I've noticed that you're running a very deadly game, which seems appropriate to the theme.
Interestingly enough, it didn't really get all that deadly until the group reached Omu.
I find it fascinating that Elvraema and Carn have somehow managed to stay alive from the beginning of the campaign
Technically they have both cheated death twice.
Elvraema technically died at the very start of the campaign. She was the first to descend into the ravine in
The Sunless Citadel. I rolled Stealth for the giant rats on the landing and all of them beat her passive Perception, so they surprised her. I rolled two natural 20s and an 18. The damage was precisely enough to instakill her. Her player turned to me and said, with a shocked look on his face,
"Now what?!"
It was virtually the very first thing that had happened in the campaign! I ruled that she could remain alive, albeit unconscious. I think I had the player spend his Inspiration for it. We only had three players/PCs during that first session, so it was a bit touch-and-go, but the other two managed to kill the rats and rescue Elvraema.
A similar thing happened to Carn during a later session: his player hadn't been able to join us for the first one or two sessions, so Carn ended up a prisoner of the goblins in the Sunless Citadel. The other PCs rescued him only for him to get killed by the white dragon wyrmling. Again, since it was the first session of the campaign for both player and PC, I ruled that Carn survived (possibly also via the spending of Inspiration).
Carn then also died trying to defeat the gladiators in Shagambi's tomb, as did Elvraema in the fight against the Red Wizards, but since their respective players were both absent on those occasions, I ruled that their deaths didn't stand.
while at least one poor player seems to have lost a minimum of four characters with rhyming names.
Yes. Miles was the first, and when he died, Niles came in. A fighter/wizard, he lasted all of 90 minutes in real time. I did give his player the option of continuing to play him, but he decided he wanted to make a new character that was a straight-up fighter. Thus Giles was born. He lasted a few sessions before perishing at the hands of the Red Wizards. The player decided he wanted to go back to playing a wizard, thus Ziles entered the picture.
Is this a reflection on the level of experience of the players themselves, or is there some other factor at work?
As you can see, there are a few factors at play here. The guy playing the PCs with the rhyming names is an old school gamer. Before joining my 5e campaign, he hadn't played since the 1e or 2e days. I think he's just having a bit of nostalgic fun with the rhyming.
I'd love to know which players are attached to which characters, even if you referenced the players by pseudonym. I am assuming, for instance, that the player of the Tortle Druid just decided to switch characters, though this is purely conjecture on my part. I am also wondering what lessons you and the players have learned from all of these challenges.
You're right about the tortle druid. Here's a breakdown of who's been playing whom:
Player A: Elvraema
Player B: Carn
Player C: Miles, Niles, Giles, Ziles
Player D: Nikolai, Armstrong, Ghoom-Ra, Gareth, Veronica, Hakkar
Player E: Max, Tobias, Gretchen
Player D gets bored of his characters rather quickly. He retired Nikolai after
The Sunless Citadel and Armstrong after
The Forge of Fury. He got bored with Ghoom-Ra as well and wanted to bring in Gareth instead. I arranged for Ghoom-Ra to disappear by falling into a seemingly bottomless pit after the player told me about a dream he'd had in which that had happened. When Veronica died, I gave him the opportunity to continue playing a clone of her, but he said the character wasn't playing as well as he'd hoped and wanted to try something different.
After the near-TPK, the group felt that they a) didn't have enough firepower (which is partly why Ziles exists and why Gretchen is part-sorcerer) and b) had too many ranged/roguey types (hence why Gretchen and Hakkar both have really high ACs/Constitutions and the Tough feat).
I gave Player E the option of playing a clone of both Max and Tobias, but he declined in both instances, although he says he may still take me up on the offer now that we're in the tomb itself. He was most attached to Max and was rather sad when he died. (As were we all really, as Max's crush on Elvraema often resulted in some fun RP.)
Your writing style is excellent, and I keenly await the next installment. I have been thinking about running ToA myself and you have given me a lot of inspiration.
Thank you! That is fantastic!
Luckily it looks like we'll be playing on Sunday instead of tonight, so all is not lost!
