Hey amigo!
terribly sorry for the slow response. Was away on holiday (visiting my girlfriend) and have had the flu for the past 2 weeks since I returned. Was that bad, I'm only just starting to check emails again.
Here's a fun idea: U_K, if you wouldn't mind (and still have them), how about reposting - either here or on your blog(s) - the stats for your old character, Thrin? They don't need to necessarily be an updated translation for a newer edition, either. Just his stats as they were back at the end of his original campaign.
I already posted these on my website.
http://www.immortalshandbook.com/shrine.htm
For those who don't know, Thrin was (this is what I've gathered second-hand; if I'm wrong, I hope U_K and others will correct me) U_K's old 1E character, a fighter, that over a long campaign eventually became a deity (in a sort of The Primal Order) fashion, and reached level 117 before being retired (thus inspiring how many levels that Alabaster had in the Immortal's Handbook: Bestiary).
Thrin did indeed inspire Alabaster. I was initially going to put Thrin in the Epic Bestiary book but at the time wasn't totally sure about the copyright stuff and so kept him for another day.
I've heard bits and pieces of Thrin's adventures over the years, but nothing that came close to the full scope of the campaign, nor the stats for the star character himself.
So how about, U_K? If no new ideas are presenting themselves for the time being, why not re-post some of the golden oldies for the rest of us to enjoy?
Well obviously I have the worst memory possible, although most of the adventures are fresh in my mind - in terms of an overview if not the details themselves.
- Earliest memory of Thrin was rolling up the character. I rolled an 18/00 for strength on the percentile dice roll '00'. I think that stroke of good fortune cursed the character for life because Thrin's Achilles' Heel was always his System Shock percentile roll. Just to clarify, back in the day if you died and were raised, you had to make a system shock roll which for Thrin (I think) was about 96%. So roll 96 or less on a d100 and you were okay. I could NEVER roll under 96 for my system shock roll. I think I failed that 3-4 times, which led to all sorts of shenanigans to get save the character.
My previous character was this awesome pregen Ranger with 18/94 strength and a Giantslayer sword. He lasted one session before he was killed (I think by another PC*).
*Our group was weird, one of the players played a Chaotic Evil Drow Assassin and the play was generally split between (initially) 5 players, with 3 on one side, the Drow on the other and final player who flitted between the two groups. My Ranger was about 4th level...I loved that character (for all the few minutes I spent with him). When he was killed I was really annoyed.
I had decided I wasn't going to lose another character.
I should point out this was not something that stemmed from losing one character. I had probably lost my first 10 characters each within a session or two. Our campaign was harsh, but fair. Yet with the added danger that there was a Chaotic Evil PC running about.
So in building Thrin, I decided to scour the books and come up with the toughest most powerful character I could design. I picked Elven Cavalier (yes Thrin started as an elf and later wished himself human due to elven level limits in 1st edition). Elven because of the defense against Charm and Ghoul Touch, Cavalier because of the ability to increase Strength, Dexterity and Constitution each time you levelled up.
The initial adventure I mentioned in the above link. We must have done about 50-60 though. Many involved Graz'zt who was later revealed to be Thrin's Great Uncle, who was the big bad for most of the campaign time until Thrin and Graz'zt grew to some sort of understanding and eventually co-operated in some cases to fend off a greater evil.
Lets see if I can recall a few of the adventures.
- Defeated the Red Dragon Primordius which even the gods were afraid of. Primordius was a really BIG Dragon created using some early Dragon Magazine template that basically gave him x10 hit points, x10 damage etc. Unfortunately for Primordius, this fight took place around the time someone wrote an article on combat feats (long before feats existed in the game I should point out) for D&D and these were insanely powerful (things like self-haste I recall, giving Thrin 10 attacks or thereabouts). There were a bunch of these powers and the damage boost was ridiculous. I remember we (Thrin and one other player who had a magic-user called Darra) got twinked up and defeated the Dragon (who had 800 hit points...back when an Ancient Red Dragon had 80 and Odin only had 400) in 2 rounds. After this battle, S'mon (The DM) started to do away with those Dragon Magazine feats.
I think the above was the adventure that let us join the pantheon (Thrin joined the Norse gods and Darra joined the Egyptian Pantheon). I remember the Norse Gods basically taking all the Dragons treasure hoard.
- The Classic Orb of Albinus adventure. Probably Thrin's luckiest moment and as a player I had never been so nervous on a dice roll in all my life. I think I was physically shaking. But I'll get to that in a moment.
The previous adventure had seen a contest between the forces of good and evil (Thrin & Darra versus two of Graz'zt's greatest champions a Balor fighter and some female Archmage/Cleric I think) for possession of an Artifact called the Orb of Albinus. Technically Thrin was killed in this adventure by a slay living spell (Harm into Slay Living). However, when I got home deflated I remembered that Thrin had a Scarab of Protection that would have absorbed the Slay Living - so S'mon for once took pity and retconned the death. We won the fight the next session and claimed the orb.
This Orb falling into Graz'zt's hands would have been the end of us all anyway. The Orb allowed the holder to summon any being (even a god) into an impenetrable force field area. So Graz'zt could have been waiting with his 10 best servants and summoned Thrin and killed him easily.
After winning the Orb, Thrin and Darra decided to go back in time (via Ninguables caves) about 150 years and (use the Orb to) Summon the Arch-Lich Kollterion who was the immensely powerful leader of the Red Wizards who had conquered the Southern Continent (we were on the Northern Continent dealing with the demon armies of Graz'zt and the evil Dragonriding Darksword Knights of Druaga, while the Southern Continent was being taken over by its own evil empire who worshipped the death goddess Hela).
I knew the Deities & Demigods book back to front and was aware Hela was one of the toughest beings in the book and one even Thrin had no chance of defeating because she had an ability that meant she was invulnerable to all physical weaponry, meaning we'd need to take her on in an anti-magic shell to hurt her and her base damage output was just too good for that.
So we went back in time and Thrin summoned Kollterion into the Forcefield while we had all our spells and defensive twinks ready. Unfortunately the first bombshell that the DM dropped was that anyone within the forcefield could summon anyone they wanted. Kollterion being a supra-genius had recognised this and immediately summoned Hela. We were in serious trouble. Darra summoned her patron Isis and we had something of a 'Mexican stand-off'. The DM asked if I wanted to summon Thrin's patron Tyr but I said no. We all just agreed to wait until the Force Field dropped and then go our separate ways.
That's when the DM dropped the second bombshell and I almost pooped myself.
The Orb utterly devours the soul of anyone who uses it to summon. No saves. No comebacks. Game over. Once the force Field drops it takes a soul.
Thrin had summoned Kollterion.
Kollterion had summoned Hela.
Darra had summoned Isis.
One of us was toast. In our game all dice rolls in the open. No DMs Screen business here. S'mon makes us wait for a minute or so as the horror sinks in.
S'mon (grasping a d6): "1-2 Thrin, 3-4 Darra, 5-6 Kollterion." While you don't know Simon, he always had this mock sympathy at the back of which was devilsih DM-glee. Here it was in full swing.
I'm literally shaking for what was probably a few seconds but seemed like an eternity (I think the characters were demigod level at the time and we had been playing them for 5 years so it was a big investment of time).
Force field drops. S'mon rolls the dice.
'5'
Hela goes ballistic, I grab the orb and we teleport back to the future via the Caves. Isis makes herself scarce and vanishes.
