Be the party, a ragtag bunch of misfits living in a small town near the border of a peaceful neutral good Kingdom.

Do not be the Dark Empire, ruled by an Undead Wizard for the last 500 years, on the other side of the border.

Rumours of war, armies passing through, we sign up to fight.

At first the campaign goes well, skeleton armies show no tactics or strategy, but their numbers start to tell against us.

Demoralised by fighting our own, raised as undead, running low on hope and food, we end up retreating.

Decide to stay behind and form a resistance group in the Dark Empire side of the border.

Infiltrate a settlement of miners, get jobs in various associated service industries e.g. smelting, entertainment, whoring - stuff the undead are no good at.

I'm playing the bard, so I'm in entertainment for the miners. It's about 50/50 living/undead in the mines. Undead for the grunt work, living to instruct them on how to. Some vampires in town as well, adding to the number of customers.

Singing songs, playing the lute, learning some local mining songs from the days before the Evil Empire took this town.

Little bit too good at appealing to nostalgia, miners riot, crucify the vampires, trap the undead in the mine and explode it with oil barrels and naturally occuring gas.

Run for it with the rest of the party, find another settlement.

Try to fit in as a bard, but my fame preceded me, captured.

Dragged in chains to the nearest prison, which is in a grim black stone castle.

Lightning nearby, followed by thunder as the doors slam closed behind me.

Beatings, interogation.

Resist all the attempts to get me to spill what I know, eventually they send me to the capital city called Rumwun Owone, to be tortured by the Lich himself.

They lock a cage around my head, with a starving rat in an adjoining cage, and threaten to let the rat eat my face if I don't love the Undead Wizard lord.

Lich-erally 1984.

Extensive background incoming

Be all of humanity, sheltering from the howling devastation of weather and strange ghostly alien monsters outside the last surviving fort

Be unsure how many years it's been, only know the number of forts because we call ours fort 16

There may have been others, but the first we know anything about was founded by people who called it fort 5, so they must have known of others before them. That one, we remember only the name, and a vague location, said to be in the Winterlands north of where we now take shelter

Apparently the ghost aliens of that time were fire based, and the snow was an additional barrier to protect our fragile civilisation

forts 6 to 9, we don't know much more about, fort 10, though, is where the Cult that guides us really took shape. It's where Helena was born, and where her powers were discovered

Helena, also known as Angel-Lena or An-helena, can regenerate, and her lymphocytes can be harvested and transfused into others to give them the strength to fight the ghost aliens

It's wrong, to do that to her, to harvest her, but she allows it when it is necessary

The process is now codified. If a fort falls, An-Helena cannot be killed, and she takes those few survivors her powers can protect to a new location, and there a fort is built. A judge is chosen, and given the name Nuncio - meaning speaker, or announcer, or herald. Nuncio is given sufficient white cells to become immune to aging and disease, and his watch begins

The temple is set up, Nuncio sits behind the altar and observes the progress of the fort

Once it is strong enough to survive without Helena suffering further, Nuncio announces that Helena will no longer be harvested, that the white cells we have in storage will have to be sufficient now

It is said that in the far distant future a fort will be strong enough to stand forever, and Helena's misery will finally be over, the ghost aliens will be defeated, but how that might come about none can say

But in these days of blood and horror, eventually every fort has fallen, and Nuncio's table at the centre of the strongest point is crushed under the collapsing ruins. By design, the altar is underneath the fort's central supports

Fort 16 was decreed to be strong enough two generations past, and as always we started with hope and power, but now, the end seems near

Be me, an acolyte of Angelena, with psychic powers enhanced by the Lymphocyte infusions

Be my team: a robot sentinel with heavy laser, and a tech-genius scavenger human with cyber-enhancements

Been fighting the ghost aliens since the day of our adulthood ceremony. Once we could push them back, but it's been a stalemate for a couple of years now as we start to lose more people than join the fight

Discover a ghost alien mobile stronghold on a long range scouting mission - it's moving towards fort 16. Investigate as much as we can, but have to run when the robot's weapon is disabled, the tech genius is badly hurt, and I am out of energy to heal them

Deliver the bad news, a strike force is assembled, the last hope of all mankind

The strike force marches out, we are left to guard the fort and recover in so much as we can

Be us, waiting anxiously

See a vast light through the storm, a mighty fire... this does not bode well

The shattered remnants of the strike force make it back just ahead of the biggest army of ghost aliens we have ever seen

Have no choice but to throw all of mankind off Helena's cells and plunge 16th fort through the announcers table.

Be me, human sorceror with a level of paladin for the saving throw bonus cheese

Be the other guy in my small party, Borbo Butterbit, halfing rogue with a spiked chain for some fuckin' reason

Wierdo

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Campaign begins... we're on a boat, sailing to the New World

A new land of hope for a fresh start, far from the stifling rules of the noble classes back home, here we can finally have Freedom

The mayflower didn't land on us, we landed on the mayflower? I dunno

Arrive in the semi-lawless frontier settlement

Robbers try to take the seeds, plows etc that the settlers have brought, we fight back and save the day

Borbo doing fearsome damage with his chain

Jokes about "don't yank my chain!" and "I'll chain you up" and shit... in fact, jokes might be too strong a word

Really loves his chain

Wierdo

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Anyway, with small party size, DM gives us a cleric NPC to help out, he was on the boat the whole time, impressed by our bravery and altruism in helping the settlers, previously he thought we were scummy mercenaries

Little from column A, little from column B...

We escort the settlers to the Land Corp office, and they are assigned a parcel to work

Be me, asking for work

Be Land Corp, assigning the sorceror, rogue, and cleric a space in the fields

Be not much sense made

Head out there anyway, try to build a house, give up on day three, head back to town

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Tavern.scroll

Buxom barmaid, cloaked figure lurking in corner, the usual

Find a notice asking for mercenaries to help guard explorer groups

Follow directions to Land Corp office... wait...

Be me, asking Land Corp why they didn't tell us this three days ago

Be Land Corp, confused and disorganised, different people doing different jobs

Be the Rangers of the New Land, seeking mercenaries for fighting duty, hampered by the Land Corp front office focusing on getting people farming

Be me, joining up with Rangers

Leader of these guys embraces the nature as divine power aspect of the Ranger class, worships the rising sun, the falling rain, the sturdy tree, the cleansing fire

Be me, calling him "Son" at every opportunity

It's funny because it sounds like "Sun"

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First expedition, we follow a river up into the low hills inland

Attacked by Orcs, fight back, slay them

Tracking, stumble across a second group of orcs, take a prisoner this time

Tie up the prisoner, take him back with us to town

Be prisoner, refusing to talk at all, biting anyone who comes too close

Be us, locking prisoner in the closest thing this town has to a cell

Be prisoner, chewing through ropes and escaping in the night, murdering three people, and eventually being cut to pieces by the town guards, never surrendering even though he had no chance

Be us, waking up in the morning to hear this news, and receive some of the blame for bringing the orc back

WTF, not exactly our idea to let him escape... nice guarding, jackasses

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Second expedition, Rangers being told to get us the hell out of town

Head further along the river, find more Orcs, try to capture more, but they never surrender, even when captured and tied up (or chained by Butterbit's kinkweapon)... always try to bite or headbutt, or whatever they can

Find only one settlement, no Orcs though, only Goblins

The Goblins are more curious than anything, approach with weapons ready, but try to talk

Can't speak the language but manage to remain peaceful

Be me, showing the Goblin an Orc head

Be Goblins, indicating a certain level of satisfaction that the Orc is dead

Peaceful is a relative term in DnD...

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Leave, back to town, try to arrange for a translation spell or something

No one high enough level, but Land Corp says if we can negotiate with Goblins and get enough of them to tolerate the settlers, we will be richly rewarded

Diplomacy time, I guess... I can do that

Split into two teams... the Rangers to deal with the Orcs, and the diplomats to deal with the Goblins

Spend the next few in-game weeks finding Goblins, talking to them, trying to learn their language, giving gifts of blankets and glass beads and so on

Eventually Borbo gains a level and takes a rank in the Goblin language

Side quests now possible on behalf of the Goblins, turns out they are under attack from Orcs as well

Help out the Ranger groups, track Orcs back to some caves nearby

Caves are much deeper than expected, deserted at surface level, but once we get deeper, there are Orc strongholds

Little bit of fighting Orcs, get a level or two myself, can finally cast Tongues

Would have preferred Fireball TBH, but so noble, must find a peaceful way to coexist with the Goblins

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Borbo... pretty quiet most of the time, but he's still with me

Give up on the Orc caves, it's a bit too hard for us at the moment

Find more Goblins to talk to

Several major settlements now located, as well as lots of small villages

Goblin nation, pretty much, not just random tribes

Manage to introduce the nearest ones to our settlement

Be DM, trollface for a while now

Ask him why... says he's doing a thing where he battles the standard racist assumptions of DnD... Goblins can actually be peaceful, but it's funny, because Orcs totally match the stereotype

This apparently is funny, because it's half woke and half... um... unwoke? I dunno

Ok, DM, whatever you need to keep entertained, we'll be over here...

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Weeks pass, we arrange a meeting of the Goblin Council, 100 members, they will decide if they are going to ally with the settlers or turn them away

Be us at meeting

Ranger Sunny guy is here to report on what he knows about the Orcs at the same time

Borbo overhears some of the Goblins mocking his height

Not the council members themselves, just some bystanders

Be me, learned a little bit of Goblin, plus using Tongues spell, Charisma boost spell (Eagle's Splendour I think?)... give a beautiful speech about the power of sentient brotherhood across different lands and races, plus we can beat shit out of the Orcs if we team up

Almost persuaded them, vote soon

Wait though... Butterbit getting pissed, starts shouting at the Goblins who were teasing his height

One of the Council comes over, crowd gathering, everyone shouting

Apparently this council guy is the parent/patron/something of one of the Goblins who's now shoving Borbo

About to be a fight, Goblin pulls dagger, Butterbit stabbed, falling back, whips out his chain... flails it round into the face of the council guy

Be me, turning to the Ranger

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If you're having Orc trouble, I feel bad for you Sun

I got 99 Goblins

Butterbit chained one