My Anniversary Present: Death, death, and more death

Last night marked the first anniversary for the Metal Gods of Ur-Hadad campaign. Let me begin by saying that gaming with +Adam Muszkiewicz, +Wayne Snyder, +Bear Wojtek, +Gabriel Perez Gallardi, +James MacGeorge, +phil spitzer, +Jason Hobbs, and (once or twice) +John Iverson has been a blast. I think we've managed to game about 50 weeks out of the last 52, which ain't a bad run.

Sadly, Bear and James were unable to join us last night. In Bear's honor, the whole game was nothing but a series of dick jokes. +Jason Hobbs' Roll20 token was a giant dildo, even. Maybe it wasn't so much a series of dick jokes as it was the Metal Gods version of The Aristocrats.

And, yes, that's Bob Saget. A perfect choice don't you think?

Anyway, we each started off with two or three level zero guys. I made mine with the alternate level zero generator I posted recently (Note: There's been an update to how the dices rolls work, to make them a bit swingier. Fun!).  I ended up with a Brewer who spent time as a soldier (Jeddak), a dwarven apothecary who fell in with a bad crowd (Gnarrly), and an acolyte who was the black sheep of his family (Thulan). All of them had their high and low points, but none had very many hit points. This would prove... consequential. 

Adam ran an adventure from Brave Halfling, but altered for the Metal Gods universe. I don't think he ever mentioned what it was called. In any case, it was a lot of fun.

We started at a hole in the ground, at the top of a hill. I sent the brewer/soldier and the dwarf down first. They saw A SCARY SPIDER and were hauled back up out of reach. We got down there again, in numbers, and Jeddak the brewer/soldier nailed it with a thrown hammer. For once, I was rolling like a fuckin' beast. My guys just killed and killed and killed. We were filled with the spirit of Lemm the Killmaster, I think, for it was our mission to investigate this now-desecrated temple of Lemm. 

Backstory: Lemm the Killmaster, whose aspect is the Iron Boar, Snaggletooth, is one of the Metal Gods. In our campaign, "metal" is both a thing (it can be forged into weapons whereby Man can cast off the chains of his elven oppressors--Fuck the elves!), an attitude (make it brudl), and how we find the Lost Hymns (the musical connection). The Metal Gods are incarnations of Man as pantheon. They were men, once, but now they are gods. We give them worship by being awesome, where "awesome" is defined as the sorts of things you find on finer album covers and wizard vans. It's got a lot more in common with Wizards (the movie) than with The Hobbit (the Rankin/Bass vehicle of the same era), and with the ancient times (the 1970s, or even... the early 1970s) than with the current age. Anyway...

Having trounced the spider, we began to explore the temple. Everywhere, we found evidence of great antiquity and of the foul desecration. We also found evidence of a schism among the Faithful. Lemm is patron of getting wasted, fucking, and killing things well. Also (and here's my contribution) regretting not the deeds done, but the grimness of the world which results from them. The schism broke the temple into two factions: Those focused on the fucking and getting wasted and those more interested in the stabby, smashing, rending thing. This temple was held by the fighty ones, but they'd been attacked in their stronghold by a demon, and defeated. The demon's presence had sullied the environs, making mock of Lemm's power. This could not stand. We would purify it.

Before we started tonight, Adam made very clear that no good could come of hanging back, or even of doign things in ways less than totally awesome. We needed to approach our work with gusto. We needed to make it metal. We needed make it worthy of an album cover. We were up to the task. I won't go into every encounter we had, but suffice it to say that we fucked up a bunch of skeltons, some giant bats, and a boss skeleton of some kind. 

In the end, I was down to one character. Gnarrly the dwarf had died early on, from a spider bite. He made his save versus poison, but not versus mandible damage (3 points killed him). Thulan the acoloyte got stabbed by a skeleton, I think. I don't rightly remember. My last guy, Jeddak, charged into the boss fight, screaming like a Fury, mace raised high and swinging it with both hands. He faced a skeletal being wearing jeans, leather chaps, and a jean vest. He crushed that sonofabitch into oblivion. Boss... dead. It was appropriately Metal, I think. 

Honestly, I couldn't help to try very, very hard to make every encounter as awesome as I could. I wanted that album cover! Even with one guy left, I just didn't care. So, filled with the spirit of the Killmaster, he smashed that fucker's head in. Then, even with the scavenged scale mail (AC 16), Adam rolled an 18, did 3 points of damage (I only had 2). He died, then, cut down like a dog. But that's as it should have been. It was a perfect ending for my guys. I regret nothing. For Jeddak, Thulan, and Gnarrly, I offer one of the Lost Hymns in honor of their sacrifices:

Mother earth, mother earth enfold you in her cold embrace
Sinking down, killing ground, worm crawling on your cold white face
Win or lose, nought to choose, all men are equal when their memory fades
No one knows, friends or foes, if Valhalla lies beyond the grave

You died well, boys. Good on ya. You'll get your album covers. You will.

In the end, the remaining members of the party reclaimed the Axe of Lemm and used it to resanctify His temple. A herald of Lemm descended to thank them, granting them the weapon (among other things), and bade them go forth and bring glory to His name.

All my guys died, but it couldn't have been a better session. I have just one question: Is it Thursday yet? I'm ready to go again. 

Awww, crap. I forgot. Next Thursday is Halloween. No game. *sigh*  I guess I'm gonna have to dress up like a wizard and go frighten children and their parents. All in a day's work, I suppose. The next Thursday, though, that's gonna be glorious. How could it be anything but?