2002-2003: The World of Greyhawk

The World of Greyhawk: Raiders of the Lost Knark

Of this campaign I simply cannot write enough, because I still have the journal I kept of the first two-thirds of the story. It's several dozens of handwritten pages, meticulously noting almost everything that happened in an eighteen-month game. I can hardly even summarize it without writing several pages, but I'm going to give it a try.

When the World of Gnomon ended, I had already begun to dip my toes into playing D&D online via forums, and that way become introduced to the World of Greyhawk. To be able to keep up with the online game, I had purchased the sourcebook for the Greyhawk setting, and I was pretty eager to try it out my own way. So, I told my players about it and they were pretty enthusiastic, but they were not tired of their villainous antics – yet. Through the course of the game, though, rather a lot of development took place. Before I get to the development, though, it's time to introduce some new players: My younger brother Jack, and a new recruit from the schools' other roleplaying group, the one my readers are most likely to recognize: Luke. It would take some time before he joined the game, but this didn't in any way lessen his impact on the story, because of the huge turnover of characters: the campaign had only five or six players, but featured 20 player characters before it ended. The sixth player, Chris, joined even later than Luke and stayed in the game for a few levels.

Probably the most eccentric game I've ever ran, the Chronicles of the Raiders of the Lost Knark are full of twists and turns. The characters are now thieves and liars, now honest saints delivering aid and hope to the world, and then go back to being thieves and liars. Despite being very incoherent, the story did have some recurring elements – the characters always seemed to have run-ins with a family of criminals named Om, who were distinct in that they always had “normal” names (Anna, Magnus, and so on) in a world where people otherwise only had fantasy names. This criminal family was perhaps not so much a main antagonist as it was the Team Rocket of the storyline – they kept turning up trying to steal whatever the PCs were trying to steal, or kill whoever the PCs had to negotiate with. Later in the story, the Om family turned out to be connected to an evil cult of a horned God, and in the epic final battle, the characters got to do battle with that God in person... and members of the Om family, trying to defend their deity.

As antagonists go, they worked very well: They went from being foils and rivals, to being mercenaries for the bad guys, to being direct lieutenants of the big bad evil guy of the game. If there's anything I'm proud of, it's that the Raiders of the Lost Knark always knew who were the enemy (and the pained look of “aw shit” I could generate just by dropping a normal name like Henrik).

The actual plot of the campaign is so convoluted that I can't easily describe it. There were, for most of the time, three layers of plot going on: The personal hijinks of the player characters, the adventures and suplots they encountered, and the actual, ongoing plot. The characters traveled this way and that across the campaign world, and the magnitude of their journey can't really be described without a map (this is the one we used). To give some idea of the travels undertaken, the players fought demon cultists in the Burneal Forest (right under the word “Living”) and bartered with strange wizards beyond the Amedio Jungle (straight down from Burneal) – they explored an ancient temple by the shores of Lake Udrukankar (above the minimap in the lower left) and served under Pirate King Arkadin in the Relmor Bay (straight down from the word “Greyhawk”). They traveled to all these places and more, all the while having their base of operations in the Free City of Greyhawk, right where the folds of the map meet at the center – and the journeys were rarely without incident, in a world of dishonest innkeepers, far-reaching criminal families, bandits, monsters, and intriguing nobles.

Merely talking about where isn't very interesting, though. I imagine if you're reading this, you also have some interest in the what. There's almost no end to it, particularly because of the complex intricacies of plot, subplot and sub-subplot, but I can give some examples: They snatched a magical compass from under the fingers of the Om family and used it to find great treasures, but it eventually led them to a strange floating island where a dead goddess was held; they resurrected her through prayer and were hounded by the minions of the assassin who killed her. They singlehandedly turned the tide of a war by defeating a demon and his evil druid minions, and later discovered this was just a small fraction of a vast demonic threat. They infiltrated the secret base of a cult of racist psychic ninjas, who practice the ancient and deadly art of Glue Fu. They crept into a castle in the sky belonging to the settings' most powerful witch, and rescued half a dozen heroes from her magic. In addition to this, there were countless personal subplots: They rescued a characters' father from being falsely accused of a crime, they freed a kidnapped sister, they foiled the plans of an evil older brother, and so on. A lot of NPCs came and went, though very few were actually recurring – mostly because the characters traveled so wide and far.

Earlier years had seen pretty massive conceptual leaps – from game to story, from story to setting, from setting to overarching plots – and although the step was smaller and more subtle in this campaign, it was nonetheless important. Previously, there had always been only one story going on at a time, with some minor frills around it. Characters had their own lives, but they were rarely involved directly in the story, the backgrounds and families were just window-dressing. The Raiders of the Lost Knark introduced the idea of interweaving plots. There were stories based on a characters' background, stories that intersected other stories, stories that only concerned one character that happened simultaneously with stories that concerned the whole group, and stories that the players invented which were then woven into the overarching plot; it was the players who came up with the idea of stealing the magical compass, for instance. Overall, this gave the campaign a very genuine, organic feeling: Nothing existed in a vacuum. What the characters did mattered, both to the setting but also to the growth of new stories. The turn-over of characters actually helped to support this organic feeling, since many of the stories quite naturally involved new people. Some characters reached their goals and retired; new ones then stepped in that were more connected to the task at hand. On the other hand, some characters stepped in that had no connection to anything, just a random happenstance, which sometimes got stupid (“I have been rowing here in a boat, that is why I am so strong!”) but occasionally just felt natural (“I deserted from the army and have no money. There are probably people looking to execute me. Can I come with you guys? That'd help.”).

Perceptive readers may note that I have not yet mentioned any characters' names. I'm getting to that; in fact, I'm actually going to list them all. While there were perhaps ten characters or so who were the real main characters with the most influence over the plot, I figured it gives a better picture of the campaign as a whole to mention all of them. Before I get to that, however, I'm going to mention two small side projects I did with this same group, at roughly the same time. They were the ones in which Jack truly got to shine.

The first one was (informally, as in, only in my notes) called “Two Houses” and took place in the same world, and at the same time, as the Raiders of the Lost Knark game, but revolved around political intrigue between noble houses in Ahlissa. Based loosely on a similar game I had ran on-line, it was supposed to be a game of politics and scheming, but it seems only Andy took any real liking to it (I don't think Luke participated). This game is mostly notable because of Jack's number-one fantastic character Gurgi the Goblin. The other characters were all scheming, manipulative noblemen; Gurgi was a goblin. Not even a particularly noteworthy goblin – he had class levels in Rogue, and that was basically it. Gurgi essentially became the heart of the game, since the most interesting story revolved around the other characters trying to manipulate the naïve, innocent, and ultimately good-hearted goblin into doing their dirty work and taking their falls. He was thoroughly tragicomical – naïve enough to be funny, but also innocent and pure compared to his cynical “friends” - whom he considered his friends right until their political machinations eventually got him killed.

The second side game I want to mention is the Storybook game. This game was ran on the premise “fairy tale clichés”, and as such the group consisted of a princess in men's clothing, an old wise druid, a blue-eyed young hero (uncharacteristically played by Bjarne), a mysterious elf from distant lands with strange customs, and a ridiculously strong brick of a dwarf. The combination was pretty much the perfect five-man band, and the story developed beautifully. It stands out mostly because it was a bit more deep and serious than other games we'd ran up until that point, with more long-spanning story and some serious themes – a pregnant player character, a deal with the devil (in the form of a witch) and some classical fairy tale elements played totally straight, like the troll who can't be defeated, only tricked. Jack played the muscular brick-dwarf, and made the most insane display of stubbornness and bullet-headedness by spending almost all of his feats on swimming, which led to his subsequent fantastically awesome victory in the final battle scene; he also did a good job of roleplaying the Big Guy perfectly straight, and managed to portray something very much like a cross between Gimli and Hagrid.

And while we're on the subject of notable characters...

Notable Characters:
Here's the complete list of the Raiders of the Lost Knark, with the six most iconic characters first.

Arthad af Vaughn / Arthad Aliaster (Charles) – Evil human fighter, later converted to the cause of good. Killed an evil god (with a lot of help from Craven the Raven). Remained in the group until the end of the game.

Kråkmåns Höghatt (Bjarne) – Dwarven cleric, tricked the God of Lies by tricking the GM. Strict and fair, but greedy. Killed by the Scarlet Brotherhood at level 10 and remained dead for a long time, but came back through a miracle before the end of the game.

Todd Ark (Andy) – Human druid with a deadpan attitude. Seduced the Unseelie Fey Queen and became her consort, but was eventually killed by Arthads' hand because the dark god's power was pouring into him. Was the longest-lasting character in the game, and survived from level 1 to 14.

Aust Galanodel (Luke) – Elven wizard, made a powerful artifact hand out of a fist-sized ruby. Calm and controlled, but slowly grew obsessed with power since he always needed more to achieve his goals. Retired very, very shortly before the end of the game to build a flying city.

Vackeria (Jack) – Elven ranger with a giant, evil, intelligent, bloodthirsty mace for a weapon. Was captured by the Om family and implanted with a weird parasite, but managed to turn it to her own ends. Vackeria temporarily retired at level 6, but came back – only to later become imprisoned by the Scarlet Brotherhood. Reached level 10.

Fenith (Chris) – Elven mercenary who loved showing off with his weapon of choice, a glaive. It was hinted that he had a connection to the enigmatic Valley Elves. Was eventually killed by the Scarlet Brotherhood at level 10.

And as for the remaining cast:

Crayloon (Charles) – Gnome wizard, formed the Raiders of the Lost Knark. Retired at level 4.

Brad Rost (Andy) – Human paladin. Not very noteworthy. Remained in play until the end of the game.

Moano (Chris) – Tattooed human monk from the far South. I'm not entirely sure what happened to him, I think Chris phased out of the game and Moano just kind of disappeared, but I don't remember.

Jacarsin (Luke) – Human sorcerous barbarian. Great liar, proficient mountain man. Retired at level 4.

Zok-Hoba (Luke) – Fallen Incubus demon who became good (so he fell upwards). Sacrificed himself at level 6 to show Arthad the Light.

Liam Tindarellion (Luke) – Halfling acrobat and knife thrower. Retired at level 10 to form her own thieves' guild.

Salazar (Luke) – Human monk with arabic features. Could jump like crazy. Was only in play for a few sessions.

Arkas Hörntand (Bjarne) – Greedy half-orc. Picked a fight with the city guard and died at level 1.

Raistlin Långskägge (Bjarne) – Greedy dwarf. Killed by a bear at level 3.

Tikas Svarthorn (Bjarne) – Greedy tiefling. Killed through no fault of her own by a shapeshifter at level 6.

Furkman af Vaughn (Bjarne) – Aggressive half-orc. Killed by the Scarlet Brotherhood at level 10 while trying to avenge Kråkmåns.

Noja Lilltå (Bjarne) – Halfling dragon rider. Sacrificed herself for the greater good at level 10.

Pluppinia av Oljin (Jack) – Halfling who thought she was a dwarf, sister of Plupp. Killed alongside Tikas by a shapeshifter at level 6.

Malefe (Jack) – Female yuan-ti (snake people) who seemed very confused. Killed when a church bell fell on her at level 8.

Minifenix (Jack) – Weird twelve-year old kid with a giant spider. Walked in through a door, out through a door, and promptly died. Gained 0 experience points and died at level 7.

Ymer (Jack) – Gnome cleric/pirate. Looked a lot like Charlie Brown. Retired at level 11.

Crowning Moments of Awesome: Either none or too many to count, depending on where you draw the line. This was the most gaming-intense year of my entire life.

Next Up:
2004: Arcana Unearthed, in which an entirely new group is introduced, and a very complex story begins to unfold. Once more I undertake the prospect of world-building, and proceed to only use a few percent of it. In the next year, complicated literary analysis enters the equation, and we embark on a journey exploring themes, moods, motifs, and other such pretentious things.