DM Story: I Killed Another Beloved NPC
My Tuesday group, having migrated online, has changed some. We added two online players that add a lot to the game. In any case, it is, like my Sunday game, all online.
Due to the limited nature of the campaign, meaning the length, I made it rather episodic, so that there was no pressure of any long-running stories, maybe a couple of recurring story arcs, but nothing big.
In one of these stories, one player, Arizona the changeling ranger, had gotten a missive that her uncle, Jacob Everstein, had died, and that if she and her companions could but avenge him by taking back the castle from the hobgoblins that had taken over it and shot him, she would inherit the keep.
During this whole debacle, they found a rather cowardly hobgoblin, not like any of his brethren, named Grinkle. Grinkle was a coward only by hobgoblin standards, and the party realized soon that he had been bullied enough that he was willing to turn on his companions and give the party information about the rest of the troop only if they were willing to take him with them. Chaos ensued, the party won, the party now has a keep, dubbed Dope’s Hope, after the group, the Hopeful Dopes.
Fast forward, the party is at a different keep, called Fort First Watch. They were on their way to another place, and, having previously left Grinkle at their keep, picked him up to take him along on their grand adventure.
Little did they know that one of the guards had been bitten by a werewolf that was in league with an orc war chief that had been assaulting Fort First Watch. At the most inopportune time, namely the transformation of this guard into a werewolf, the orcs assaulted the keep!
The battle was pitched and the party fought hard, with Grinkle, the hobgoblin rogue that had saved them from his own comrades before, struck down. Grinkle had failed a death save at that point, and Arizona, the changeling ranger, who absolutely adored Grinkle, watched in horror as the orc Eye of Grummsh stabbed Grinkle in the heart with his spear, twisting the spear. She tried to fell the foul creature, but to no avail, as the war chief sounded the retreat and they got away. To make matters worse? The war chief collected Grinkle’s body to have as a trophy of his victory over Fort First Watch’s defenders.
To this day, Arizona has sworn vengeance against that Eye of Grummsh…
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Until next time, Dear Readers…
