D&D Chronicles — Varrien Campaign

When I first started playing Dungeons and Dragons in May 2012, I thought it would be fun to blog my experiences.

I was right. Over six (nearly seven) years, my D&D Chronicles posts took on a life of their own, adding significant dimension to my overall enjoyment of the game.

The early posts were told as a third person narrative to document what happened. But after just over a year I switched to writing in first person from my characters’ points of view. This changed things up considerably and allowed me (and the others too) to get creative.

Now the Varrien campaign is more or less complete, I’m updating this page to provide a basic introduction to all the posts, which are listed at the bottom in order, with links.

Rise of Varrien

Broadly speaking, the campaign centred around rumours of the rise of Varrien, the goddess of destruction.

The two Eyes of Varrien, needed to raise the goddess, took the form of large red magical gemstones, hidden separately and lost to time. The weapon needed to defeat her was the Flail of the Wind and the Rain, also rent in two and hidden separately.

Our overall goal as players, therefore, was for our characters to find these four items and stop Varrien from rising.

The path to achieving this was often convoluted — but that’s the game (or should I say, the story?).

Characters

An additional factor is the fact that characters have a tendency to die. Sometimes these characters can be restored (resurrected), but sometimes you just have to get another character. And so continuity of purpose becomes challenging.

Aside from the first two sessions (which led to a total party kill and reset), I played a ranger for the entire campaign — with Zillah being my highest level and most significant alter ego. I’m probably gonna miss her!

These were our characters and classes over the years (as they appear in the blog posts listed below):

mages — Calwyn, Squirrel, Abra, Fenfaren*
rogues — Tessla, Saffir, Effu, Sparrow, Schill, Brynn, Squirrel
clerics — Pasquale, Alix*, Blizzard
paladins — Intan, Blaze*
fighters — Madon, Sir Robin, Ammonite, Vaantus
rangers — Rhi, Ash, Kae, Zillah*, Nightshade*

Bolded characters are those who stuck around for a while. Bolded* characters are those who were there at the end!

[December 2018]

Multiple D20s

The final showdown: Ash versus the mini-orc thing leader (aka Skeleton with scythe)