Eureka Moments
Oh snap! If there’s animation afoot, you know it’s got to be a big-deal moment. I just hope Paladin knows what he’s getting himself into.
When we last checked in on our fallen hero, I suggested that problem-solving through play was a worthy strategy, one that’s especially suited to combatting impossible conundrums. The phrase I used was, “The unique alchemy of group storytelling will shake loose new ideas.” That’s not just idle theorizing. Today I’d like to tell you about the time my group beat the forces of darkness and saved Creation through the power of thoughts and prayers. Is it time for another tale from the table? Do Exalted players giggle when you mention the Elemental Pole of Wood?
So no shit there we were, miles beneath Creation and at the end of our long campaign. An aspect of Luna had been trapped by a bunch of dickbag deathknights, and we were there down in the depths trying to save her. Easier said than done.
The White Lady had been poisoned, you see, which was the only way one of the Incarnae could have been trapped in the first place. And that was a major problem for our brave heroes, because we were ourselves lunar exalted. The poisoning of the moon had sapped our strength too, and that meant we no longer had the strength to break her prison walls.
“Can magic get through the forcefield?”
“Nope.”
“Are there any gaps or bars? Maybe I can shapeshift into a bug and slip inside this bullshit barrier?”
“That’s a negative.”
“Well what about a group effort? Maybe if we all Louie Punch it at once, this translucent wall of unbalanced homebrew will crumble before our combined awesomeness?”
“It’s perfectly balanced! And also no, it doesn’t work like that.”
It was time for a group huddle. Because as our GM later confessed, these unbreakable prison walls were a manifestation of her Exalted GMing philosophy: You guys are demigods. You’re made to do the impossible. My job is to give you situations that I don’t think you can handle, then let you figure a way out.
This is where the power of thoughts and prayers comes in. You see, this particular aspect of Luna was all about healing. And since this was a White Wolf game, literally all of our PCs came packaged with major trauma. The friendly quokka lunar couldn’t forgive himself for (necessary) violence. The yeddim brawler had survivor’s guilt over his dead master. My orchid mantis had dedicated herself to cold-blooded revenge.
“Hey guys! What if we all completed our character arcs at once?”
There were confused stares from around the table.
“I mean, we all have shit we need to get through, right? What if we just let it go? This is a god of healing that we’re trying to save! If we sacrificed our collective anime protagonist angst all at the same time….”
We had nothing else to lose. The moon’s absence was about to cause some major havoc out in the wider world. It was the campaign climax anyway, and we were out of options.
“I hereby renounce vengeance,” said the mantis.
“My master’s death is not my fault,” said the yeddim.
“You save who you can,” said the quokka. Tears were shed at this last one.
The barrier cracked like an eggshell. The black film of poison covering the White Lady evaporated, boiled away by moonlight. There was much rejoicing. And the phrase #ThoughtsAndPrayers became my group’s running gag for narrative-style, I’ll-allow-it-because-it-fits-the-story bullshit.
That of course brings us to our question of the day! Have you ever saved the day by simultaneously overcoming your personal arc? Were there mechanics involved, or was it a true moment of “the power of friendship saves the day?” For today’s discussion, tell us all about your own moments of #ThoughtsAndPrayers down in the comments!
EARN BONUS LOOT! Check out the The Handbook of Heroes Patreon. We’ve got a sketch feed full of Laurel’s original concept art. We’ve got early access to comics. There’s physical schwag, personalized art, and a monthly vote to see which class gets featured in the comic next. And perhaps my personal favorite, we’ve been hard at work bringing a thrice monthly NSFW Handbook of Erotic Fantasy comic to the world! So come one come all. Hurry while supplies of hot elf chicks lasts!
Oracle, honey? Yes. Yes, you can.
You’re adventurers. The last-minute save, the cinematic moment of awesome, but also the hard work and creativity needed to do what seemed impossible: This Is What We Do.
Paladin, get your thinking-cap on!
(Sidenote: are all of the ants gone from Laurel’s workspace now, Claire?)
To be more specific: if such a hypothetical future does not exist yet, Paladin, thencreate it!
Talk to Necromancer, get her insight, communicate! At the very least, it’ll be a brand new adventure to revolutionize a whole school of magic. And if you’re lucky, really lucky, you will finally be able to be with your love.
Paladin is not an Int-based character. Fortunately, Laurel is. Ants are banished. 🙂
I like how character development was their absolute last resort.
Sadly, in my group, character arcs are generally forgotten by the DM, player, or both before they can be resolved. So all I can really contribute is a gentle reminder to Paladin that miracle isn’t on his spell list.
Not on his spell list YET.
I had often felt that my halfling Rogue was (like most low-level rogues) a niche character: if I can’t pick it or backstab it, I pass it by. As I approached mid-level, I often felt sorry for myself and a bit useless as the stakes of our adventures seemed to be ramping up faster than my skill points or class features.
I was DMing my family through a heavily-modded Hollow’s Last Hope and Crown of the Kobold King, and when we got to the room with the Forgespurned I felt my little guy had nothing to do. Though he won first initiative, I prepared to let him pass or delay his action.
My wife (Ranger/Druid) as party leader turned on me with a fierce look. “What are you DOING? Nothing?!”
Rogue: “What do you want me to do? I don’t think the Ghostrider Gimli over there has pockets, and I can’t sneak attack an undead.”
“No,” she agreed, “but you CAN be sneaky, and you can run, and you can steal things. You have a Bag of Holding–” She pointed to the next sacrifice victim on the far side of the chamber. “–and right over there is a frightened, vulnerable child in danger. Leave the fighting to me and Fighter, we’ll keep that thing busy. I want you to sneak past that creature AND STEAL THAT CHILD.”
Never have I been a) prouder of my wife as a RPer and party leader b) happier to have a character-changing epiphany. Rogue’s alignment would never become “Good,” but contributing to the quest (for him) would never again be limited to Cash or Kills.
Your wife sounds like an awesome person.
And that is a great story.
That’s the way to do it. Forget what your character sheet says. Go be all the hero that you can imagine.
I predict wishcraft or equivalent divine 9th level spells incoming.
Also, you totally can animate a “ding!”. Just do the thing the 60s Batman did. What’s a shame is the banner is hiding some of the halo.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CosEebLUEAAEVoL.jpg
Damn. Should have animated the ding.
“Lichdom is a career path, not a moral choice.” -Chris Zito
Performing the rite to become a lich on the other hand….
The climax of my magus’s campaign was realizing that she herself had the last shard of dead goddess inside herself and that completing her mission was going to mean the end of her existence as she new it. Got to have the touching sort of “myself and my lady communicating in a magical aetherspace about existence” thing. Her main issue was that she was an elf who was barely in her twenties (adopted and raised by someone she thought was a human), and was just so young and felt kind of cheated out of a whole lifetime. In particular she had wanted to find love and never got the chance. (two awkward crushes had happened in the course of the adventure but had gone nowhere) She had some jealousy to put to rest that her adopted brother HAD gotten to do just that exact one thing she wanted. Finishing the resurrection needed to happen JUST NOW though because her friends and even family were still fighting the high cleric of opposing god, dwarf high cleric who betrayed us into the trap, and a dracolich, and boy golly would the goddess of healing be *useful* right about now.
She got a wish as part of completing the ritual and I used to to bring a whole extra ass race into existence in the campaign world: kitsune. It made some neat sense as the goddess had a white fox as her holy symbol, and we made the cosmetic change of the ‘human’ form of the kitsune race looking like elves instead in this world. The next priestess character I got to make is a kitsune and because of the timeline, she is a “divinely born and plopped into the world as an adult” person, but has reasons to stay quiet about the whole fox-person thing and careful about whom she admits her divine mission to as the bad guys are definitely still around.
One extra legacy from my last character to the next had to do with a guardian. my magus had a divine treant protector and my priestess has a sentient staff made from one of his branches. it is TRULY a sequel campaign ♥ have had a heck of a time finding play hours though. don’t work 3rd shift guys. don’t do it.
As for the panel today, seriously glad paladin has an epiphany moment. *make it so*! make your own miracle!
Gotta admit, I’m unclear on why exactly Paladin is falling back upwards here.
If it helps, think of it as a halo-shaped lightbulb.
I think it’s because he realized that as a holy paladin, miracles are what he does. If there isn’t a future out there where necromancy is good, short of a miracle, then he can provide that miracle and MAKE that future with his own hands. And that means that necromancers aren’t all bad by necessity, they just aren’t good yet. And since they now have the capacity to be good, he retroactively didn’t risk his class by saving Necromancer from being murderhoboed by Fighter. Now as long as he’s working towards that goal of redeeming Necromancer (which unbeknownst to him is already in the process of happening) and changing society’s view of necromancy for the better, then he’s still good and gets to keep his paladin class levels.
> Have you ever saved the day by simultaneously overcoming your personal arc?
I’ve seen something similar, where someone effectively ended the grimdark shenanigans by going on a rant about how he wasted his medical school future by instead entertaining stupid poison-eating dwarves for twenty years, and the rant goes on (my gm loves retelling this part). The rant convinced the governor of the city-state to give up on the city and let it be consumed by darkness because they could always prosper in other ways.
He took the wrong message from the rant, but the governor was also played as a stick-in-the-mud paladin, so the wrong message was compromise enough to save the people.
Ain’t nothing wrong with an epic rant. Go epic enough and you get bonus XP for chewing the scenery.
Never had this come up for a character in a game I’ve actually played, but the latest character I have in the oven is built around being able to do this when the time comes. Only problem (for them) is that their character arc is a tragedy.
Let’s talk about Thirsty Sword Lesbians. I *love* the design of the Devoted class, the way their class features play off both each other and their intended central conflict of getting done what’s necessary without sacrificing yourself in the process. You can take physical/emotional blows in place of your teammates, and when you’re serving either your Devotion or someone you’re Smitten with, you can use your number of Conditions (damage) instead of the relevant stat. This can break the math of the game, giving you bonuses significantly higher than what is normally possible, and combined with the fact that Devoteds halve the penalty for having conditions it only takes a +1 bonus (e.g. from the Spooky Witch move you can grab on a level-up) to be GUARANTEED success on a Defy Danger or Fight roll. If only there was some way to take Conditions at-will, so you could ensure you were at the maximum of 5 for that one crucial roll…
Oh wait, there totally is! And all you have to do is *break* your Devotion. Shatter your treaties. Become forsworn. Spend all the goodwill you’ve earned in the last 300 years of heroism. Unleash the Harrowing upon the stars. And most likely lose the love of the woman you’re doing it all for. You *can* save the day. And all it will cost you… is everything.
I’ve also considered just running a game with poor Ruin as one of the main antagonists, 10-20 years or so after that dramatic conclusion to their character arc. Ruin doesn’t have the power to bottle the Harrowing back up, but can at least direct it enough to hit the targets they want. The party has to decide whether to go along with this, siding with Ruin and continuing to use the plague of undeath against the oppressive regime despite the civilian casualties, oppose Ruin and try to find a way to actually stop the Harrowing even if that means defending the oppressive regime, or scrounge up a third option. But that doesn’t really have anything to do with Friday’s prompt; it’s just an interesting aside.
Playing extinction curse (PF2E), a campaign where the pcs are clowns, seems like a weird place to have serious character development, but I ended up getting a pretty good one vs the npc who is the driving reason why the setup for the campaign happens (she’s an abusive fuckwad of a ringmaster, and the party / a bunch of her circus run away)
My character was half freakshow, half fire eater- a dragon instinct barbarian whose red scales marked them as a real danger- the fury of a red dragon barely contained. During the fight, the npc looks at my character, calls out ‘You’ve always been nothing but a monster.’ and casts Feeblemind. I fail the will save. (in 2e, this is an effective -8 to all mental stats, instead of immediate character loss. If I’d critically failed, I’d have been dead to the world.)
Unfortunately for her, feebleminding a barbarian doesn’t really change their gameplan. So, only barely even capable of speech, my barbarian pushes through the pain, walks up to her, rages, and replies. “Yes. But I’m not your monster anymore.” And puts her head through the floor.
A good one-liner is crucial to destroying your opponent’s morale.
The day the power of friendship saves the day at our table will be the day we defenestrate our DM 🙂
I gather you won’t be playing Ponyfinder with us any time soon.
Sorry, I can’t work miracles 😛
I played an elven bladelock not too long ago who struggled to live up to the impossible standards that they set for themselves; in their backstory, this lead to them trying to learn wizardry, getting into a fight with another student, and being thoroughly defeated, turning to pact magic afterwards.
After some time in the campaign, I died, and Dark Powers sent me to a dream state where I got to relieve that fight that lead me to leave wizardry. But while memories hadn’t carried over, my character development had; so rather than trying to fight this guy to prove a point, I instead apologised. I was offered a chance to return to learning magic, but turned down the offer, as I only tried forcing myself to be a wizard because I felt I needed to; but, I was past that now.
For the next few decades in this dream state, people kept on offering bargains in return for power, sponsorship, or wealth, but the I turned each of them down, focusing on finding myself instead. After losing everything, I found work on a human’s farm, and took over after he died. And there, I found peace, for awhile.
Eventually, deals still came knocking on my door; I was arrested on vague chances, and thrown in prison unless I made a plea deal. I’d wised on to the fact that some force was trying to force me into a bargain, and refused; and besides, the prison wasn’t too bad, with enough food to stay alive, and enough room to pace. I spent the next few centuries alone, but at peace. And then my dream-self died, and I was soon after resurrected by my allies, still the same person, but different.
As it turned out, the Dark Powers had been trying to trick me into a deal wherein I would be raised from the dead with incredible power, but give up control of my body. Unwittingly, my acceptance and dismissal of the drive to gain power to prove myself saved me from a “living death” possession.
To poor Paladin’s conundrum, I find myself asking a related question (for at least fifteen years). WHY is Necromancy automatically evil? Now don’t get me wrong, it breaks several taboos and is, at least, icky. But in the cases of things like Animate Dead and even Create Undead, I’m not clear on what precise ‘evil’ is being committed.
Forcing someone to act against their will? Maybe if you soul bind them. But why isn’t any other form of Mind Control Enchantment automatically evil? Creating a monster? I think that has more to do with DnD fluff than it does with the concept of necromancy.
I’ve heard (possibly here) about the zombie in a field is either horror or comedy angle, but I think you can have evil, ravenous undead without the art that creates them necessarily being evil. Again, taboo, sure. But what makes it *evil*?
In older editions it literally drew on evil powers to work. In 5E it’s that all the types of undead that players can create are innately evil, so bringing them into the world is a bad idea.
And then in PF2e the official explanation is that animating undead involves literally ripping a chunk off a soul, and something about hastening the end of the universe.
Meanwhile my conspiracy theory for the PF universe is that since Pharasma, Goddess of Death and Judge of Souls, is personally extremely anti-Undead she just Judges those who create Undead to be Evil, and over time that created Precedent.
I’m more on board with your explanation, Shinigami, though then that becomes ‘because that unrelenting B!@%& said so and not because it’s inherently any different from creating a golem.
Gabe – I’m aware, but for my ‘concept’ of good and evil, which I frequently get accused of being fairly black and white with, the creation of undead by itself just isn’t an evil act. Binding the soul of the target I could see, but simply animating a pile of bones or creating an entirely new undead just doesn’t get there.
What you use the undead for after, or what they go on to do could more rightfully fall on your head for good and evil, though. I very firmly do not believe in “pre-crime” is all.
I read this, and just imagined Oracle’s voice sounding like a Jewish mother from Queens.
But she’s not a Dwarf! (Everyone knows all Dwarves have New York accents since they’re basically New York stereotypes. Duergar have Boston accents as an evil reflection of Dwarves. Elves have French accents because both groups are fancy, pompous, and smelly. Drow have French-Canadian accents.)
I will have you know that Oracle sounds like Truffles:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0euowG0GcNc
Perfect!
In Dungeon of the Mad Mage my Hobgoblin Artillerist Artificer was born to the Hobgoblins who dwell on one of the early floors, but left to study Artifice. When he came back as an adult, and found the situation had deteriorated he resolved to prove his worth, and steer them on a better path.
One of the rewards for retrieving a MacGuffin is the friendship of the Lord’s Alliance. (Fantasy NATO) That’s when things started to slide into place: The Hobs problem was that they kept picking fights with the wrong sorts, but literally everyone hates the Drow. He began making arrangements for the Hobs to be armed by the Lord’s Alliance in a war he planned to foment with the Drow.
On a later floors there were a group of Hobgoblins who broke off from the above group. First a vanguard force trying to kill an artificer and take his creations. My guy used his status as a Hobgoblin and Artificer to bridge the gap between the two, with the Hobs agreeing to supply the Artificer with materials, and the Artificer agreeing to furnish the Hobs with advanced weapons of war.
On the next floor he reached the base where the Hobs were working for Fire Giants. He challenged their leader took over the legion, and had them rejoin the group on the upper levels. This basically removed all mooks from the level, leaving just the fire giants to slaughter.
With his army ready and supplied he rode off to be the villain of someone else’s campaign.
” “You save who you can,” said the quokka. Tears were shed at this last one. ”
It took the better part of four doorstopper books for Kaladin to realize this and say the Fourth Oath.
When such epiphanies happen, tears are more than deserved. They are almost mandatory.
Also, bystanders are advised to make room, some awesomeness is about to happen.
(Stormlight Archives references)
Well-played.
If paladin heads off to the palladium book megaverse, he’ll find realities where necromancy is not automatically classed as evil. Its just not liked. (Any alignment can be a necromancer, even good.. but the class is generally reviled due to the association with the undead, and for the fact that evil beings do tend to become necromancers more often)
If friendship ever comes to the rescue at our table, our DM will be thrown out the window.