#arturius

Inktober Compilation 2/4

9: “Precious”

10: “Flowing”

11: “Cruel”

12: “Shattered”

13: “Guarded”

14: “Clock”

15: “Weak”

Here’s another old character!  

Arturius, half-elf bard, one of the few, or only ‘evil’ aligned D&D characters I’ve ever played.  (lawful evil.  Though it seemed he was more often questioning the goodness of the rest of the party than vice-versa)

The campaign was set in an archipelago, with the whole party from an isolated, hidden village (in contact only with a couple of other hidden communities.)  Arturius was the son of the village’s primary elder, and had a genuine fondness for his home- though he did wish it was less of a backwater, craving the luxuries of the great and wealthy port cities.  

As they say, be careful what you wish for- for their island was about to be invaded by the forces of a “Dark Lord” for reasons unknown.  Arturius managed to get the small villages to band together and evacuate to nearby defensible ruins.

After defeating several scouting parties, the party learned that this was only part of the Dark Lord’s plan, carried out by one of his generals.  The party continued to cause havoc, and with the general’s army in disarray, they eventually managed to take him out.  

Things went off the rails a bit here, as the party ended up rescuing a Dao who had been captive by that general, and accepted her invitation to visit her husband, a Marid who happened to be one of the Dark Lord’s other generals.  

The party ended up making such an impression that the Marid accepted them into the Dark Lord’s army, and sponsored Arturius to be the fallen general’s replacement.  The party played along, hoping to be given audience with the Dark Lord himself, which they managed, after leading the Dark Lord’s armies to victory in sacking a famous walled city that had never fallen before.  

Arturius gained the loyalty of many of the army’s bullywogs by treating them decently- caring if they lived or died, not using them as cannon fodder, inspiring them, and boosting and healing them with his magic (he even resurrected one random bullywog, who renamed himself “Live”, and ended up getting killed and ressurected again later by other means).

Arturius instructed the army to perform a coup while he and the other generals were meeting with the Dark Lord, in order to take over their respective headquarters (also fulfiling the party’s earlier promise to the slaves there that we were going to free them in exchange for the help they had given us)

Before we could meet with the Dark Lord, we first had to face his Mystics, who demanded we take a magical oath of allegiance.  Arturius refused to swear fealty to the dark lord.  The Marid and his wife were unsure what to do- but had their minds made up for them by the last general, a Rakshasha, who killed the Marid’s wife (believing them to be traitors).  Arturius managed to get a wish out of the Marid, having everyone killed that day come back to life (which happened to include Live, again), securing the loyalty of the couple, and victory.