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The Durnhill Conscripts
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<blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 7274037" data-attributes="member: 508"><p>My son <strong>Logan</strong> and I have decided to start up yet another campaign. We already have two active D&D campaigns going: "The Kordovian Adventurers Guild," which I DM (<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?466587-The-Kordovian-Adventurers-Guild" target="_blank">Story Hour link</a>), and "The Adventures of Baabby and Sam (A Skylanders Campaign)," which Logan DMs (<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?523434-The-Adventures-of-Baabby-and-Sam-a-Skylanders-Campaign" target="_blank">Story Hour link</a>). The latter campaign is still going on, but a recent string of setbacks with the family we game with in the former campaign has caused us to go two months now without a gaming session - and circumstances are such that we won't have another opportunity to play the next adventure in that campaign until 18 Nov 17 - a full ten weeks since our last session. The latter campaign has the advantage of the DM and the two sole players (my nephew <strong>Harry</strong> and I) all residing in the same house, so we can theoretically play whenever we want, but traditionally we try to play every Saturday that we aren't having a Kordovian game session. (Due to our two families' respective schedules, Saturday works out best for our Kordovian sessions.)</p><p></p><p>The other family we play with consists of <strong>Dan</strong> and <strong>Vicki</strong> and their two sons, <strong>Jacob</strong> and <strong>Joey</strong>. Jacob is now in his third year of college (time flies - our families started gaming together when he was 8 years old!), and lives about 45 minutes away. The plan has been that he'd be back home every other weekend so we could theoretically game every other Saturday, but due to some family stuff (with both families), that hasn't been the case. Also, until recently, Dan and Logan used to go to the local game shop every Wednesday to paint minis, but the shop got overcrowded and they've pretty much gotten all the minis painted they need, so they stopped doing that. But we all kind of missed the Wednesday get-togethers, since Dan and I (who used to work together in the same office, but now work in different offices in the same building on the same Air Force Base) got to catch up with what had been going on in our respective lives before they'd go off to paint.</p><p></p><p>So Logan and I decided: what if we started up a new campaign to fill those Wednesday slots? His Skylanders adventures are usually only about 2 hours long on purpose (we've found out that's about the optimal length to match Harry's 10-year-old attention span), so we could have him DM a series of short adventures of about the same length. We could have Wednesday night be our traditional game night for that campaign, and with short adventures designed to be finished in one 2-hour span it wouldn't matter that we might not have the same player roster from week to week (if, say, Dan was free on a particular Wednesday evening but Vicki had something going on that night).</p><p></p><p>With that as our concept, we decided our characters would be more on the mercenary side of things. So as not to hamper Logan with decisions made in the Kordovian campaign (which is loosely set on Oerth but includes significant differences from the official campaign setting), we decided this new campaign would take place on a separate game world but with the standard D&D 3.5 races, spells, and deities - everything straight from the <em>Player's Handbook</em>. Logan further tweaked the idea into having our PCs conscripted by the king into going out on missions that needed to be done, but occasionally couldn't be performed by official members of the kingdom. (For example: the king wants a band of rogues slain that headquarter in the next kingdom over: if he sends his own soldiers in it would be an act of war, but if he sends a group of individuals with no known - or at least provable - ties to his kingdom, if they get caught he can always deny his involvement.) So it's basically a "Suicide Squad" set-up without our PCs necessarily having to be "bad guys."</p><p></p><p>In talking this over amongst ourselves (Logan, Harry and I) in the van one evening on the way to dinner (my wife <strong>Mary</strong> wasn't feeling well that evening and sent us out to eat and asked us to bring her back something), Harry came up with a full character idea almost immediately. He and Logan had been playing their way through some of the "Final Fantasy" console games, and Harry wanted to make sure monks existed as a character class in D&D because some of his favorite FF characters were monks. Upon getting that confirmed, he decided he'd run an elven monk, and then he spilled out a full back-story for his PC: he'd been through his initial training at the monastery and his master was ready to send him out into the world to do good deeds, with an understanding he was welcome to return any time he needed for training and weapons. All he was lacking was a name, and after a couple of days we went looking up elf name meanings from an old <em>Dragon</em> article and came up with <strong>Kaspar Hardstrike</strong>. (According to the <em>Dragon</em> article, "Ka-" means "dragon" and "-spar" means "fist" in the Elven tongue, so Kaspar's first name translates to "Dragon Fist.")</p><p></p><p>I wanted to run a dumb human fighter, and I ended up with <strong>Jace Syngaard</strong>. I came up with a somewhat elaborate back-story which I later related to Logan, but which I fully intend to keep hidden from the other players - I envision Syngaard (who goes just by his last name - only two people ever regularly called him "Jace" and they're both dead) as somewhat withdrawn. He's a bald, ugly guy with several prominent facial scars who used to work as a bouncer in a tavern; now he performs a similar function in a local brothel, where he works for room and board. He wields a morningstar as his primary weapon and has a very mercenary attitude, with money as his primary motivator. He's got lower-than-normal intelligence and charisma and his highest stat is constitution; I intend him to be a dumb brute who likes to take his pent-up frustrations out by killing things.</p><p></p><p>Dan took the opportunity of a new campaign to try out a human paladin and came up with <strong>Galen Thorne</strong>. The image he chose to represent Galen is somewhat interesting, as it looks more than a little like his older son Jacob when he first wakes up. Galen is a follower of Hieroneous and we're all looking forward to watching Dan run a lawful good paladin, considering many of his past PCs have been a little more on the shady side, ethics-wise.</p><p></p><p>Vicki jumped at the chance to run a halfling PC since I won't be DMing. (I have a well-known dislike for halflings and she has never dared running a halfling PC in my games, not trusting me not to try killing her PC on general principles.) She decided on a rogue with multiple daggers as her primary weapons, and chose <strong>Orion Nightsky</strong> as her PC's name. (Despite the Orion of Greek myth being male, Orion the halfling is female.)</p><p></p><p>Joey was the last to come up with a PC, wandering into the kitchen just as his parents were putting the finishing touches on their PCs. Looking over the other four PCs in the campaign thus far, he opted on a whim to run an elven wizard. He decided not to take a familiar at this point because he's seen in our past campaigns how much fun it can be with an Improved Familiar, so he's holding out for that. (Dan runs a wizard with a Small earth elemental familiar in the Kordovian campaign, and Logan had a conjurer with a Small fire elemental in the campaign before that one.) Coming up with names he likes has always been somewhat of a problem for Joey, so at this point his elven wizard is still unnamed. [Later edit: he eventually decided upon <strong>Daleth Stormsea</strong>.] But he has a 17 Intelligence and a 6 Charisma, so Joey's already decided he'll be haughty and treat the rest of us as if we were beneath his contempt.</p><p></p><p>Jacob won't be around many Wednesdays during the college year so we'll be playing without him for the most part. Once he becomes available as a player (maybe over Christmas break, or else during the summer), we'll have him make up a PC and add him into the roster. [Later edit: That never happened. A 45-minute drive each way isn't worth it for a 2-hour game session.]</p><p></p><p>So that's our starting lineup: LG elf monk, LG human paladin, CG human fighter, CG halfling rogue, and NG elf wizard. Logan's busy coming up with names for important NPCs like the king and his chief advisor (the latter being the guy we'll all get our orders from each week) and the name of our home city and such, as well as our first adventure. I'm building initiative cards for our PCs and printing out a spell sheet for Joey's wizard and a PC tracking sheet for Logan, and we'll see how things go. We're not worried about a lack of a healer; these will be short adventures so we're hoping a few healing potions here and there will get us through each session.</p><p></p><p>Incidentally, the way we have things planned, whoever shows up on Wednesday will run their PC through the week's adventure and those PCs will gain XP; the other PCs will be assumed to be on some non-XP-gathering duty, like staking out an inn and reporting to the king's advisor when a certain individual shows up, or tailing somebody to report on their movements or whatnot. That way, those interested in gaming (and available) that week can do so and those who choose not to don't have to. (I suspect there will be some weeks that Harry foregoes D&D for the alluring call of "Final Fantasy.")</p><p></p><p>Since these short missions will be things our PCs can't always admit to, we were thinking of calling this campaign - and our band of PCs - "The Shadowblades." But that's been used many times elsewhere, so we're going with "The Durnhill Conscripts" - Durnhill being the kingdom where our PCs live.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Richards, post: 7274037, member: 508"] My son [b]Logan[/b] and I have decided to start up yet another campaign. We already have two active D&D campaigns going: "The Kordovian Adventurers Guild," which I DM ([URL="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?466587-The-Kordovian-Adventurers-Guild"]Story Hour link[/URL]), and "The Adventures of Baabby and Sam (A Skylanders Campaign)," which Logan DMs ([URL="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?523434-The-Adventures-of-Baabby-and-Sam-a-Skylanders-Campaign"]Story Hour link[/URL]). The latter campaign is still going on, but a recent string of setbacks with the family we game with in the former campaign has caused us to go two months now without a gaming session - and circumstances are such that we won't have another opportunity to play the next adventure in that campaign until 18 Nov 17 - a full ten weeks since our last session. The latter campaign has the advantage of the DM and the two sole players (my nephew [b]Harry[/b] and I) all residing in the same house, so we can theoretically play whenever we want, but traditionally we try to play every Saturday that we aren't having a Kordovian game session. (Due to our two families' respective schedules, Saturday works out best for our Kordovian sessions.) The other family we play with consists of [b]Dan[/b] and [b]Vicki[/b] and their two sons, [b]Jacob[/b] and [b]Joey[/b]. Jacob is now in his third year of college (time flies - our families started gaming together when he was 8 years old!), and lives about 45 minutes away. The plan has been that he'd be back home every other weekend so we could theoretically game every other Saturday, but due to some family stuff (with both families), that hasn't been the case. Also, until recently, Dan and Logan used to go to the local game shop every Wednesday to paint minis, but the shop got overcrowded and they've pretty much gotten all the minis painted they need, so they stopped doing that. But we all kind of missed the Wednesday get-togethers, since Dan and I (who used to work together in the same office, but now work in different offices in the same building on the same Air Force Base) got to catch up with what had been going on in our respective lives before they'd go off to paint. So Logan and I decided: what if we started up a new campaign to fill those Wednesday slots? His Skylanders adventures are usually only about 2 hours long on purpose (we've found out that's about the optimal length to match Harry's 10-year-old attention span), so we could have him DM a series of short adventures of about the same length. We could have Wednesday night be our traditional game night for that campaign, and with short adventures designed to be finished in one 2-hour span it wouldn't matter that we might not have the same player roster from week to week (if, say, Dan was free on a particular Wednesday evening but Vicki had something going on that night). With that as our concept, we decided our characters would be more on the mercenary side of things. So as not to hamper Logan with decisions made in the Kordovian campaign (which is loosely set on Oerth but includes significant differences from the official campaign setting), we decided this new campaign would take place on a separate game world but with the standard D&D 3.5 races, spells, and deities - everything straight from the [i]Player's Handbook[/i]. Logan further tweaked the idea into having our PCs conscripted by the king into going out on missions that needed to be done, but occasionally couldn't be performed by official members of the kingdom. (For example: the king wants a band of rogues slain that headquarter in the next kingdom over: if he sends his own soldiers in it would be an act of war, but if he sends a group of individuals with no known - or at least provable - ties to his kingdom, if they get caught he can always deny his involvement.) So it's basically a "Suicide Squad" set-up without our PCs necessarily having to be "bad guys." In talking this over amongst ourselves (Logan, Harry and I) in the van one evening on the way to dinner (my wife [b]Mary[/b] wasn't feeling well that evening and sent us out to eat and asked us to bring her back something), Harry came up with a full character idea almost immediately. He and Logan had been playing their way through some of the "Final Fantasy" console games, and Harry wanted to make sure monks existed as a character class in D&D because some of his favorite FF characters were monks. Upon getting that confirmed, he decided he'd run an elven monk, and then he spilled out a full back-story for his PC: he'd been through his initial training at the monastery and his master was ready to send him out into the world to do good deeds, with an understanding he was welcome to return any time he needed for training and weapons. All he was lacking was a name, and after a couple of days we went looking up elf name meanings from an old [i]Dragon[/i] article and came up with [b]Kaspar Hardstrike[/b]. (According to the [i]Dragon[/i] article, "Ka-" means "dragon" and "-spar" means "fist" in the Elven tongue, so Kaspar's first name translates to "Dragon Fist.") I wanted to run a dumb human fighter, and I ended up with [b]Jace Syngaard[/b]. I came up with a somewhat elaborate back-story which I later related to Logan, but which I fully intend to keep hidden from the other players - I envision Syngaard (who goes just by his last name - only two people ever regularly called him "Jace" and they're both dead) as somewhat withdrawn. He's a bald, ugly guy with several prominent facial scars who used to work as a bouncer in a tavern; now he performs a similar function in a local brothel, where he works for room and board. He wields a morningstar as his primary weapon and has a very mercenary attitude, with money as his primary motivator. He's got lower-than-normal intelligence and charisma and his highest stat is constitution; I intend him to be a dumb brute who likes to take his pent-up frustrations out by killing things. Dan took the opportunity of a new campaign to try out a human paladin and came up with [b]Galen Thorne[/b]. The image he chose to represent Galen is somewhat interesting, as it looks more than a little like his older son Jacob when he first wakes up. Galen is a follower of Hieroneous and we're all looking forward to watching Dan run a lawful good paladin, considering many of his past PCs have been a little more on the shady side, ethics-wise. Vicki jumped at the chance to run a halfling PC since I won't be DMing. (I have a well-known dislike for halflings and she has never dared running a halfling PC in my games, not trusting me not to try killing her PC on general principles.) She decided on a rogue with multiple daggers as her primary weapons, and chose [b]Orion Nightsky[/b] as her PC's name. (Despite the Orion of Greek myth being male, Orion the halfling is female.) Joey was the last to come up with a PC, wandering into the kitchen just as his parents were putting the finishing touches on their PCs. Looking over the other four PCs in the campaign thus far, he opted on a whim to run an elven wizard. He decided not to take a familiar at this point because he's seen in our past campaigns how much fun it can be with an Improved Familiar, so he's holding out for that. (Dan runs a wizard with a Small earth elemental familiar in the Kordovian campaign, and Logan had a conjurer with a Small fire elemental in the campaign before that one.) Coming up with names he likes has always been somewhat of a problem for Joey, so at this point his elven wizard is still unnamed. [Later edit: he eventually decided upon [b]Daleth Stormsea[/b].] But he has a 17 Intelligence and a 6 Charisma, so Joey's already decided he'll be haughty and treat the rest of us as if we were beneath his contempt. Jacob won't be around many Wednesdays during the college year so we'll be playing without him for the most part. Once he becomes available as a player (maybe over Christmas break, or else during the summer), we'll have him make up a PC and add him into the roster. [Later edit: That never happened. A 45-minute drive each way isn't worth it for a 2-hour game session.] So that's our starting lineup: LG elf monk, LG human paladin, CG human fighter, CG halfling rogue, and NG elf wizard. Logan's busy coming up with names for important NPCs like the king and his chief advisor (the latter being the guy we'll all get our orders from each week) and the name of our home city and such, as well as our first adventure. I'm building initiative cards for our PCs and printing out a spell sheet for Joey's wizard and a PC tracking sheet for Logan, and we'll see how things go. We're not worried about a lack of a healer; these will be short adventures so we're hoping a few healing potions here and there will get us through each session. Incidentally, the way we have things planned, whoever shows up on Wednesday will run their PC through the week's adventure and those PCs will gain XP; the other PCs will be assumed to be on some non-XP-gathering duty, like staking out an inn and reporting to the king's advisor when a certain individual shows up, or tailing somebody to report on their movements or whatnot. That way, those interested in gaming (and available) that week can do so and those who choose not to don't have to. (I suspect there will be some weeks that Harry foregoes D&D for the alluring call of "Final Fantasy.") Since these short missions will be things our PCs can't always admit to, we were thinking of calling this campaign - and our band of PCs - "The Shadowblades." But that's been used many times elsewhere, so we're going with "The Durnhill Conscripts" - Durnhill being the kingdom where our PCs live. [/QUOTE]
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