Burning Ptolus

The stakes were high, although not nearly as high as they should have been. The party, newly and unusually powered up, stomped into the basement of a former friend, and burned their way past ice giants and huge six-armed ghost ratmen. Some old but relatively unknown friends were there to help, or hurt, and in the end, the lovable loser turned up to be just as badass as they hoped he was, and the entire city was inexplicably destroyed by a Cthulhu clone.

This was the end of a campaign, a campaign that suffered the loss of three members to entropy, three characters to unfortunate instant death, and many nights arguing over just how overpowered the warmage class is. It created many memes, many inside jokes involving ratmen, spiders, and the above mentioned bookcase. The campaign managed to implode after three weeks of unsuccessful jumpstarts some year and a half in, but after everyone’s schedule cleared a bit, it was decided to “kill” it.

The set-up was essential. I know that one of my constant downfalls while running a D&D campaign is lack of preparation. While it has really improved my improvisational skills, it tends to be frustrating for the players, especially when every other person in town is named Jerry and they are fighting something with wings just because I couldn’t think of anything. So, I knew that I had to be prepared, decent story, decent encounters, something for everyone. I leveled up all their characters to level 20, the big 2-0, gave them some shiny goods, and placed them in a horrible situation.

The key to a epilogue, in my opinion, is to create at once a situation that implies something big happened, that nothing would ever be the same, and that it’s a good thing we are reaching a climax. That way, it wouldn’t matter if all plot problems are resolved or not, because there’s really no going back. My mix of closing the book involved involving the campaign’s hometown in a disastrous war with demons that leaves the economy crippled and life hell for most of the residents, especially as an evil spirit used the war as a chance to take command of the city. (Another issue I have when writing campaigns is being an author on board, but that’s an issue for another post.) So, it’s not a place they want to be, seeing as all their friends are dead or dying, and the town is in the crapper. They’d be more willing to either leave it behind or fix it if they could.

Turns out they could. A former player character who turned into a god (long story) gave them a lowdown on why the commissar was acting strange, and sent them to dispose of the leader at any cost. Another legendary character, in this case an NPC whose McGuffins they had been chasing before the campaign crashed, granted the monk with the power to destroy the Big Bad. After a few “intense” encounters, the monk performs his Five-Finger Punch and destroys the evil spirit, only for everyone to find out they were being distracted all along.

A dark ritual somewhere in the city raised a most ancient evil, who went about destroying everything. Luckily, a “light” ritual raised an Ur-Dragon at the exact same time, and the PCs fought off demon spawn at the foot of the epic battle in the sky. I gave them ten rounds or so to be as badass as possible, all the while the group’s protégé kept casting useless spell after useless spell for comedic effect. Then their taxi arrived, grabbing them and flying them out of the city to watch the destruction of a mountain falling on the city from afar. A massive magic shield soon surrounded the city, trapping all inside and returning the Earth to normal, further driving home that there is no going back.

The consensus was good. They enjoyed it, seeing it as appropriate and sad. While there was a bit of a copout ending, they were glad that I didn’t unceremoniously beat them to death, and it was something that needed done, both considering the poor campaign stall and the ever approaching 4th edition D&D. (First impressions of Keep of the Shadowfell tomorrow)

I enjoy the epilogue adventure, mainly because it allows me to combine two of my favorite storytelling tricks; off-stage adventuring and fatalist events. Off-stage adventuring allows you to have your player characters do things without the hassle of having to make them do it. It allows you to hand out XP for the hell of it, and allows the fun literary trick of starting the adventure already-in-progress, which is disorienting and interesting. Fatalist events allow you to prove that the good guys can get hurt too, which can really hammer some drama home if your group isn’t expecting it. Not to mention, you usually get to have something explode. That’s always exciting.