| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Im a DM, and I have long wanted to create a collection of major event across the D&D worlds. It can be conflicts vs. gods, epic battles, powerful warriors displaying courage on the battlefield etc.. I intend for these stories to add flavor to the game coming from the PC Bard, The Wandering Minstrel, The Bardic Sage at the Inn, The wise old wizard, the planar creature etc...
In the many adventures I've run over the years, and in D&D computer games I've played I have come across info and references to these stories, but I can't remember them all on the fly. So this is the place to gather them all!
Name the story, the setting / the plane, important individuals, description
I'll start with an easy one:
STORY: The Blood War
PLANE: The Lower Planes / The Abyss / Many Planes
IMPORTANT INDIVIDUALS: The Tanarii and the Baatezu (demons and devils)
DESCRIPTION: It is an eternal conflict between the fiends of the Lower planes. The Tanar'ri are the demonic forces of the Abyss, an evil plane of chaos. Representing the equally evil but lawful realm of Baator are the Baatezu, the dominant caste of devilkin. Neutral evil Yugoloths play both sides against the other. The Blood War has raged on since the Age Before Ages, a dark period when the Prime Material Plane had not fully developed. The conflict is massive, spanning entire planes of reality, and hosting an immeasurable number of fiends.
STORY: War Between Law and Chaos
PLANE: Many Planes
IMPORTANT INDIVIDUALS: The Queen of Chaos, Miska The Wolf Spider, The Vaati / The Wind Dukes of Aaqua, (The “Rod of Seven Parts”, artifact)
DESCRIPTION: It is an ancient conflict that predates the stars. In a time before the words Good and Evil had meaning, when the world was young. Discover. Law and Chaos forged worlds out of nothingness; their war began while the cosmos was yet unfinished.
The powers of Chaos, and their queen sought to turn the whole world into a battleground. The primal forces of Law stood fast against Chaos.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
STORY: The Head of Vecna
PLANE: Prime Material
IMPORTANT INDIVIDUALS: A party of stupid, power-mad characters played by stupid, power-mad players and a sadistic, yet insightful DM.
DESCRIPTION: The DM introduced a rumor to the party that a powerful and dangerous artifact, The Head of Vecna, was hidden somewhere in a dungeon complex near the party's current location. What he did not tell them is that this rumor was started as a practical joke by another group of adventurers who had already cleared out the dungeon in question. The pranksters left a severed head (minus one eye) on a velvet pillow inside one of the chambers. When the party of dupes arrived, they began to argue over who would have his head chopped off to make room for the magical relic.
Half the party died from voluntary decapitation before they realized that they had been tricked.
|
|
STORY: The "White Dragon"
PLANE: Prime Material
IMPORTANT INDIVIDUALS: A party of dragonslayers and a slight misunderstanding with homophones.
DESCRIPTION: The party captures a guy, the guy mentions a "white dragon" that has a tower somewhere. They go out to it, they find the tower, the dwarf sorcerer scrys the tower's innards. He sees the dragon, confirms its color as white due to that colorblindness in total darkness thing. Party prepares fire magic and Resist Energy (Cold) as the dragon comes after them; they realize something's wrong when they're engulfed in fire. The survivors realize the guy they were questioning wasn't saying "white dragon," he was saying "wight dragon."
|
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
STORY: The Dread Gazebo
PLANE: Prime Material
IMPORTANT INDIVIDUALS: A young hero with a mediocre vocabulary, and a DM with limited patience.
The party of adventurers is travelling through a stretch of rural countryside when the DM declares that they spot a gazebo, standing atop a nearby hill. One party member, allegedly known as "Eric", asks the DM what the gazebo is doing. Confused, the DM replies that it isn't doing anything. Eric states that he draws an arrow from his quiver, nocks it in his bow and prepares to fire. He again asks if the gazebo reacts. Still confused by Eric's actions, the DM replies that the gazebo is still just standing there.
Eric asks how big it is. The DM replies that it is about ten feet tall and about as big around. Eric declares that he will attack; firing an arrow at the gazebo. He rolls a twenty sider, adds his attack modifier, and asks the DM if he hit. The DM declares that, yes, Eric's arrow hit the gazebo. Thrilled with his success, Eric rolls damage.
"Is it wounded?" Eric asks.
"No. It's a gazebo, Eric," replies the DM.
"Are they immune to arrows or something?" Eric asks, confused.
"No. It's a gazebo," the DM replies, exasperated.
"Is there any way we can kill it?" Eric asks.
"You can't kill it. It's a gazebo." At this point, the DM has had enough.
"Guys, we better run for it, this thing is too tough for us to fight," Eric says to the rest of the group.
"It's TOO LATE!" cries the DM. "You've angered the Dread Gazebo, and it leaps from the hill and begins tearing you limb from limb. MUAHAHAHAHAA!" The DM begins rolling handfuls of dice and tallying numbes behind the screen.
"So, I gotta roll-up a new character?" Eric asks, dejectedly.
"Before you do that, do me a favor and look-up the word, 'gazebo'," replies the DM, chuckling.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
STORY: The Head of Vecna
PLANE: Prime Material
IMPORTANT INDIVIDUALS: A party of stupid, power-mad characters played by stupid, power-mad players and a sadistic, yet insightful DM.
DESCRIPTION: The DM introduced a rumor to the party that a powerful and dangerous artifact, The Head of Vecna, was hidden somewhere in a dungeon complex near the party's current location. What he did not tell them is that this rumor was started as a practical joke by another group of adventurers who had already cleared out the dungeon in question. The pranksters left a severed head (minus one eye) on a velvet pillow inside one of the chambers. When the party of dupes arrived, they began to argue over who would have his head chopped off to make room for the magical relic.Half the party died from voluntary decapitation before they realized that they had been tricked.
You left out the best part: The prankster party never told their druid what they were doing, so he assumed the rumors were true, went through the dungeon, cast Awaken on his animal companion, and had him decapitate him/attach the head.
When the rest of the party found him, they realized their mistake.
The mistake wasn't leaving the druid out of the Head of Vecna prank. The mistake was "Hey, guys, doesn't Vecna only have one eye?" and removing one eye from the Head.
|
STORY: The Nature of a Man
PLANE: Various
IMPORTANT INDIVIDUALS: The Lady of Pain, The Nameless One, Various Personages in the 'City of Doors.'
DESCRIPTION: An immortal seeks to rediscover his identity and solve the question of what can change the nature of a man. In pursuit of this, he defeats his own mortality, prevents a town from tumbling into madness, remakes planes, steals the heart of a night hag and casts low the aspirations of a fallen angel.
STORY: The White dragon-bis
PLANE Prime Material
Important individuals: none
Description: reminds me of the "white dragon" we tracked and fought, and who blasted us with fire...
turns out it was an albinos red dragon...
Story: The elemental lords
Plane: The elemental planes
Important individuals: Ayrzul (earth), Hshurha (wind), Kelizandri (water), Ymeri (fire)
The four elemental lords rule over their respective planes of existence. Each one embodies the worst qualities of their element and are dangerously cunning. Like any elemental that respects power the elemental lords are said to be the most avaricious of all and will go to great lengths to expand their domain.
Unlike the rulers of other planes in the great beyond the elemental lords have no good counterparts. This is because long ago they defeated their good counterparts by imprisoning them for eternity. In the battles that took place, it is said that the evil elemental lords bargained with their opposing elements to imprison the good elemental lords forever. Thus they bound the good elemental lords in gemstones of their opposing element. In return the elemental planes were to be separated from each other.
The location of the gemstones that imprisoned the good elemental lords is unknown, though each one continuously cries out to be discovered. Legends tell of one such stone that is rumored to exist in one of the elemental planes.