#suncrest

[flowersandspacestuff]

Here is "SUNCREST"

[mylordshesacactus]

Suncrest Campaign: Coda (Or: The Bugbear Wedding)

(Listen. Everyone in this campaign gets to craft their perfect ending and epilogue--this one, this last little bit of worldbuilding and giving everyone a vignette to close out on, was my parting gift to myself.)

First and foremost, it's important to establish: The bugbear wedding ceremony is genderless.

The roles are not bride/groom, male/female. Bugbear culture is pretty universally military, or military-adjacent, in a way that largely elides those kinds of strict gender roles. The core concern in a bugbear wedding is the blending of clans, of families or villages, and that can happen in any number of ways.

In a bugbear wedding, the stark thematic divide is which partner belongs to the "host" clan, and which is the newcomer. In a very real sense, nothing else matters. And...not necessarily in the way you think.

When we open on this ceremony: Thesh Nightshadow, daughter of the clan chieftain, is dressed in her full ceremonial armor and looking both elated and terrified. She checks in with the party, briefly, then goes to wait beside a massive, laden banquet table.

This table is both the central display of the wedding, and an eloquent thesis on how bugbears view a marriage.

Thesh, in this marriage, is the host clan. She grew up in the Talonholde clan; her father is its leader; she stands to inherit that position. Her friends and rivals and neighbors are all here--they all know her, they all have twenty-odd years of memories together, favors traded, arguments resolved. A history and a mutual understanding of one another, even if they don't necessarily like each other.

Paisley, on the other hand? Even if she wasn't human...she grew up in the neighboring village of Thistledale, and while of course she'll remain in close contact with her family, she's obviously going to be joining the clan of the chieftain's daughter.

Bugbears understand: This places the newcomer in a position of incredible vulnerability.

Paise is very familiar with Talonholde, but in a lot of marriages the incoming partner won't have had time to do that, just for pure practicality reasons. And even so...she loves the place, they accept her, she feels safe, but she doesn't have nearly the same level of...connection. She wasn't born here. Her new neighbors haven't seen her at her best and worst for years, enough to feel secure in knowing her character. She knows few of them very well, and none of them as well as her own people. She is leaving her family home for this marriage, and all she has in return is pure trust that her new clan will protect her as well as her old one would have.

To bugbear sensibilities, the idea of a dowry is obscene. You are asking for this immense sacrifice, this profound leap of faith--and you have the gall to ask them to prove themselves? To contribute material wealth and resources? That's disgusting. That's horrific. That's not a marriage. That kind of callous trade would be demeaning to cattle.

It is the host clan's responsibility to prove their worth. It is one hundred percent on Thesh's shoulders to show her new wife that she will be accepted and embraced by her new clan.

Thus: The table.

Now, Thesh herself is obviously in a position of considerable influence, so her display table is a massive buffet in the center of the village, laden with every possible food and drink imaginable and a gorgeously posed roast stag, with antlers intact for dramatic effect, as the centerpiece--a stag she hunted herself, because this is as much a statement to her home clan as it is to her wife. However, prominently featured among the feast--brought to the front and present in great numbers, so everyone can clearly see it, are five items:

Bread

Fruit

Cheese

Mead and/or Wine

Freshly-slaughtered meat, with a bowl containing the blood of the animal as proof.

Those five items are required for the marriage ceremony. Combined, they represent all the collective resources of a village--none of which should be so punishing that a poor family is unable to source them for a special occasion, but representing a real investment all the same. The requirement isn't meant to be a class barrier--the items can be present in small amounts, the fruit can be preserved, the mead can be in the form of raw honey if you really must--but you need to be able to demonstrate a willingness to try.

(The meat MUST be fresh. It does not have to be something as dramatic as a deer. Most families kill a goat or a pig, or put out a snare for rabbit. What is required for the marriage to be considered valid is that it cannot be smoked, dried, salted, etc--it must be a current, intentional sacrifice of livestock (demonstrating your willingness to give up something valuable for this person's sake) or freshly-hunted game (demonstrating your ability to either hunt yourself or purchase/barter game from a hunter). This, again, isn't meant to be a class barrier--but in addition to bugbear tradition demanding a willingness to make real sacrifice in the newcomer's name, the blood is used in the ceremony itself.)

A horn is blown or a drum is beaten, the gates of the village (or, if this were a smaller private ceremony, the gate of the farm or some other boundary-line delineation of a family's property) open, and the new clan member enters.

Paisley is also dressed in her best--an apprentice's tunic from the university where she studied to become an Artificer--but otherwise, she carries nothing. No entourage (her family and friends are obviously present but they don't walk in with her), no offerings--just a woven basket filled with wildflowers, matching the flowers woven into her cloak for the occasion.

(Traditionally it's a very literal "cloak of flowers", woven entirely from intertwined wildflower stems, but that is insanely difficult and pretty much everyone just weaves flowers into a canvas base.)

This, too, is symbolic: The newcomer brings only themselves, and that which can be gathered freely. Paisley has nothing to prove.

They meet in front of the banquet table where Thesh is waiting with a village elder, and the bowl of blood over a low brazier--not hot, just enough to keep it liquid.

The host clan's gestures are made first--three promises, an oath of what they intend to offer their newest member. The bugbear elder dips his fingers in the stag's blood; he draws two fingers down Paisley's forehead (for honesty), then dips his thumb and makes a single mark in the center of chin (for stability). He then offers the bowl to Thesh, who dips both thumbs in the blood and draws them along Paisley's cheekbones, cupping her face in the process--protection.

Paisley's gestures are made if and only if she accepts the host clan's demonstrations as legitimate and sufficient. Obviously, she does.

She hands her basket to the elder, and takes out her own gestures in order. First, a necklace of flowers that she places around Thesh's neck (new life). Second, a woven flower crown on her head (new ideas). And then, finally, she sweeps the flower cape off her back and throws it around Thesh's shoulders instead--this often gets some laughter because throughout the whole process, Thesh hasn't actually stopped holding Paise's face between her hands, so it can be a little awkward.

That last gesture symbolizes Paisley fully embracing her new clan--she's not expected to sever any ties, of course, but it's a transfer of primary loyalty. Talonholde is her clan now, fully and completely--they've embraced her as their own and offered her not only the rights of a member but also the acceptance and support of a neighbor, and in turn, she's offered them herself in her entirety.

There is then, obviously, a lot of crying and a big feast, all that food wasn't for show.

Paise and Thesh's little background romance was lowkey one of my favorite things to seed into this campaign--as soon as I realized Nim's sister was going to be central to the werewolf arc, I also knew I had to give her a dykey little interspecies romance. (There was initially going to be a like, paranoid little mutual-suspicion thing going on where Talonholde and Thistledale both accused each other of kidnapping or murder, but by that point I knew my players wouldn't bite on that at all and it was more interesting to have the two villages be historically cordial--not friendly, but not hostile.)

They were both taken by the wolf cult during a gay little meeting at the crossroads between their villages, a thing they apparently did almost every week to exchange the letters they'd write during the week. Nim's family presented this as, you know, Paise being a smart girl and Thesh also being real smart and they share a lot of wild ideas, but the whole party immediately went OH??? and they were correct.

When they found the girls, Thesh was half dead--when the werewolves took Paisley to torture as bait, Thesh tried to protect her. They broke her jaw and left it untreated for days; without Andromeda's timely healing magic, she likely wouldn't have survived another night. The party got everyone out of the camp safely--some by the skin of their teeth, but they did it--and, well.

Look, they were the very image of propriety when they reunited, okay. But Thesh dragging herself back from death's door and IMMEDIATELY trying to tell their rescuers that the cult had taken Paisley--refusing to run until she knew she was safe, in fact--was pretty telling. And then when they got everyone back to Albion's thicket Paise basically ignored her rescued neighbors in favor of scrambling up to Thesh and running frantic hands over her jaw and ears and ribs and--

Nim thinks they're adorable and is fully supportive. He DOES have to rib his baby sister a little bit though. Big brother instinct goes both ways.

[mylordshesacactus]

Suncrest Campaign Character Epilogues

Audie (Human Wizard)

About a month after the final battle, as repairs are underway, the party gets a random Sending message from Max's friend Ihava the punk-rock tabaxi, namely, “Hey, did you do something with time travel? Because some dead heroes just showed up in the city and they’re very confused.” As an archivist, and also as the member of the party who's done the most reading and research into the Bastion of Life's specific adventuring party from 50 years ago, Audie is far and away the one that they want to talk to most--especially Rochelle Willowfeather, the tiefling monk who led that doomed final stand. Audie, once she stops stammering, is able to help her find records of the aarakocra settlement where her wife had lived--but sadly in the fifty years since Rochelle was frozen, her wife has passed away. She takes it hard, though her friends help her through it. Seeing as how she just helped to save the world, and how she has glowing letters of recommendation from the incredibly famous, miraculously resurrected heroes upon whose legacy was founded the entire Spellbound Dominion, Audie finally gets a full-ride scholarship to wizard college. Unlike her sister Summer, she completes her degree and starts only the occasional fight with administration. She applies for a work-study position. Her apprentice at her old archive is VERY confused but also very supportive.

Andromeda (Aarakocra Paladin)

Andromeda joins the City Guard. Deeply affected by Olassa's sacrifice, and having seen in the Violet Guard what a city guard can look like without honest people keeping its power in check, she wants to honor her mentor's memory. She enlists as a recruit, starting from the bottom. As an experienced and honest mid-level paladin, however, she climbs the ranks quickly and joins the officer track. While she, UNDERSTANDABLY, keeps her god-touched flail Morningstar (a legendary weapon) as her primary weapon, when she becomes an officer she commissions (possibly from Farrah!) a halberd as well. It's mostly a ceremonial weapon, but she trains with it and learns to wield it regardless. (Throughout the campaign, while she also wore a longsword for emergencies--Olassa's signature weapon was always the halberd.) Eventually, within a few decades, Andromeda is named Guard-Captain of the city of Suncrest.

Farrah (Tiefling Fighter)

Farrah, very excited to meet The Legendary And Miraculously Resurrected Heroes Upon Whose Legacy Was Founded The Entire Spellbound Dominion, happily invites them home to meet her mom! They all immediately start fangirling and asking for Brenda's autograph. This is the BEST running gag in the campaign. Farrah, after speaking with her blacksmithing master, transfers her apprenticeship. Instead of learning to make weapons she trains under a silver-and-goldsmith and learns to make tiny, beautiful things that require a lot of patience. Once she's satisfied she has basic skills in this area, she takes the armor of the fae commander who led the occupation of Suncrest, melts it down, and reforges it into a statue--an excellent likeness, in solid silver, of the Wolves of the Wild Court of Winter. This ninth-level casting of "Fuck You" is casually gifted to V, to display in the Sigil Rampant. In fact, the party periodically drops by with souvenirs from their travels to hang up there, now that V owns the place. Farrah also returns to the smithing guilds in Requiem for a while, learning how to forge enchantments into items, before ultimately returning to Suncrest as a mage-smith.

Max (Human Bard/Rogue)

Max never uses that last Wish. Consideration was given to using it for a resurrection--bringing back Olassa, or even the village of Little Ivywood. Ultimately however, Max's caution won out. He remains attuned to the scepter, but puts it in a chest and buries the chest in an unmarked, undisclosed location, sharing its coordinates with only Audie and Ihava in case of catastrophe--Ihava because she can be trusted to use it wisely, and Audie because she can be trusted to overthink any potential Wish so badly that if she ever goes mad with power the next generation of adventurers will have plenty of time to storm her evil fortress and take it from her before she can do anything diabolical with it. Also because he trusts his friend or whatever. In the meantime, he finds that bardic wanderlust again. He splits his time on the road between Suncrest and Requiem, spending--reluctantly--some time with his family. His route isn't regimented, but it's predictable, so that his friends can always find him if necessary. Eventually, about five years after the final battle, the two fae warlocks--Max and Farrah--wake in the middle of the night with a sharp pain in their serpent marks. Peering into the 'eye' of the peacock feather, they see the image of a plain, battered, half-rotten leather diary...which slowly pans out to show its location in the false bottom of a chest...being rolled and tossed....into a rickety cart......in a cave....in the Underdark. They understand, inherently, that this is their first mission as eyes of the Feathered Serpent. And the adventure continues. But first...

Nimbus (Human Ranger)

Nim also remains in Suncrest--or around it, rather. He doesn't join the Guard outright, but he's on their payroll regardless as a woodland scout and makes regular reports. He often talked about wanting to be able to send his sister to wizard school--Paisley Salvia is incredibly smart and "wizard" is the smartest thing Nim knows. They start by bringing her to study in an academic apprenticeship at one of the government programs in Suncrest to, essentially, get her gen-ed requirements in. When given the opportunity, however, Paise actually ends up not wanting to learn magic--she's much more interested in the mechanical and the mundane, using the real world around her to do great things. She wants to become an artificer...and unlike wizardry, which can only be really learned in Dumplinmere, there's no better place to do that then the rugged and resource-rich city of Suncrest. Nim is, of course, delighted. Paise is also extremely happy to be pursuing her dreams close to home, and of course that's mostly due to proximity to her family...but there is, of course, another consideration. Thesh Nightshadow, the young bugbear girl that she kinda sorta got outed as being in a relationship with when they were [checks notes] kidnapped by werewolves while meeting each other in the woods and had to be rescued by her older brother. (Thesh, when they found her, was barely conscious and half-delirious from fever. When the were-cult, mistakenly believing that torturing a maiden would force Albion the unicorn into their killzone, grabbed Paisley, Thesh tried to fight them. They broke her jaw. It had been left untreated for, at that point, nearly a week--she could very easily have died without Andromeda's intervention. Nim didn't even have the heart to tease them very much.) Anyway. Thesh is the daughter of the chieftain of the Talonholde clan and is training to follow in his footsteps. That means learning politics, logistics, military tactics, conflict resolution, and woodsmanship. For some of those, Nim gets her into the academy in Suncrest--but for the latter, even her village's best hunters unilaterally agree that Nimbus, who has class levels to their "Bugbear Commoner" stat sheets, is the best possible teacher. She ends up training under him a lot, and they get very close as a result. And about five years after the world nearly ended, the party attends their wedding--but the bugbear wedding ceremony I wrote for myself will be its own post ;)

[mylordshesacactus]

Hold Fast: Countdown

As I mentioned previously in this post, the climax of the Suncrest campaign involved our bard having to hold concentration as long as possible, maintaining his grip on a casting of Wish to determine the degree of monkey's-paw involved in how that Wish would manifest.

(The party's Wish: "I wish for the Fae Queen of the Summer Court to lose all interest in the Spellbound Dominion.")

The challenge: Ten rounds. Combat would continue for the full ten regardless of when concentration dropped, as well--if they lost concentration early, they still had to survive the battle, just without the benefits. I counted down from ten, and each round had an associated additional twist (I wrote two variants--one for if they fought in the Court of Summer itself, and one for a battle in the city of Suncrest), as well as a consequence for what would happen if Max lost concentration during that round.

Keep in mind I had JUST given the party access to the Die of Fate--if Max had somehow managed to drop concentration in the first few rounds, they would deserve whatever they got!

Round 10: Psychic Backlash. The Faerie Queen is one step away from a god--she KNOWS, she can feel, that these mere mortals are trying to rewrite her mind. She lashes out viciously, with all her considerable power. Consequence: Catastrophic detonation. The spell takes effect, and the world as a whole is saved--but the party, and every living thing within 10 miles of the border, takes 10d10 points of psychic damage. This would instantly kill every civilian in range....including the entire city of Suncrest, and the Ranger's whole family.

Round 9: Spike Growth. Centered on the party, the Fae-infused magic of the area moves against them to hold them in place while the army occupying Suncrest rushes to confront them. Consequence: Permanent limbo. The Faerie Queen stops trying to annex the Dominion, but it remains half-phased into the Faewild forever.

Round 8: 1d10 Archfey Warlocks enter the battlefield. (The original number was 1d10+10! But the party went out of their way to find the warlock contracts in the Summer Palace and destroy them, preventing the Queen from calling on them.) Consequence: The spell takes effect with no nuance, a panicked, graceless shove at anything fae-touched....including the party, who by this point have collected several fae boons, magical effects, magic items, and even warlock pacts. It would also drag all of their werewolf friends into the faewild and bind them there.

Round 7: Eledrin enter, Sparrow enters. (Sparrow is the fae pegasus that our Ranger bonded with--he can be summoned, but it took him a few rounds to catch up.) The eledrin represented higher-level elite soldiers, a bigger challenge than the infantry pawns the party fought earlier in the war. Consequence: The fae directly under the command of the Summer Queen are banished--but the Wild Hunt, which she unleashed on the Dominion but does not command, remain, and will be a threat in this region forever.

Round 6: Commander enters. This is the cold sadistic commander who killed the party's friend Olassa, the guard-captain of Suncrest, during the initial attack, and who nearly performed a coup-de-grace on a downed Andromeda before Audie saved her life with a clutch Banishment. She has not mellowed in the months since we last saw her. Still a fucking bitch. Consequence: Permanent portals. The armies are banished, and since the Summer Queen will no longer be interested in this war once the spell takes effect, they won't return as a full invasion--but the portals they ripped open remain, and will always be a problem, allowing fae leakage and incursions that will need to be eternally fought.

Round 5: Wild Court Reinforcements. Not all the twists are bad! Round 5 is the midpoint--a good moment for a twist. The timing was perfect, too--things were starting to look bad for the party, and when I described another portal opening I got audible wincing from around the table...and then Shasta, the lesbian androsphinx who's been a long-time ally, roars onto the battlefield at the head of the Wild Court of Summer to shore up their defenses, and the badly-flagging party gets a much-needed infusion of hope. Consequence: The fae are banished, no exceptions--but the damage done to the ecosystem, and to the city, remains. Cleanup will be difficult, and repairing all the damage will take the better part of a decade, if not longer.

Round 4: Wall of Fire. The dry, oppressive heat of a parched summer has been concentrating around this battle--now something, maybe the spark off clashing swords or maybe just malice on the Summer Queen's part, ignites the kindling deep beneath the roots overgrowing the massive, fae-touched tree dominating what used to be the market square of Suncrest, choking the life from the city. It blazes into a wildfire, scorching the party and cutting off their ability to flee deeper into the city. Consequence: Neutral. No drawbacks, but no benefits either. The party is now fighting for 'yes, and'.

Round 3: Earthquake. Hunters of Shroudpost enter. The Queen of Summer is coming. The earth rips open and shudders with the force of that power, knocking party members down. They're already on difficult terrain--they've been driven from the gates and deeper into the city, across rooftops before being forced down, and are currently fighting in and around the massive root system of that towering fae oak tree. In another much-needed infusion of positive energy, the Hunter militia from the party's very first adventure are revealed to have made their way to Suncrest and connected with the Resistance. They fire off a volley from high in the trees and call down to the party to hold on a little longer, the Resistance is on its way! Benefit: Unconscious friendlies will stabilize at 1hp once the Wish triggers.

Round 2: Faerie Queen Enters. Everything is fucked. She can cast any druid spell at will, including as a legendary action; she cannot be charmed, is essentially immune to psychic effects of any sort, and also holds two silver hunting knives and can make six attacks per round, or another as a legendary action. I searched LONG AND HARD for an archfey statblock that suited the level of threat I was going for here. This is not an enemy you try to kill--it's going to be hard enough to survive. Benefit: The love and power of the Wish seep into the very earth around this city the party has given so much to defend--Suncrest remains under the effect of a Hallow spell for ten years. (I'll get more into this in another post.)

Round 1: Sunburst. Having just brutally cut down a brave young paladin of Pelor, and entirely seeking to rub salt in the wound, she casts a brilliant explosion of blinding sunlight into the battlefield, dispelling the field of Darkness that our tiefling fighter had thrown down in order to shield some badly-wounded party members from directed attacks, searing everything in the area and taking out the fighter herself. (This was originally going to be a last-ditch vicious casting of Power Word: Pain on Max to break concentration, but Max was under two layers of Banishment at the time so I pivoted. Fuck a RAW; it was clever and creative, so DM fiat said that in THIS SPECIFIC instance--Max was forewarned, consenting, and holding concentration on a) a fucking Wish, which works however I say it works and b) not a battlefield effect--he could absolutely do it.) Benefit: Tree of Charm Resistance. The great fae-growth oak tree around which this final desperate scramble has taken place becomes a permanent, powerfully magical fixture in the city of Suncrest. I'll go into more detail in the epilogue post!

Round 0. There's no twist. I made it clear to the party that Max could release concentration now and get everything he wants, no drawbacks, some beautiful gifts--or he can hold it, for one more round, and see what crystallizes. Unanimous call was to keep fighting. Benefit: All fae curses in the Spellbound Dominion break. Every single one. Hag curses are broken; werewolves who choose to be are cured...And far away, in a vault beneath the city of Requiem, five adventurers stir for the first time in fifty years.

[mylordshesacactus]

And a sendoff for the end of a two-year campaign tonight <3

[mylordshesacactus]

Suncrest Campaign Wrap-Up: The Duality Of Session Titles

Our player-notes document is a communal Google Doc, where everyone (including the beleaguered DM) can hop back to check details from earlier sessions--highly recommend this system, honestly. And, for ease of reference, every week after the session wraps up I go in and give the session a title, so that we can use the gdocs Table of Contents feature to easily jump between entries.

In general, I try to make these at least somewhat informative--I try to match the tone of the title to the overall tone of the session, and reference something that'll make it clear in six months what the hell I'm talking about.

So, in honor of the party reaching the campaign endgame: A final write-up of all our session titles over the course of the campaign.

A Long Time Ago In A Campaign Setting Far, Far Away (Level-1 Adventures & The Doppelganger Arc):

1: You Meet In A Tavern Fire 2: Patience Is A Virtue (in which the party got what was meant to be mid-campaign reveal information in session 2 due to excellent restraint and investigation, and also met long-term NPC Virtue Chirelli) 3: Secrets Of Shroudpost 4: Nightfall 5: Jumping At Shadows 6: Teamwork Makes The Dream Work

Both Parts Of The Name (Abandoned Temple Quest Arc)

7: Stories & Stoves (the party meets Arlette, who runs a magic-and-general-store called Staves & Stoves, and is given a quest) 8: Indiana Jones & The Temple Of Realistic Consequences 9: D&D A-Bridged 10: This Temple Is Weird (the party fights a water weird) 11: Big Fucking Dragon 12: Max and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Campaign, or: The Gang Gets Obscenely Rich

Night Hag Arc

13: Once More Into The Breach 14: #WWFD? (What Would Farrah Do--her player was absent that week) 15: The Power Of Friendship And These Tits I Found 16: GAH, Or: Wake Up There's Hags 17: Now With 33% Less Hag! 18: Hag-gling Over Loot 19: Good Thing We Didn't Leave Those NPC Guards Unsupervised

Werewolf Arc

20: Trouble In Thistledale 21: Family & Forestry 22: First Blood 23: There Wolves 24: Protectors 25: Assassin's Creed This Shit 26: The Silverlight Hounds 27: Overwhelming Force 28: New Moon 29: Firelight Festival

Election Fraud Arc

30: Political Theater 31: Landlords & Other Bloodthirsty Monstrosities 32: Hashtag Escapism 33: Of Mortgages & Murder 34: A Dish-tressing Discovery (a friendly NPC was almost murdered via sleep deprivation using a cursed goblet) 35: Jackoff And The Giant Beanstalk 36: The Key To Success

Requiem Arc

37: Directionality 38: Brought To You By The Letter 'N' 39: Long Rest 40: Please Do Not Bother The Violet Guard 41: Crimes 42: MASQUERAAAAAAAAADE 43: Everything Goes Completely Tits-Up 44: Breadcrumbs 45: A Suspiciously Well-Maintained Passageway 46: Foul Water 47: Several Discussions Of Traps 48: In Memoriam (the TREATY puzzle; the party learns everything about the day the world ended 50 years ago) 49: This Is Fine 50: Sax And Violince 51: You Have [36] New Messages

The Siege of Suncrest

52: Storm of Vengeance 53: Andromeda Gets Drugs From The Cops 54: Mindboggling (the party fights boggles) 55: The Siege Of Suncrest 56: What, Like It's Hard? (the party defeats what was meant to be a session-long boss fight in two rounds) 57: Breach 58: Your Stunned Silence Is Very Reassuring (death of a beloved NPC; the party was so stressed that nobody took a single note in the doc) 59: Tallyho 60: Release The Hounds

Faewild Arc

61: Crossover 62: The Tortoise And The Almost Perfect Aesop Reference (the party rides a dragon turtle and meets rabbitfolk) 63: Warren Of The Shining Wires 64: The Next Step 65: Perfect Time To Get Stoned (party fights a gorgon) 66: The Feathered Serpent 67: Plan C: Jo [the DM] Kills Us In Real Life 68: Frostfire 69: Wolves of Winter 70: Do It For The Vine

Endgame

71: [Preposition] The Hedge (the party begins infiltrating the Palace of Summer, which sits at the center of a giant hedge maze) 72: The Dread Gazebo 73: A Wolf A Goose A Cabbage And The Concept Of Summer Walk Into A Bar 74: Domination 75: In Which Nobody Touches Anything (the wizard, after spending the entire session of sneaking through several different trophy rooms frantically trying to keep the party from touching anything, pockets a legendary item off a display case without telling anyone) 76: The Hand Of Fate 77: Hold Fast 78: The Fall Of Summer 79: The Distant Light

[mylordshesacactus]

Shiny Math Rock (Diagetic)

Now, ten rounds without a single failed concentration save for one character is a big ask. To help make it fair, I had two sessions previously given the players (who were, after all, robbing the faerie queen's treasure room) access to a legendary homebrew item to help:

Essentially, it lets any ally, exactly one time, Incapacitate themselves for a round in order to give another character a single use of Legendary Resistance.

(I honestly don't think the Die of Fate is gamebreaking--it's very nearly a cursed item! That round-long Incapacitation is a hell of a drawback, as is the fact that every character can only use it one time EVER.

I genuinely feel this item could be introduced early in a campaign and become a really cool recurring mechanic that would lead to EXTRAORDINARY roleplay moments--I obviously didn't introduce it into my campaign until the endgame, but I think I balanced it okay!)

[mylordshesacactus]

OBJECTIVE: SURVIVE

I've alluded a few times to the Wish mechanic around which I centered the Suncrest campaign's climactic final battle.

The endgame option the party ended up pursuing involved reversing a mass-scale planar convergence by stealing a Scepter of Wishes from the Faerie Queen's center of power. That's an awesome challenge and it was fun to run! They had fun, I had fun, designing the Summer Palace as a series of mechanical, social, combat, and other skill challenges was really rewarding!

The dilemma I faced as a DM while doing endgame prep was: Once they've GOT the scepter....that's kind of it? Like. It's a Wish. There's no roll to see if it works. And, rules-as-written, the entire decision as to how a Wish resolves is...DM fiat.

So, my options were: Give them this massive months-long series of complicated, emotionally-resonant linked quest chains all leading to this moment, then just declare that the spell backfires horribly on them, screwing them over at the very end of the campaign when there's nothing they can do about it....or just, like, try to hope that pretty narration is enough to negate the inherent anticlimax of "yup, you pressed the Win button and now you won".

That's not a climactic final showdown, that's not a fun challenge! That's not satisfying! So, instead, I tossed together a final-battle mechanic to give my players some agency in how the Wish spell would resolve.

What I told my players:

"The question here is not whether the Wish will take effect. You will get exactly what you asked for. The question here is: Max [the bard attuned to the scepter] is...this isn't like casting a spell. There's no ritual, there's no incantation. For a brief second, you are channeling all the power that exists in the universe. Arcane, divine, nature, elemental--literally all forms of pure raw power being filtered through your own limited perception. Guiding that power into EXACTLY what you want requires you to hold the image of your ideal outcome PERFECTLY in your head until the spell can take effect. Do you understand? The spell will work. But the longer you can hold it, the narrower you can force its effect to become--the closer you'll get to your ideal image, the less severe the side effects will be--you might even get some benefits. Do not break concentration. That is your only job. Hold. This. Spell. So. Gameplay-wise, what does that mean? Ten rounds. Maintain concentration. Here we go."

I did it as a countdown--starting at Round Ten and working our way down to Round 1, then as a bonus, with the table's unanimous agreement to fight one more round and see if they can get 'better than golden', Round Zero.

It was a desperate scramble near the end--our paladin was killed (and her player--a first-time TTRPG player when she started the campaign, who was also stressed, actively grieving her first-ever d&d character's brutal death, and looking at a completely unfamiliar statblock--did a PHENOMENAL job at playing Shasta the androsphinx for the remainder of the battle, making excellent and effective use of totally new abilities and spells!), they barely scratched the Summer Queen, and I think everyone EXCEPT Max went down at least once.

But damned if they didn't hold out by their fingernails to do right by the city of Suncrest.