An interesting aside
We're deep into a 3.5 campaign, one where we allow any and all 3.0/3.5/Pathfinder/D20 Books, Tomes, Errrata, Modules, and even most fan developed monsters, races and classes. It's a hot mess of a game, and a hot mess of a group of characters:
1. A few relatively straight foreward charactors:
Rugburn - Human Scout
Azerbaijan - Teifling Sorcerer
Wallace - Human Psionicist
2. A couple not so straight foreward:
Bear Beard - a Gold Dragon Bloodline Human Paladin of Bahamut
Aphalia - A Human Amazon from the old Hollow World campain setting,
who is also a Psionic Wild Talent.
3. And a couple 'out there' toons:
Rhoarun - a fully insane, not really human anymore Binder (Tome of
Magic) that would endlessly 'bleed' from his several stigmata
Pereton - a Sun Elven Hunter from the Happy Hunting Grounds, Gestalt
Druid/Barbarian.
ok - so early on, waaaay back at first level, they encounter a Red Dragon - which uses some form of potent magic to alter time. They have been spending the last ten or so levels 250 years in the future, the world, people and loved ones they left behind in many cases gone, and the socio-political world about them an alien landscape where the Gods for the most part are dead, and the universe is ruled by these Dragon Lords... Bahamut no longer counted amoung their numbers. They Mistake the Red Dragon as an enemy (they still assume she is somehow behind it), never realizing her motivations (she's against the current regime), as she occasionally aids the party from time to time; though such aid is delivered in a brutal fashion: To Make them Stronger, they must be Tested. Such tests include an ancient blitheringly mad warforged berserker, an undead adult green dragon, and behing dropped into an anceint dungeon derived directly from an old Arduin Module "Welcome to Skull Tower", riddled with countless old school tricks and traps. Ultimately they discover the Red Dragon's lair - 250 years into the future - and work their way to an ancient elaborate iron door. They determine that for the door to be opened there is aa adjacent hole where someone must 'sacrifice'... something... though no one can determine what. The hole is roughly a foot deep, round and about 5" diameter. They use divination spells, psionic senses, logic... they poke it with sticks, toss in coins, even a couple minor majic items, using extreme care to not put any part of their own body in it. Nothing. Then the Binder, unexpectedly shoves his hand an lower arm in.
Our Paladin suddenly senses a vast evil emanating from beyond the door, and without hesitation hacks off the Binder's arm.
What follows was a MAJOR confrontation between the player controlling the Paladin, and the one controlling the Binder. Soon the entire group is embroiled in a massive argument; about alignments, demands of stripping the Paladin of his Knighthood and Powers, how people state their actions, timing and initiative, playing in character, out of character - we even coerce the DM into a redo - which goes just as badly the second time around as the Binder coyly shoves his arm back into the hole again - this time attacked by the Scout and the Paladin, where the Sorcerer and the Hunter attack them! The fight is so nasty, that the player of the Binder scoops up his books, punches a hole in the DM's garage wall, tells everyone they can go (rymes with truck) themselves and drives off like a bat out of hell. The game for the night ended moments later.
The fall out: That player and the DM quit the group. The DM quits DnD period. The entire adventure is abandoned, left in limbo, but, eventually, the rest of the group get's back together and starts a bi-weekly 2nd Edition Rules campaign.
