End of Campaign

The last two years of story posts have encompassed what took three years of our lives to complete. This was a full level one through twenty campaign. I’ve heard that not many reach that goal but we managed it and it was such a great ride. The story we managed to weave together at our kitchen table was one of the most compelling I have ever experienced.

I am an avid reader. My favorite stories are Epics that span over the course of many books. The longest series I have read is probably 20 or so books in total. I love reading about worlds and making them come to life in my head. Multiple books help build those kinds of worlds for me. So when our campaign spanned years and the story went in crazy directions I was in love. There was love, conflict, tragedy, success, joy, and so much laughter. We took a couple of months off afterwards to give us time to process the ending, start thinking of new characters for the next adventure, and, most importantly, to give my husband a much needed break. We didn’t stop meeting. Instead, we gave others at our table chances to try out some one shots. Some of us got to DM for the first time (*cough* me)!

I ran a one shot that I bought off r-n-w.net that was all about having fun a at Fey Faire. I went all out providing snacks and prizes that matched the theme. We had flavored popcorn, candy, cotton candy, and marshmallows. The prizes ranged from cute puppy plushies that we substituted for the blink dogs you could catch and keep at the faire to “gold” chocolate coins. For the main prize for the end of the one shot we gave out one of those “gold bricks” that you can break for various semi- precious and precious stones. I think the odds of us getting the real gold you have a chance of finding were very slim. The winner (my husband, totally random, I swear) actually ended up winning a redstone which was still pretty cool. We still have it as part of the D&D related decor in our bonus room.

The next one shot we tried was run by one of our other table friends. He ran a dark zombie themed one shot. This was when my husband and I got to play together for the first time. We played a Kalashtar couple whose daughter had been murdered and turned by an evil necromancer taking over the land one dead person at a time. It was a morbid play through but it was fun as hell and, as the coup de grace, my husband killed off his character to give me the rest of his health so I could heal everyone and keep the rest alive long enough to beat our enemy. It was an emotional and satisfying end to our small story. I have written it out in story format for readers of the blog under the name “Nightmare of the Lost”.

During that time off, I dwelled on how well the story had ended for all of us. It hardly ever works out that way but we managed to get to the end without dying too much or too permanently. Although, when the liquified Curse of Ash killed me, I thought they might not save me in time. We went back to a quiet life, ascended to godhood, lived and died among family, lived a life for a final reward, and traveled the universes forever with our companions. Everything had closure at the end and that is what you really want out of a good epic tale. Every writer knows Endings are the worst. You have to tie up every loose end or your whole story could fall apart. I know I’m biased but I think my husband did a great job giving us all a great ending to a great adventure.

Soon it was time to start a new adventure and with it came new worries about what to play. We knew it would take place in Icewind Dale to start. For the purposes of the story, our DM made it so Icewind Dale is part of our homebrew island, simply cut off from the rest by magic. I will start writing the new story soon and hope you join me on our next adventure. I, for one, can’t wait to get started.