The adventures of my Orc Paladin and demented Human Invoker have continued despite not updating this blog about it for some time. Having found a strong “voice” for a character with elaborate back story and a culture involved in the rituals of their particular religious beliefs, I’ve really gotten into writing both of those characters. The DM for the play by post game I am in has put the party in a few interesting situations recently that has let me get my writing and character firmly established.
The first incident was when we ran to a fort that was about to be overrun by a bunch of undead creatures. This battle was a long time coming, as the party split into two groups and I was role playing how my characters were going to outrace and slow down the approaching army. We had to warn the fort to the danger of the oncoming army before we were eaten, while the rest of the party picked off the creatures before they approached. This was a long, slow process that got delayed because of a vacation or two, and some scheduling problems. Once we got going again, it was clear that the DM’s ambitions for the battle to take place at the fort had outstripped our willingness to control dozens of characters and have lots of battles going at once.
A clever solution was provided when the DM ran the entire battle as a giant skill challenge. He gave us bonuses whenever we rolled skills we had, but we had to justify why those skills were being used in battle with lots of undead monsters. We couldn’t just roll the best skills repeatedly. We had to use different skills, or use them in new ways, and role play how it was supposed to affect the battle. The DM had worked out different skill check numbers we had to roll to beat with the different skills. “How can I justify a History roll where I have a huge bonus in the middle of a battle while having it make sense?”
If we rolled successfully, the fort’s soldier’s succeeded using our leadership from the rolls and we had a stronger force fighting for us for the rest of the battle. If we failed, some of the soldiers would fall. If all the soldiers fell, we lost and were eaten. We could use specific skills with harder difficulty levels to raise soldiers that had fallen in the previous round, but it took multiple successes at harder rates to bring them back to battle. It was a mini-strategy game inside the battle to see who was going to be best at raising and fighting, who could keep the soldiers alive, and who could come up with different ways to use their skills to keep getting bonuses.
After that unique large scale battle, the players in the game celebrated while the DM added two more players to the party. Now there is actually a large enough party we can play table D&D again, but logistically that’d never work out anyway. My Orc character is used to getting his way in the party. He’s schizophrenic to a delightful degree, but I don’t think it discourages anyone’s play at all. The DM loves the way I’ve been using his strange cultural and religious ideas to relate to the other party members. As this character has leveled, I’ve deliberately stacked his powers and abilities to be more sacrificial and risky. He will often do damage to himself to do even larger damage to someone that stands in his way. I’m continuing to build on that theme as he gets more and more powerful, but more and more suicidal. Usually the Paladin in the party is someone that can heal and help out raising someone in a pinch. Not the way my Paladin plays. He has a voice and a logic all his own, and I love playing him for that reason.
One of the new players told me that he was more disturbed by my Human Invoker character that has fallen in line with the demented Orc’s religious beliefs. I hadn’t thought about the image of a human eating rotting meat or ranting about how righteous a Cruel Orc God is in my mind. It seems along the way the “sidekick” character I had used as a convenient way to round out the party has grown into something worth developing too. I’m glad I’m not just building a bunch of boring stock characters in my free time.
The most recent story arc involving the Invoker was after the large battle with the undead. During the battle he had used his high Arcana skill to search for magic around that might have been influencing the battle. There was a gigantic funeral pyre erected in the fort to dispose of the undead after the battle. As a throwaway idea, I mentioned that the character was going to sit in front of the fire and watch it while he pondered the information from the battle. He also had some other related skills that let him know something funny was going on with these particular undead attacks. As he sat down to watch this fire, he had a vision. I got a personal message from the DM who wanted to share the story with only me. This isn’t unusual. The personal message is how all messages from my Orc God are delivered. It’s up to me to share the information I want to divulge to the rest of the party.
This time was different. Instead of the normal visions my character has after performing an elaborate ritual I worked out from scratch, he saw something through the flames of the fire. He was contacted by a hostile, evil God who offered him a Faustian bargain. This particular God is Orcus, The Prince of the Undead, had already made a brief appearance earlier in the campaign. He’s a real jerk. Anyway, the offer I got from Orcus was insufficiently tempting for me to take, so the Invoker just taunted him and really put Orcus in his place. It was all righteous and character driven smack talk that worked from the story’s perspective, but will probably have huge consequences for him later on. I decided to take the risk and not just reply, but make a statement as well. This is the same God that tried to have undead monster eat this character. No way he is going to hold his tongue. I can’t imagine that going out of your way to piss off the God that has a death cult and lots of influence in the world is going to bode well for this character’s long term survival strategies, but for role playing opportunities? It’s a gold mine.
Regardless, my DM sent me a follow up personal message that gave me the thumbs up for my bold response. I even got a bonus Action Point for my role playing. Heh.
I’ve taken this twist (which has yet to be revealed to anyone in the party) and added to how I want the character to act. This Invoker is going to be more bold and reckless when confronting enemies now that he believes that he’s angered a God and needs to speak for his own God all the more strongly. His first combat after the vision he dropped a huge Daily Power on some goblins, while hostile, might or might not have been a threat, simply because he wanted them to burn in a fire and roast painfully. He serves a cruel Orc god (not to be confused with Orcus), so he should start acting the part. The other players thought he was disturbing and a little strange before. He’s got a reason to be a little more weird now.
While I like my big, dumb, slightly insane Orc Paladin alot (easily my favorite character), this new twist on my Invoker is getting me pretty excited too. I enjoy telling a story with my characters a lot, and having a strong voice to bring to the play by post game is really rewarding. It’s not easy. It’s like having a second blog, but when it works I think the time is worth the effort.
