High Level Campaign - The Boneyard

I can't talk about the HIGH LEVEL campaign without mentioning those people who have given their lives to make it more real. Player characters or not, there were some whose pseudo-lives stood out and helped make the campaign come alive. Some are here remembered fondly, or with respect, or with suspicion and wariness, even now.

Heroes

FELIX

Felix the Gray Elf cavalier was for many years one of the two greatest warriors of the realm. With his companion-in-arms, the paladin Sir Godfrey, he cut a swathe through the ranks of evil, putting thieves, undead, humanoids and beasts alike to the sword with an absence of fear that bordered on gay abandon.

His greatest flaw was a predilection for swiving maidens, which he did whenever there was no evil to be put to the sword. Some of his more memorable deeds include: riding his horse into the moat of the mage Falameezar, then attacking his tower, only to fall victim to a Teleport trap and be forced to walk 20 miles back to town; suffering the loss of both arms, not once, but twice, and the second time with an eye thrown in; and participating in the final battle in the Temple, after which he bid his companions adieu. His fate in the Nightfall war is unknown.

SIR GODFREY

One of the greatest warriors the world has known, Sir Godfrey (later Baron) Kerranson, Warden of the Just, Defender of Law was a human paladin. Like any mortal man, he was subject to temptation and on occasion erred close to being stripped of his paladinhood, but he atoned and went on to become a symbol of piety and gallantry.

Some of his more memorable deeds include: defeating the nameless champion of evil in the Battle of Hommlet, despite having an arm severed from his body; defeating one of the six Type VI demons; and participating in both the final battle in the Temple, and the defeat of the Slave Lords (several of whom he personally helped along into the next world). Following this feat, he departed for his homeland, and his fate in the Nightfall war is unknown.

THACO

Nobody would have called Thaco Fenugreek nice. He was a half-orcish shaman and scout, scoundrel, brutal, and loved nothing more than killing strangers from ambush and spending their gold in the nearest brothel. Despite his amorality, his undoubted skill was valued by the party, and never more than when he murdered the Temple's high priest.

The lowest ebb of his life was when, wracked with illness, injured and poorly equipped, he was castrated by bullywugs. However, he had the last laugh where they were concerned.

Buried behind a house of ill repute when his repertoire of tricks ran out, he returned for the final battle in the Temple, then departed. His fate in the Nightfall war - if he lived so long - is unknown.

ARNIE 'THROATRIPPER' THUNDERFIST

Minotaur, shaman of Thunderbird, warrior, lost soul. All these describe the hulking, horned figure whom his companions called simply 'Arnie'. Violent if provoked (and he often was), Arnie had a compassionate soul and did more for the poor and wretched souls he encountered than most, despite being so fearsome in appearance that many of those poor and wretched souls fled in terror on first meeting him. Although he served with distinction in the final stages of the campaign to eradicate the Temple, his greatest deed was to bring the worship of the Thunderbird to the great city, and to establish a mission there to care for the poor. Captured with his companions by slavers, he was slain in a rearguard action during the escape, his body dumped into the harbour.

ZEPHYR TROY

Lady Zephyr Troy, Archdruid, bearer of a dozen titles from as many lands, salvation of the Northlands, servant of Silvanus, a legend in her own lifetime. A woman of half-elven heritage and humble origins, she was at the battle for the Temple, the battle of Hommlet, the destruction of the Slave Lords, the rescue of the Viscount. She it was that wielded the Orb of Death, and she destroyed it. She instituted and led the quest for the Seed, in order to atone for her secular interests, and a song of her deeds was long sung there. Separated from her long-standing companions not long before the Nightfall war, her fate is unknown - but nothing would be hard to believe where she is concerned.

RAMDALE DABLO-DE-COURT

The man, the magician, the bearer of his family's curse. That there was demon blood in his family tree he did not try to hide, for his deceits and his conquests were brazen. There was a heartless side to his character which he always struggled to keep in check, and he didn't always succeed. He became the very definition of paranoia. He may be remembered longer in the northlands as the bard who composed the legendary "Lay of the Return of the Old Gods" than as the ambitious, doomed, greedy wizard who more than once squared off against his own companions. It was inevitable that he would go his own way, as he did not long before the Nightfall war. His fate is unknown.

Villains

FALRINTH

Falrinth fought the player characters in six separate battles. Although he’s not an original character, having come complete from the pages of T1-4, he came to life in the campaign with a slipperiness and a cunning I wouldn’t have believed. His arrival, attacks and departure were always punctuated with his villainous declamations. "Curses! Foiled again!" or "At last I will have my revenge! Death, here is thy sting!"

He preferred to attack from ambush, which gave him the benefit of a prepared position and surprise. If possible he’d use illusions or invisibility or an accomplice to distract his targets while he hammered them with spells, usually going for fighters first since he almost always outclassed the opposition spellcasters. He always had an escape spell, typically Dimension Door or Teleport (DD is particularly good, since it has such a short casting time), and so if he could not carry the day he’d just leave, and plot his next attack.

He had skilled assistants, two or three of them, and at least one of them would be elsewhere and check up on him occasionally. My players learned after a few 'boomerang villains' to be thorough when killing an opponent, but they didn’t always get the chance.

He was the original guardian of the Orb of Death, the relic which is at the centre of the T1-4 campaign. He was killed after two battles, then Raised by a paid cleric, then killed again and Raised by Iuz to participate in the final battle of the Temple. Afterwards, having escaped again, he and Senshock continued to dog the player characters in an effort to wreak vengeance.

Falrinth’s death was spectacular: in a single round he was hit by a fireball and a lightning bolt, either of which could have killed him separately; dead, he fell (he was standing on top of a tower’s battlements at the time) seventy feet to a flagged courtyard, where his charred, broken remains were nailed to the flagstones with three steel-head sheaf arrows. His body was suspiciously examined by the player characters, then watched as it was burned, the ashes gathered and scattered. You know he's been a good villain when they make extra sure he's dead.

SMIGMAL RED HAND

Smigmal Red Hand was Falrinth’s right hand woman, a half-orc fighter-assassin of great flair. Although fairly well skilled and equipped, she was famous for two things: her on-again, off-again relationship with the elvish cavalier Felix, and her sudden and brutal surprise attacks. Her curious accent told of a foreign birth. Wearing her characteristic all-black outfit and red gauntlets, she was a stylish opponent, hard to kill.

She preferred to retreat rather than face a fair fight. Any fight, she reasoned, is to be avoided unless the odds are stacked in your favour. Preferably very stacked. She never successfully killed a player character, but she cut a swathe through their companions.

Felix was strangely attracted to the ruthless bladeswoman. They met over crossed swords, and Felix later permitted her to escape when he was on watch, rather than have her end up facing the party’s rather rough justice. Responsible for at least one 'mysterious death' in the campaign history, she nearly killed two player characters single-handedly in her final scene.

After backstabbing the party’s magician, Orion, and leaving him for dead, she escaped out onto the roof above the third-storey hotel room’s window. When Nathan, the cleric-ranger, looked for her out the window, she dropped a wire noose around his neck and yanked it. Nathan began to strangle, but his companion-in-arms, Hubert, got out onto the roof by a different route and attacked Smigmal. She fell from the rooftop, and for a moment it seemed that her weight would depend from the wire noose, doubtless decapitating the hapless Nathan. Almost blacking out, Nathan cut the wire a split second before it pulled taut. Smigmal fell to the cobbles, already dead.

FALAMEEZAR

Falameezar was my first attempt at the classic self-interested wizard. Rich, powerful, but sensibly not willing to usually risk himself adventuring, he was a source of both help and frustration to the players. As the highest-level local wizard, he was the obvious person to approach for paid spellcasting (remove curse, et. al.) and for magical advice. However, he demanded high prices.

On one occasion he employed the player characters to explore the source of some weird events, subject to his having title to "one of each of any unusual items acquired." The party was hurled into another dimension, from which they were fortunate to return with their lives - but most of them did return, carrying very little treasure other than a variety of guns. Which Falameezar immediately claimed as his share, leaving the party with the paltry base payment they’d agree to.

Falameezar was a master villain. He was not one for adventuring (personally), or fighting (directly). His tower was once attacked by an over-confident player character. He gained entrance, but after a series of tough battles against magical constructs, and injured by several magical traps, he was teleported to a place from which he had a long walk home. He never directly opposed the PCs, but he often controlled schemes which were to their detriment, or took advantage of opportunities they created. For this reason, the player characters hated him, but (with one exception) never tried to attack him. He was great fun to play.

EDRALVE

Like Falrinth and Smigmal, Edralve was an NPC from one of the adventures I'd woven into my campaign, in this case A1-4. She was, however, the only Slaver Lord with any depth - she had schemes and intrigues which affected the player characters from the beginning, and it was only at the very end that they had an opportunity to strike back directly. This is an excellent technique to use for villains, though I confess I feel it was a mistake to run the final encounter in the way it was presented in A1-4. The odds were stacked against the villains, who fought to the death. The magicians escaped, using magic, but Edralve - whom I feel should have had an escape route ready, if anyone did - perished.

Still, the party continued to feel her influence for some time, through the remnants of her schemes and her remaining agents. The way she was presented taught me a lot about using master villains and their nefarious schemes.

XERONIX THE CHAOTIC

Xeronix was an original character. A magician, he was unusual in that he did not encounter the player characters repeatedly, escaping by magic. He was the senior magician in the ranks of the Blessed of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named (appears below), and skilled and evil as you'd expect. Because of the excellent tactics used against him by the players, he was taken prisoner - and once taken prisoner, was meek and mild and behaved like an honourable prisoner of war. So the PCs let him go. They even gave him his magic items back, once he was a safe distance away (I couldn't believe that).

I learned playing Xeronix that sometimes villains can surrender, or be captured, and still be interesting - even if they don't manage to escape or return to commit a foul act. (He would have, but lacked an opportunity). It's a difficult tactic to use, and much depends on the players - if they don't take prisoners, it probably won't work.

THE BLESSED OF HE-WHO-MUST-NOT-BE-NAMED

Another original character. He was the ultimate challenge - that the players actually met - in Book 3, the Quest for the Seed. As the Patriarch of the church of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, he was the instrument of his deity's will in Mythegonia, a man who had gone beyond death in the usual sense because of his close relationship with a god of death.

I gave him a nifty special defense, on top of his magic items and spells, that made him pretty tough. In the end, he was cool because of the huge story that wound up in this big battle, or series of battles on the last day, and then came down to a duel between himself and the druid Zephyr, as general of the opposition. The players were aware for a long time, through foreshadowing, that they would face him, and that he would be something special. That worried them, and the drawn out series of encounters leading to the duel intensified the effect.

In the end, when the player characters won, they were so relieved and had such a sense of achievement. It was a great day, made possible by a worthy opponent.

INFERNO

I found the regular problem with AD&D dragons: they suck. And then die. Leaving the PCs waaaay too much loot. So I beefed them up. And the PCs still killed them, though at least they were tough.

After a while I found out the problem was me. How I was playing the dragons, I mean. Now, what kind of fool creature sits on a big pile of loot (that screams "steal me!"), spends a lot of time sleeping, and when it fights is typically badly outnumbered and lucky to get all of its breath weapon attacks off before it dies? Dragons.

Not Inferno. Red dragon, of course. He employs guards, spies, and servants, so it's pretty hard to get to see him unannounced. Also, he is a skilled spell user (dragon spell use sucks). And if he fights, he doesn't fight fair. He has brains after all, and he's not interested in some abstract definition of honour, just in winning and then eating the loser.

Inferno pushed the player characters around a lot, since when they first me they were in now way in his league. So he had them run a few errands, and then kept tabs on them. Player characters often create opportunities for smart villains. He was always aware that one day they'd be tough enough to fight him, so he prepared against that day. It seems, now, that they won't have the opportunity. Sad...

ECLAVDRA

Deciding to revisit my old mistakes, Eclavdra, another pre-created NPC from a purchased adventure, showed up in my campaign. However, this time I had her make plans and act as I thought she might, rather than just according to the script. The player characters learned to hate her, once they found out she existed - because when they did, it was after the latest in a series of unpleasant events they'd stumbled into because of her.

Once again I found that one of the most useful things a villain can have is good help. A decent assistant, acting as a spy and travelling with the player characters, kept Eclavdra up to date on their activities and allowed her to make counterplans. If there had been a showdown, she would have provided a timely surprise attack, as well.

I had Eclavdra specialise in attacks under false flags, misdirection, the use of illusions and assassins. All these techniques allowed her to maximise the value of her limited troops. Of course, she had to be operating in secret - at least to begin with. If the deceit could be carried off for long enough, then the eventual revelation of the truth would be too late.

An experienced NPC with a high intelligence and charisma ought to be able to coerce, persuade, or otherwise manipulate some or many persons or creatures into doing their bidding. With a little planning, that can become an incredibly deadly force - in this case, some persuasive words in the ear of a giant king, along with some suggestions on innovative tactics, possible alliances, and strategy - combined to hamstring a whole nation, with a thousand or so casualties as collateral damage, and lay its belly bare for a lethal strike. Which, unfortunately (depending on who you ask) was prevented by the heroic player characters. Still, my villain escaped to plot another day.

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