard being brash and my head hurting I tried to stab him, but again I was frozen in place. The paladin was laughing at me so when I was unfrozen I yelled, “I ‘m gonna fight ya” and stole his sword and was about to cut him when I was put to sleep.

After the hilarity of interparty fighting died down. We made a promise to find Wizard after town and help him. So the party went back to town, without me (I was still sleeping). The Paladin and Dwarf started arguing about who should be able to buy a magic item since they only had enough gold for one (with the reward form saving the town). They decided to fight each other. As an aside, my GM allowed called shots on a roll of a 20. So the dwarf and paladin start an escalation of called shots.

I am gonna cut your beard off! *miss*

I am gonna cut your hand off! *miss*

On and on it went to the point when the shopkeep came out and yelled at them (the GM using the GM voice to move the story along).

I am gonna cut you your legs off! **20**

The paladin was made as tall as the dwarf. We looked blankly at each other. My brother smug face was lived short as the shopkeep murders dwarf with an enchanted blade.

I managed to get blamed once I awoke and found their bodies and was in the process of going to jail when I escaped. I ran out and was corned by the guards. The wizard saves me, creates a thinking zombie from the paladin and we go to a weird dimension where the dwarf is stuck fighting himself to try and save himself from himself.

The weird dimension was so cool. My brother’s character starts out watching the fight. Then a guy grabs his shoulder. Then he is dodging an axe, then he makes an attack, he murders himself, he stands there and sees someone, he reaches out, and the cycle continues.

To get there was travel to an unknown dimension where the wizard instructs me to close my eyes. I am surrounded by fire and brimstone, and the Wizard speaks an ancient, evil-sounding language.

Next thing we know we are back and it has been 3 months in the world, but in our time it has only been moments. The wizard had buried the zombie, and we dig him up. The party is back together, but now there is a guy with black gauntlets of giants strength chasing us.

That is how this campaign finished.

The campaign was finished merely because we didn’t return to play it.

Cursed (Blessed) Platinum Coin – Part Two of Three

After the kerfuffle in the Orc Lair, we decided that now that we had some treasure at least it was time to find the nearest town. The nearest town was through a forest mysterious forest. When we were crossing it, we heard a voice calling out to us from the trees. When we called back silence. We decided not to pursue the voice since it was a likely ambush.

At the town, they initially didn’t want me to enter because of my goblin heritage. The town’s people were convinced by the paladin that I was his helper, and we were allowed to traverse into town and spend our spoils. I purchased my first armour upgrade, a chain shirt and the dwarf spent the majority of his money on a dragon skull tattoo that covered his now bald head and face (beard still intact).

When we went looking for an Inn to finally have a rest, we heard war horns. We were quickly conscripted into the militia. The town was under attack by a different coloured dragon than the one that was on the mountain and a horde of angry orcs. The paladin and dwarf waited on the wall near the gates waiting for a siege. I ran to get in line with the archers, but the wall was much too big for me to see over. This was when I noticed the ballista. One the first few swoops of the dragon I missed, the others were busy throwing oil at orcs and getting into the courtyard. The siege crew finally entered where I was shooting and loaded a bolt for me. This was when I scored a critical. The ballista launched an excellent shot, but the leader exclaimed that they didn’t tie the rope that was attached to this bolt to the wall yet. I rolled a dex check and failed, I only had time to grab the line. I was given the option to let the rope go or hold on. I held on. I rolled a subsequent strength check to see if I was simply pulled off the wall or was now dangling to a rope attached to a flying dragon.

I climbed that rope throughout a few rolls and made it to the dragon. I recalled this moment at the table clearly when playing ICO: Shadows of the Colossus years later. On the back of this dragon, I stabbed at it with my shortsword, each strike prompting a strength test to hold on with one hand. Eventually, I failed. I fell. It took several turns for me to fall from such a height. The valiant efforts the dwarf and paladin repelling the orcs at the gates. Eventually, the speck that was me disappeared from view below that tree line of a nearby forest.

Cursed (Blessed) Platinum Coin – Part One of Three

This is the first long forum campaign I played in. It was maybe 5 or 6 sessions, each played once a month. It was me, playing my goblin archer, my brother playing his dwarf fighter, and my brother’s friend, playing his exiled paladin prince.

We were in a pirate ship getting harassed by winged birdmen. We fought with bow, axe, and sword but it wasn’t enough. We fought as the ship crashed against the rocks. I grabbed a sack of treasure as the ship sank, barely making it to shore.

When we divided the loot, my cousin poured out a bag of pennies ontop the table, that had one dime. We each grabbed a handful of treasure, I immediately grabbed the dime. Each penny was a gold piece and the dime was a platinum piece.

We made our way to the closest town and decided to go through a mountain range. On the top of the mountain, there was a large orc battling a small dragon which he was dwarfed by. We entered the fight and that’s when the coin took effect. It acted like a sort of uncontrollable haste. Each swing of my dagger a dozen hits, one shot on my bow, my entire quiver. Some solid hits from my compatriates and the eventual critical finished it off. My cousin said I was overcome by greed. In my greed I decided to skin the dragon, my knife uncontrollable, I cut the skin in between each scale and scattered the scales across the mountain throwing them from the top before anyone could restain me. All that we managed to recover two claws and 3 large scales (chest plates) from the dragon. The orc took the head as a trophy and invited us back to his tribe down the mountain.

In the orc cave, they only spoke orc and goblin. I was acting as translator and conviced the orcs to let us stay. When we rested the coin acted again. The orcs had a treasure room which we each took one object to celabrate the death of the dragon that was harrying them. Instead of sleep I was driven to steal. I didn’t have the haste, so like a ninja I traversed the cave complex into the treasure room. When I reached the treasure room, the GM asked how I was going to steal it. I said I will pick up some treasure and hide it. This activated the haste and in a blur I grabbed all the treasure and ran out to the bottom on mountain side digging holes and putting one item in each hole.

Shortly after I had emptied out the treasure room, the orcs found out and blamed the party. With only two humans, and a young cyclops and the goblin missing. The humans didn’t understand what was going on and so started killing their way out of the Orcs’ Lair. I went to run back but the cursed haste wore off and so I had to make it up the mountain the slow way. An epic battle ensued, with one of them using a bed frame and the narrow corrdors to keep the bulk of them at bay while they slowly made their way out. They were already making their way down the mountain when I caught up to them and then had to retreat, firing cover shots to keep them slowed as we made our decent.

At the bottom I tried remembering where I had buried it but since everything was a blur I could remember where the treasure was and so only had what was in our packs from before. But everyone had gotten a cool item. I got a helm with a large gem in the forhead, the dwarf got a large fancy gold cup, and the paladin got a fancy sheild but it may have been a large gem, my memory is a bit muddled.