But first, let’s meet the characters, we have Barrai a Tiefling, Thrain a Hill Dwarf, and Bokken a War Forged. You’ll notice that there are no classes tied to them, that’s because I decided, we’re starting at level 0. They are all just average characters to slightly above average with 10’s across the board for their stats, plus racial bonuses, that’s because of the Tower of the Gods.

So, what is a Tower of The Gods? It was a magical tower that appeared about 200 years ago. Bigger than a city block and going up into the clouds, no one knows how tall it is. Monsters spilled out of it devastating the lands around it. The nations put up a quick defense after the initial shock and devastation. But the number of monsters seemed unlimited, eventually, as morale was getting low, a group of soldiers at one of the Towers took the fight to the Tower itself and found an entrance. When they came out, they had stemmed some of the flow of the monsters but also came out stronger with new abilities (aka D&D Classes). Once the news spread of this more people went into all the Towers and while most perished, those who came out came out stronger and had slowed the flow of the monsters.

Now, the monsters still show up, but there are guards at every tower to deal with the small monster incursions. But, of course, a tower that is powerful enough to give people new skills, that’s something that every nation wants and they want several of them if they can. So the nations fought over the tower until a shaky truce was made. Now, there are schools that not only train you to be ready for the Towers but instruct you in the new skills you have when you leave. It’s a honor to be sent into the Towers and not an honor that every can afford or could survive.

Thrain, Bokken, and Barrai are three of a new group of trainees going into the Towers who have come to them through different paths.

This is where the game basically kicked off, with those three waiting their turn to go into the tower to see if they’d survive and come out the other side with new found skills. When they went in, they were given a riddle and a chance to equip themselves, grabbing a few weapons, they ventured further into the magical tower which took them to many different areas.

There was a jungle room where the floor was poisonous and they had to swing from branch to branch on vines towards one of the exits, but if they fell, it might mean their death.

There was a room with a moat, all they had to do was get across it and they’d be able to go through one of two doors. But there was a sea serpent swimming in the moat, and it wasn’t something they could jump across. Using some quick thinking, they grabbed vines from the other room and were able, using their fourth test taker, a jacked halfling named Steve (the players named him not me), and the War Forged tossed Steve up to the ceiling where he was able to grab onto a hook and tie a vine to it. They had some troubles swinging across, but eventually did, but Steve notices there was a trapdoor, a third door, at the bottom of the moat.

That led them to a room with a bunch of floating tiles. They quickly discerned that they could move them around and use them to get to another door way. Unfortunately, having a jacked halfling and a dwarf trying to get past each other on a 3×3 foot tile didn’t work and Steve fell to his death.

This led them into a room that was basically pitch black. When they stepped into the room, shadow creatures started attacking them. They made a break for it but both Bokken and Barrai were knocked down by the creatures. Thrain had to drag them into the next room where they were revived.

In this room, it was something pretty different. There was just an old lady drinking tea and she offered them some tea. Bokken, rolling low, sniffed the tea, thought it smelled good, so he drank some of it as did the other two. This opened their eyes and they saw that the old lady was a monster in disguise, but the monster didn’t make a move to attack them. Finding out that the next room was the last room, they bid the lady/monster farewell and continued on their way.

In the final room they were given 6 different goblets that they could drink from. Once the drank from them it allowed them to see an exit from the tower. However, the old lady had told them that which one they drank from could make a difference on how they walked out of the tower. They each picked and drank and walked out of the doors that appeared to them as:

Thrain the Hill Dwarf Warlock
Barrai the Tiefling Bard
Bokken the War Forged Fighter

And that’s where the first session ended. We’ll probably be adding a fourth player at some point in time, so we’ll have to see who is added to the party.

What do you think of the game thus far?

Just some DM notes on this. I set it up so that the doors were different colors, I didn’t delve into it too deeply if it was tied to the elements or what, but that’s what the players took away from it.

All the rooms were generally planned, but how many they had to go through and what order they went through them in was kind of up to how the game went. I just picked two rooms, one for each door and then repeated the process for each room after that. They were moving through them pretty fast, so we ended going through more than I’d thought so we could go for a little, plus I needed a way to kill of Steve.

So, that lends itself to another question, why Steve? Again, I didn’t name him, but I always wanted someone with them in the tower for at least a little bit of it. That would allow me to show them bits of the tower if they missed it. But it would also give me someone who I could kill, show off some of the deadliness of the tower, and also that if you die in the tower, you’ll be forgotten in the real world.

What will come next for them? Probably getting them recruited into a school and let them play around with their powers.

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So let’s get into some backstory. Out there between the planes there exists two factions of the Gith race, Githyanki and Githzerai. For a long time, they were both under the control of Mind Flayers, but they managed to buck that control and now both war against the Mind Flayers, but the Githyanki, an evil race, don’t really care who get in their way and will pillage and kill as they go tracking down Mind Flayers. The Githzerai are similar in their feelings about Mind Flayers, but tend to keep to themselves.

In our game, there will have been a massive mind flayer infestation that has cropped up in the underdark. Though, as the players, you don’t know that yet. But things on the surface are starting to get interesting.

Duergar and Drow are coming up from the underdark to attack Dwarven clans whenever they can and seem to be making a concerted effort and push to take over some Dwarven strongholds. This amount of coordination seems higher than what Duergar normally are doing, so the players will be sent to investigate the underdark, investigate, but not engage. Down there, they will run across a party of Githzerai, and knowing the players, they will engage them, and be knocked out. That will probably have them going back to the surface to report, where they’ll get sent back down again to confirm that there are mind flayers.

On the surface, there will be changes going on to the lands as a Githzerai tower will have appeared. This beacon is going to bring in Githyanki and their red dragon companions as well as their air ships. The players, when not in the underdark are going to have to try and stop some of the incursions from the Githyanki as well as figure out what the Githzerai tower is and what is going on there.

The interesting part of this game for the players will be the troubles developing on two fronts. If they focus only on keeping the Githyanki away, and the Githyanki/Githzerai hate the Mind Flayers with the burning passion of a million suns so they aren’t leaving, the Mind Flayers are going to continue building up power in the underdark. If they go after the Mind Flayers, the Githyanki and Githzerai are both going to stick around the surface and delve into the underdark as well. So what happens to the surface while the PC’s are gone? The Githyanki are going to do a lot of damage. And it also opens up the question, do the PC’s know enough eventually about the Gith and the two factions to know that the Githzerai could be used as allies without everything ending up being destroyed?

Eventually this game is going to have the players taking on the Mind Flayers, possibly with allies. But then there might be another act where the Githyanki are now seeing what is worthwhile from the material plane and the players are going to have to come back to the surface and deal with the Githyanki or the red dragons who are their allies.

What are your thoughts on this game idea? Would you be interested in a game where there are two battlefronts and you have to choose between the two.

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