Behold the Shrike

The GM: Jon

The Characters:

Game System: Dungeons & Dragons

Game Type: Campaign

Related Games

• Morigu: The Vengeance

Synopsis: (This story was based off the novel, "Hyperion" by Dan Simmons). Six pilgrims are on a quest to find the Shrike, the legendary artifact creature that grants your hearts desire. Of course, the Shrike only grants the wish of a single pilgrim, the others are killed.

Memorable Moments: (Jon): : This is the game where the greatest ever player / character argument occured. The characters were lost in the middle of nowhere and felt they were running out of time to find the Shrike. A huge argument broke out (about where to go) just as a raiding party of orcs had spotted them. The players argued (in character) for several minutes as the orcs prepared and charged. The characters kept yelling at each other until the orcs were within missle range. The characters decided they were not ready to fight the orcs yet, they wanted to keep arguing! So one of them (I forgot who), tossed out a folding boat (a magic item that could fit into your pocket until the magic command was given, then it would fold open into a large rowing boat). The boat was large enough that the orcs had to run around it in order to get to the characters, which allowed the characters to scream at each other for a few more rounds. Pure genius!

(Brian): This game was my first experience with 1st ed. D&D, and Jon had told me how badass Illusionists were on and off for a while, telling stories of one of his characters. But he always qualified it by saying they were horribly weak at low levels, but if they could survive: badass. So I decided to make an illusionist, and to hedge his chances of survival, I made him a coward. He was all about the avoidance of personal injury of any kind, though happy to help out in all ways as long as it was safe. He even lucked out and got some psionics. Well, long story short, halfway though the game, Jon started messing with us, giving us notes in our folders about how events were affecting our characters. Luis' notes were about how he had a mental disorder, was increasingly paranoid, and was convinced everyone was literally trying to kill him -- but he had to stay with them because of the pilgrimage. So every night (as an example) he would lay down to sleep, cast an illusion of himself over himself, use psionics to turn invisible, and creep away to watch for who would try to assassinate him in his sleep. Louis would only eat food he himself had prepared. Soon he was getting far too little sleep, wich further exaggerated how messed up he was. Luis was eventually nominated for a Jon Cazares Roleplaying Award for Most Hated Character. Oh, and he did survive until the end of the game, and never did the illusion magic become remotely powerful. I don't remember what his wish was in the game, but I know he didn't get it. I suspect he died at the end, though I'm uncertain.

GM Notes: This is one of my favorite stories. It's the first really long D&D campaign I had run with several players (instead of just Ray) and the characters had a great dynamic between them. Some of them just loathed some of the other characters but they had to remain together for the pilgrimage. I also toyed a lot with the "story within a story" idea. The meta plot loomed over them but there were also 10 or 12 small stories that unfolded on the journey. Each story could reached a conclusion after a few sessions. Most of the stories were self discovery stories for character devolpment but several were action and / or dungeon crawls. I was able to use part 1 and 2 of the orginal Against the Giants scenario, a few short modules from Dungeon magazine, and even canabalized two of those single player role-playing gamebooks created by Steve Jackson & Ian Livingston (The Forest of Doom which was my opening night for the game and the Citidel of Chaos which happened when the players were 3rd and 4th level). This was the first time I handed out folders for all the characters to use. Usually, every week characters would have secret information in their folers for them to read, dreams, things they noticed about the other characters during the long journey (all things I would write up). Everyone really liked the secret notes idea and the flavor it added so I kept using them (and still do). I'm all about the folders and secret notes!

The sequel to this story was: Morigu: The Vengeance.