In my previous installment I chronicled
the genesis of THE CAMPAIGN here
In that post I talk about the broad scope of the game from the 40,000
foot level. Before I chronicle the rest of the adventuring party I
will discuss the only real piece I have from the game other then my
memories: my character sheet. Below is the scan of it, but before I
get to it, from what I can piece together this is not the original
one. The typing is not mine on the first sheet it is Jeff's. The
second sheet of equipment and magic items is my typing (misspellings
and all). This I recognize as I hand typed it on my old Atari
800 XL Also it was later on in the campaign as I had acquired a
few more magic items and lost others.
Now looking at the first page a few
things are noticeable. First, I wonder why my character has such a
low charisma? Trying to tell me something Jeff? Hah! The notation for
strength and the exceptional rating is I found a magical studded
bracer of ogre power (same as gauntlets) but only on the arm I was
wearing it on. Makes you wonder, but it really was never an issues as
my character fought with an unusual weapon for a dark elf, a spetum.
Note the parts where it says ambidexterity and under abilities where
it notes “You have all of the male drow abilities and penalties”.
During the entire campaign I can never remember fighting two weapon
style, not once. Why? Well I was specialized in spetum and by the end
of the game I believe double specialized, Now granted this was
diverging from the rules as written, but as I noted in part one we
were treading different ground. I think at one point I went through a
number of magical spetums as all of us in the party were failing item
saving throws at one point or another. Despite all of this stacking,
yes I was a decent fighter, but probably not the best one as that
went to the half ogre fighter. I do remember I did get a new set of
smoke colored translucent dice in the mail prior to the start. They
best part is the d20 rolled 19 on a very regular basis (I must have
used all of the luck back then because it now rolls like crap).
Innate abilities are listed and I seem
to recall my dark elf had lost his magic resistance, but had access
to his daily powers. I recall faerie fire, darkness and
levitate were ones I used quite often. Also Jeff as I noted last
time Jeff incorporated the fighting styles from Dragon #127. Also not
appearing on the sheet is alignment. I think it was inadvertently
left off. I say this as I seem to recall him being True Neutral in
the sense of concerned about himself rather then balance.
The equipment on the first page is
interesting too. It points to this not being the first generation of
the character sheet because some of the magic items I acquired are in
the typed text while some items are written in. The book of black
poetry and the broom are of special note, why I was hauling them around
is another mystery that only my 14 year old self can answer... The short
bow came about because I wanted to pick up longbow as the damage from
a hand crossbow is anemic due to the fact they are just injection
methods for the poison that the dark elves coat on their bolts with.
Without the poison? 1d3/1d2? And terrible range to boot. So as I
remember trying to go longbow and settled on short bow. I didn't use
either all that much. I do have a few memories of using a magical
long sword on occasion, but mainly it was spetum and shield. I did
use the hand crossbow on other occasions when stealth was needed
coating with some varying poisons
Lastly a Fighter/Rune-caster?
For this game the magic users used runes. Each day we would chisel
our spell to a rune and then cast as needed. This was more for flavor
and had no difference from how it works in normal spell casting. In
fact I had spell books and in my pouch of holding I had quite
a few as the next sheet shows.
The equipment sheet as noted was typed
by me, misspellings, warts and all; it is what it is. Since identify
was so underpowered in 1st edition and the nature of the
campaign we quite frequently didn’t know exactly what an item could
do. Looking at it the list is hardly earth shattering. Remember as I
noted in part one we had done a quick high level campaign prior so we
were going more low powered this time around. I already mentioned the
magical bracer of ogre power. It was the first magic item I picked up
in the game and surprisingly survived every item saving throw through
to the end. Another item I had that clearly is not on there but
remember distinctly is the cloak of the bat (although cloak of the
arachnid would have fit better). I remember it getting nuked in a
failed fireball saving throw much to the parties relief as I was
annoying them with it. The book of summoning “homucumuls”
deserves special note, apparently aside from bad spelling I never
used it. I think I left it in the pouch of holding waiting for my
familiar to bit the dust... Summoning a homunculus would have been
cool and in the theme of the character.
The familiar is a special story. I hate
cats, cant stand um and I'm a dog person to boot. And what happens
through random rolls after I cast the spell? A cat? WTF. Over the
course of the campaign something unusual happens however. Jeff's
basement cat decides he wants to park himself on my lap every
session. Don't know how it happened, but that was the only cat I ever
liked and when Saturday came around there Cogswell would be: on my
lap and purring. The odd thing is I don't recall him wanting to move
or sitting anywhere else*. (Quick note: despite my dislike of cats
I don't like to see them harmed. My wife calls me Diego the animal
rescuer as various animals, strays and injured ones are often drawn
to me for some reason, sometimes randomly showing up at our house.)
Somehow the familiar survived the game through sheer luck I'm
guessing or the purring feline on my lap had something to do with it,
go figure. I also believe to this day the cat loved the fact we gamed
in the basement as the usual ritual was to chip in for pizza (which
the older guy Mike would drive and get) and we would eat our fill.
More as often then not the pizza box would get left in the basement
and we would often find the cat munching on some rock hard pizza or
crust the following week.
Of special note is Jeff used his
extensive citadel collection for miniatures which he painted quite
well by the standards of the time, Dave may have painted his (I
wasn’t into painting at that point). Looking back on them the minis
really influenced character design. My mini was one of the 3rd
edition Foot
calvary- Toruviel Longstride the rest of the parties minis
likewise influenced the characters. In my case he was painted blue
skinned, black as a dark elf and his shield would later on factor in
to his goals.
There he is, one of my favorite
fighter/magic users, Relendor Silkenweb. For the name I remember
leafing through D3- Vault of the Drow for names and on page 14
appears “Captain Relonor” and it somehow got changed to Relendor.
Finally Relendor had one other distinction: in this game he was the
only PC to not be slain. Every other PC had died at least once. I do
remember in one dungeon being knocked down to -9 and stabilized
immediately through sheer luck owing to the fact that one of the
other PCs was near by.
His back story is lost but I do
remember he was sent by the church of Arion (there was no Lolth in
this game) to recover the shield of Arion which had been stolen by
Dragotha, same name, but not the undead dragon. Dragotha would be
woven into all of our characters backgrounds as point unifying us
together. I hope Jeff has them stashed away in his bin of stuff as I
only ever read mine but no longer have it.
Thats it until next time when I
chronicle the remaining adventuring party and the players. Last time
I said there were seven of us, but there may have been eight as Jim
might have playing with us at that time and I recall a dwarf fighter
of his. I'll have to see if I can jog the memory.
