Post/Author/DateTime

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Koverchenko 06-04-06, 10:17 PM

I call upon all DMs who feel like it to regail us with moments from their campaigns which, either by accident or careful design, turned out to be extremely dramatic and movie-like. Scenes that you just know would have looked great on the big screen, portrayed by A-list actors and accompanied by an award-winning soundtrack. 1. My most recent campaign was an undead-centered campaign, taking place in a remote valley that had become isolated from the rest of the world due to a semi-permanent planar intersection between the Material and the Negative Energy Planes. This intersection created a Negative-dominant area that blocked the only pass in and out of the valley, and created a general suffusion of Negative energy throughout the region that greatly increased the undead presence in the area. The PCs were residents of the sole remaining town in the valley, and were members of the volunteer militia that had organized to provide at least some protection for the town against the ever-growing undead threat. This militia was lead by a Paladin who, in his youth had been a tireless defender of life but was growing more and more hopeless in his old age. He was frequently drunk, and his men were well on the way to losing all hope. Near the beginning of the campaign, this Paladin went mad and rode out into the night, where he was killed in rather short order by a group of wandering Boneclaws. A few militiamen were able to track him and recover the body (though, ironically, they lost several of their own men in doing so). A tearful funeral was held, and the once-great Paladin's body was buried in the town cemetary. Unfortunately, this cemetary was known to be inhabited by a gang of Ghouls, who voraciously devoured the bodies of all who were buried there. The players, with no coaxing from me, decided that they would not allow such a thing to happen to the body of the Paladin (a great man who had done great things but, tragically, had died broken and despairing). They trooped out to the graveyard and set themselves up around his grave, ready to hold vigil through the night. Here is the Super Cinematic Scene: as the sun slowly set, the graveyard grew darker and darker. The PCs, standing in a circle around the hero's grave, lit a lantern to let them see. It illuminated about a 20' circle, and as night finally came the darkness surrounding this one circle of light grew more and more pronounced. I started having them make Listen checks, and began describing the strange sounds they could hear coming from the darkness, from beyond the light. They grew more and more uneasy as I drew it out--they knew there was danger out there, but they could not see it, and could only determine the most basic clues of what might be happening. Now, anyone who has been camping knows how scary it can be to be out alone in the dark night, and how vulnerable you feel while carrying a light in the middle of the dark night--it only allows you to see a short distance ahead, but it makes you visible from a long, long ways away. The sounds of mysterious and unseen critters can be very unnerving if you let your imagination get away with you. And in this case the players knew that there were some very dangerous creatures out there, creatures that were watching them and trying to kill them. They knew that something wicked their way was coming. And I gave them plenty of time to think about it before the attack... I had figured that the PCs might try to do something like this, but I had not thought about how the scene might look until it actually happened. I just imagined what a lone lantern in the middle of a graveyard at night would look like, and described it, and it turned out to be extremely scary and very dramatic. My players lived it up and roleplayed wonderfully, and in the end we wound up with an extremely memorable experience that we still talk about with shivers.