It’s always valuable to discover my players’ perceptions of an adventure; perhaps you and I can learn something together. This Lich Queen mini campaign lasted five sessions and started the players at level 18. Some of the players had used their characters before (Joe, Charles, Andrew), while the others created them new (Luke, Opal, Abby). Each player wrote their thoughts, and in different formats. This adventure borrowed inspiration from Warcraft, Game of Thrones, and Dota 2.
Joe’s thoughts on the campaign. He played Solaris the fallen leper paladin:
“I would have to say that the biggest thing I enjoyed about the campaign was the balance of things. Being at level 20 was definitely a power fantasy, but it never felt like we were rolling over the competition too easily. The most horrible things would be thrown in our faces, but someone would have the one obscure spell or item that could help us achieve success. Sometimes the threat of something horrible happening is better than the actual horrible thing succeeding, as our imaginations run wild with what-ifs.
The pacing was also really nice. So much happened, and it’s crazy to put the timeline into a single day of adventuring. We always felt pushed to do the next thing, rather than us wandering around, trying to figure out the next place to go or the next thing to do. I wish my dice had been rolling better.”
Andrew chose to write up his thoughts on the campaign through a journal entry from his red dragonborn barbarian, Turnoroth.
“Turnoroth Journal Entry #458
Well, that was insane. Let me tell you… never go against zombies; they are the worst. Especially things called liches!
I heard disturbing news of zombie hordes multiplying in the north, and I decided to check out the claims. When I arrived, I met other adventurers who were seeking to deal with any undead influences: a weird seemingly dead person, an Osirian, a little gnome with unusual power, a merfolk, and a dude with a glowing face.
We entered a town where everyone was down in the dumps. It seemed that people were getting sick and dying, but we later found out there was an Avatar of Woe, invisible and massive above the city, slowly killing everyone with its unseen necrotic powers. After destroying the Avatar of Woe, we met a crystal dragon. I don’t know why he didn’t like me at first, but I eventually won him over. We totally saved him in an ambush. He blessed me and made my fire so much stronger; I cannot believe I can be this strong as a mere dragonborn. My wings also started working, so nothing can slow me down now.
The first encounter with the Lich Queen was pretty insane. We almost died, but we were saved by the intervention of Sahura’s god, Anubis. The sea churned and carried us back to shore, and we were revitalized. Later, we saved a fort and killed a couple of death knights. And the last one slipped into the town’s sewers. Talk about desperate.
Things were going pretty good. And then the other guys in my party, just as soon as things were about to go crazy, decided to take a nap. WHAT THE BLAZES!!! Why would they do that? Takes pretty special people to do that. I decided the only way to build the town morale was to fight and show the troops how much my strength would handle the crisis. Surprisingly, the spirits of nature made me stronger. Not only was I holding them back, but I was pushing them back. I also had the help of the little gnome girl! She has my utmost respect as she is a courageous warrior. Though her magic is a little creepy, nature is flowing through her so much that she jumps through trees!
We ended up destroying the wretched lich, and these tools in my party decided to keep her evil stuff. I feel like I may have to kill more liches if these guys do not become more wary…
End journal entry.”
Andrew’s Personal Notes:
“The adventure was great, loved the story. The hooks and tie in. The DM let us do what we wanted to do. The adventure was a little slow at times, but I think that was mainly the PC’s arguing amongst ourselves.
There was always a constant fear of failure which is always the best. It makes me think a lot more. Overall this has to be one of my favorite adventures I’ve been on!”
Charles’ character Raj chose to summarize the adventure through a letter to a former party member.
“Trusted Keylith,
I hope you are well in Korvosa. I worry about you now that I am not there to serve as rear guard, but I suppose you are quite capable enough on your own. And in all honesty, you never are truly alone, are you?
My hunt for the escaped demon has brought me to the far north, whereby Pharasma’s grace I found myself in a company of extraordinary warriors, including a brother in Turin’s knightly order, one who had lost his way and was coming back.
We were joined by Sakura, a deceptively intelligent old gnome… girl, I suppose. Childish and cutesy, but brave and quite handy in a pinch with her mastery of archery and the arcane (though no one could match your marksmanship, of course).
There also was a ship’s captain, skilled in spear and bow (though I am less skilled in her name). A sort of mermaid with legs (no, I doubt she tastes like fish sticks. Don’t even go there).
A charming priest of another death god (who would have thought?) joined our number. Sahura, from Osirion, a worker of miracles. I was surprised to find death gods in league with the Queen as opposed to the usual pretenders to her throne.
And there was Turnaroth, who at first I mistook for our demon friend. Frankly, he is the mightiest warrior I have ever known. How much easier would it have been to face Galanoth were he to have joined us?
Majenco says she misses you and your threats to eat her.
I will save a more thorough recounting of our quest for when we meet again in person.
For now, I will summarize:
We witnessed the massacre of a large part of a village by a deathly avatar of woe. I was shocked to have spent the day among the people unaware of what lurked right above us. It nearly took me, but we slew it and evacuated the remaining populace. We are not to mourn for the dead, as they pass on to another life, one better suited to them. But I do mourn for the living and their loss. I was asked to sing, which honored me and brought some light to a dark day.
We learned of a Lich King, a servant of death as fearsome or more so than Galanoth himself. And like Galanoth, she (yes, she turned out to be a woman) served an old god of death, Nerull. It appears that the Raven Queen stole the throne from Nerull long ago. I can only trust that it was for the best.
This servant of Nerull blighted the countryside and it was up to us to devise how best to confront her. We decided to save a mechanical dragon we later named Ferros, and recruit him in our quest. We confronted three death knights, and finally the Lich Queen herself, and by the power of a blade of Pharasma, we destroyed her and her helm, bringing an end to Nerull’s curse upon the land.
I grew to care for my companions and the people of North Wall, the fortress city where we made our stand. Quite a colorful cast of characters they all were. The Lich Queen and her servants were singular. Famine and Conquest in particular have lingered in my thoughts. Famine was a man who met a grizzly beginning to his unlife after having molten copper poured into his eyes. Ironic, as there is a spell I have heard of where one uses copper coins placed on the eyes of the deceased to preserve them from rot and undeath.
Each of us had ample opportunity to prove ourselves. Turnaroth and Sakura faced an army by themselves and pushed them back! Had we not interrupted our reprieve to join them, they may have faced the Lich Queen alone. Now that we are safe and sound, I’ll say that my favorite part of this adventure has been the places we’ve seen, the people we met, and the foes we faced.
Give the others word of my good health and spirits and send them my salutations.
Your friend,
Dor Rajin, the Cyclops”
Charles’s former comrade responded:
“Fearless Raj the Great Cyclops,
It is great to hear from you; however, I am not certain how you have sent these words directly to my head… I am hoping it’s my head and not my stomach!
I am burdened at this time with far more projects in the shop than my lousy apprentices can accomplish. I am also burdened with the loss of your voice around us every day. I am finally burdened with the lack of time for blood pig… I miss those little squealers… the crowds that is… I shall indeed think more when my mind allows it… Until then, safe journeys and roll in the feathers!!
Keylith”
Opal’s thoughts on the adventure. She played Sakura, the arcane archer / druid gnome who had history with a phoenix.
“I liked the adventure, the possibilities, and the collaboration our team had. I wish we had had a bit of time to explore the world more (hard to do when a mob of undead are attacking from all fronts). Maybe I’d build up to the adventure of undead rising in a session, allowing for more world-building so that we care more about the people of the town? I don’t know if that’s plausible for a D&D campaign.
My favorite parts were fighting in terrain that highlighted Sakura’s abilities, gaining awesome boons, having a mystery unfold before us (Sakura’s backstory with the phoenix), allowing a few edits to rules so that Sakura could reincarnate an NPC in the blink of an eye, setting up difficult terrains for the big battles, and, of course, saving the day in bleak situations (using wind and fire walls on enemies when others could do nothing loooool).
You also allowed us to regain our abilities with Sahura’s god when he used his divine intervention feature, which was really cool actually. I liked that you made 5k gold-worth of gems readily available if I remembered them so that I could reincarnate people was great.”
You can read this article from Opal’s regarding her druidic anime character, Sakura, from this campaign.
Luke summarized the adventure through a letter written from his character, Sahura, to his parents, followed by some feedback for me as the DM.
“Family,
I hope this finds you well. I apologize for being absent for so long, in both body and in word. I should have sent back letters many times in my years of travel. It has been a long road I have taken under the watchful eyes of the gods. I have many stories I wish to share, but I have only a few sheets of papyrus left here in the North. I shall have to limit myself to the most recent events.
I was in Osiria again many months ago. I was investigating a defiler’s presence in one of our ancestor’s tombs. I met a paladin of the Northern religions, an odd man named Solaris who spoke little and dressed as a leper. He too was investigating the defilement, on the tail of a group of necromancers. In the tomb, we uncovered clues, pointing to this group’s desire to awaken a great evil. I had intended to visit home again, for the first time since I left, after I finished in the tomb, but this crisis called me far away to the North.
I have travelled to many strange lands in the years since I left, places where water falls from the sky from morning to evening, places where trees grow like the reeds around The Sphinx, coating mountains in robes of green. None has been as strange as the North.
As we traveled, the days became shorter, the air colder, and water started to turn solid and fall from the sky. I was astonished when I first saw it. The air bit at my skin, sapping warmth and feeling. Never before had I been so cold. And yet, we continued north, where it only became colder, until the ground was covered in this “snow,” the northern name for solid water. I acquired an enchanted ring that filled me with the warmth of the sands. It was the only way I could stand the cold. And still, we went further north.
The people there spoke the common tongue, thankfully, though their customs were alien to me. They grow hair on their faces. Thick mounds of it. Some were even prideful of how much they could grow. I do not know if some had ever even heard of a razor before.
While in a small fishing town on the side of a lake so large it should have been a sea, we heard of an ancient evil, a Lich King, laying waste to everything in his path. Every death grew his army, every loss his gain. We met a crystalline dragon (a dragon!) named Valerius who agreed to aid us. We heard tales of a mechanical dragon, constructed of metal and magic, sequestered away in a keep across a sea. As the sun rose, we flew on the dragon to the keep, Icecrown (ice is another northerner word for solid water), hoping to gain an ally in our fight. Icecrown, though, had been taken by the undead.
The battle was fierce. We landed on the roof, high above the city streets. Undead with the chill of ice flowed over the walls like sand. A general of the north raised by undeath was the master of the armies there. With him was an amalgamation of bodies sewn together into a mass of rotting flesh. The Lich King had constructed massive ebony towers that pulsed with necrotic energy, stealing the life of everything in the area. We destroyed the tower at the keep, slew the undead, and found the mechanical dragon. My companion Sakura, a gnome with pink hair and an upbeat attitude, saved the life of the mechanical dragon’s creator, bringing him back from the jaws of undeath. We escaped the keep as the cliffside crumbled into the sea.
Spent from this encounter, we began to seek a refuge to recuperate our strength when we happened upon a village of gnomes on the run from an army of undeath. With them was a bird of fire, a phoenix like from legend. As we fought back the horde, it saved a small gnome child at the cost of its life. Though phoenixes can be reborn, I believe it sacrificed that power to save the child. Even in the harsh North where most things are frozen or dead, beauty can be found, if only in its creatures and people.
One of my companions, a fish-person named Halleron, used to sail the lake nearby, ferrying goods and people across it. We took the gnome village onto his boat to sail them to safety, away from the green light of the ebony towers and the armies of undeath. After seeing them to the nearby fortress of Northwall, we set our sights on the Lich King once again. Turnaroth, a fierce dragonborn who towered over everyone around him, spotted ships sailing from Icecrown, the armies of the undead preparing to assault Northwall. We set out to halt their progress, sink the boats, and then turn towards the Lich King. However, we were underprepared, worn out from the day’s events, and when we flew to the boats, we saw the Lich King, reborn in the defiler’s body from the tomb in Osiria, leading her armada, flanked by her two generals, vile abominations born of the same dark magic that created the Lich Queen.
We stood no chance against her in this state. She struck my companions down, left and right. They fell, one-by-one, from the mechanical dragon into the sea where the coldness of the water would sap away the rest of their life. It appeared hopeless. We would fail here and nothing would stand between the Lich Queen and her conquest. In our most dire hour, I offered a prayer to him who had saved me before in my time of need. “Anubis, save us,” was all I could muster. In the clouds, his form appeared, light bursting through the gloom of death. He parted the waves, broke the winds, and brought us to safety. I knew then that my gods still watched over me, even this far from my homeland.
I am running out of papyrus, I am afraid. I shall have to cut short the tale of our exploits to say that we flew to Northwall to prepare the city for siege, tricked the generals out of hiding and into a trap to slay them, fought the Lich Queen on the field of battle, surrounded by her armies of undead, and ended her and the dark magic that created her. I shall have to explain more thoroughly the next I see you. I do not do it justice here.
With her were many dark artifacts, tainted with powerful and dark magic. The second best groomed of my companions, a wizard who went by Raj, sought to gain the power from these artifacts. Grace to Isis, he was convinced against it. I fear for his future, though. The lust for power has turned many a man towards the path of darkness, far from the light of the gods. I fear Raj may turn from a friend to an enemy. The thought of that fate saddens me greatly. I have few friends in this world, and to lose one to darkness would be a curse that strikes deep into my heart.
I have spent the last several months helping rebuild this broken kingdom. It has been a welcome change of pace from chasing and fighting undeath and those who raise it. Some of these people seek to worship our gods. I am no priest, but I have done my best to teach our customs and beliefs to these northerners. It is almost funny, how they are like children with their understanding. I do not think they comprehend much, but their belief is pure and strong. I pray that our gods will watch over them. I have grown to enjoy the people here and have taken a strange liking to the snowy country. Still, I miss our land, our customs, the sands and stars. The gods have asked much of me over the years. I do not know what else they may ask, but at this moment, they do not ask for anything. I shall follow this letter in its journey south.
I am ready to come home.
-Idu”
Luke’s personal notes on the adventure:
“I really enjoyed the campaign. I don’t know how you managed six players on a high-level one-off so well, but you did. I would have liked it if we could have gathered more knowledge about the Lich Queen and her minions to be better prepared for the battle and such, because it often felt like we were running into situations we were not prepared for and had no way to prepare for them, but because it was a one-off, I don’t know how you could have really accomplished that.
I loved how you ran us ragged, forcing us to the last of our resources. I feel like that doesn’t happen enough in the DnD sessions I play in. There were two parts of the campaign that I particularly enjoyed, the first being the fight of Icecrown. It was a long battle with lots of moving parts, but it never felt like it was dragging to me. There were enough situations to manage, so it never felt stale. It was one of the coolest battles I had ever been in. The second part is the divine intervention scene. I really enjoyed how you allowed my divine intervention to just go all out rather than just having it be a cleric domain spell or something like that. It felt supremely satisfying to have it work like that.
I think it would have been better to spend more time on the conclusions to allow players to finish up their character arcs and stuff. Maybe even just some one-on-one with the players rather than the group chat on Facebook. Also, the rewards for finishing the Lich Queen felt a little lacking, seeing how it is a level 20 campaign and she was the final boss. Maybe a chest of gold or another boon, maybe from the Raven Queen, would have made it feel more complete. Still, though, I really enjoyed the whole thing. 9/10.”
It was a fun run! One of my favorite moments being a death knight magically dragging his prized city into the sea as he died. None could steal his conquest.