So, in my D&D 4e game I play a Dragonborn (humanoid dragon, basically) fighter named Koloth. The other characters are:
Veeks - Elf barbarian (yes, seriously)
Froderick - Halfling sorcerer
Sariel - Eladrin (high elf) wizard
Xander - Elf cleric
Khait - Elf thief and Xander's half-sister.
And having just typed that, I only just realized how many damn elves we have.
Okay, a little bit of game mechanics, so that this story will make sense: In the current version of D&D, the highest possible character level is 30, and they divide the levels into 3 tiers. 1-10 is Heroic, where you're considered to be just a typical adventurer. 11-20 is Paragon, where your characters are more of a big deal and some of the higher powers are starting to notice you. 21-30 is Epic, where your characters pretty much become demigods.
I once summed up the tiers as regular guy --> Batman --> Superman.
When you hit Paragon, you get to choose something called a Paragon Path, which gives your character a few additional abilities. In my case I selected Scion of Arkhosia, a Dragonborn-specific path which gave me wings that allow for short distance flight, and more control over my breath powers.
When you hit Epic, you get to select an Epic Destiny, which is like a Paragon Path, just more powerful.
Technically, by the rulebook, you get your Path/Destiny as soon as you hit the appropriate level, the GM wants to incorporate them into the story. Therefore we don't gain them until a thematically or dramatically appropriate time. In Koloth's case, I didn't get my Paragon Path until nearly to level 12, and its sometimes taken longer for other characters.
The only other game mechanic thing I can think of that is important is the concepts of Short Rests and Extended Rests. Short rests are a quick breather that allow you to regain some of your spent abilities, and heal a little. Extended Rests are basically a full night's sleep and let you fully recover everything. Also, if you've gained enough experience to level up, it does not occur until you next have an Extended Rest.
Xander is a cleric following the Raven Queen, who serves as the goddess of death. An important plot point from about a real-life year ago is that Koloth was killed in battle, but the Raven Queen came to him and returned him to life as a Revenant and tasked him to destroy her enemies.
About six real-life months ago, as part of our ongoing plot, the Raven Queen was apparently killed, and her position usurped by Kelemvor, the previous god of death. We later learned that the Raven Queen wasn't quite dead, but severely injured and weakened.
With the exception of Khait, all of us have recently hit level 21.
Xander's player and I have chosen similar Epic Destinies. He chose Avatar of Death, and I chose Avatar of Io. In Xander's case this means he will become either the direct representative of, or the embodiment of the Raven Queen.
Mine does the same, but the catch is that within the setting, Io is a long dead god. When Io was slain, his body was cut in two, and each half became one of the two dragon gods: Bahamut and the 5-headed Tiamat.
A short time ago (the last time we were in a city), Koloth was attacked by what looked to be a 5-headed Dragonborn, surely a sign of Tiamat. The odd thing was that nobody else could see it, or interact with it (such as attacking where it seemed to be), but they could see wounds appear on Koloth when he was hit. After a short fight, the thing left.
I think that's all the backstory you need to know for the rest to make any sense (the campaign is going on 3 years now, so there's a lot that is tied together)
Currently, we're trying to recover a hammer that was stolen from a demon blacksmith called the Breaker. The Breaker has important information we need, and will trade it for his hammer. We'd tracked it down to a particular location, and had already eliminated most of the opposition, but had one room left to check. This is where we picked up last night...
The party was pretty run down after the series of battles we'd had the previous session, so Sariel used a ritual that allowed us to take an extended rest, but only eat up an hour of time. Thus, everyone except Khait officially hit level 21.
Rested, Khait used an ability to examine the next room without having to enter it. What she saw was the demons we expected, a hammer and anvil, and a 5-headed creature fighting the demons.
We were up a staircase, so we went down it to the door and entered. In the time this took, the 5-headed creature had finished off the demons. Sure enough, it was the Dragonborn thing that had attacked me earlier. Now that I could get a better look at it, I recognized it as a rival Dragonborn from much earlier in the campaign, who was a follower of Tiamat and generally quite the scum bag.
The interesting part was that directly behind the Rival (who's name we'd never learned) was a ghostly image of a 5 headed dragon. Apparently Tiamat herself! O_O And she appeared to be directing energies into the Rival! Zounds!
I guessed, correctly, that the Rival had become an avatar of Tiamat. As I was guessing this, I heard a woman's voice (the Raven Queen), say (in the form of a note passed to me) "You must lose to prevent a new conflict, but it must be you and only you to battle her chosen."
So, Koloth pointed at the Rival and stated "In the name of the Raven Queen, I challenge you to single combat!". The rest of the party was surprised by this, but backed off. One of them even turned to leave, only to find that directly behind the party was a ghostly image of Bahamut!
So, the Rival and I started trading blows. I decided to start off fighting for real, and that I'd throw it later on. I figured I should at least make it look good. I ended up doing better then I expected. Rival was starting to look rather ragged, so I chose to taunt him instead of attacking and offer him a free hit.
My plan was that unless the Rival outright missed, I'd drop after he hit me, no matter what sort of damage it did. Well, coincidentally, the blow put me at exactly 0 hit points. Mechanically, that means your character is knocked out and dying, but they're not dead-dead until their HP drops to half their total HP below 0. In my case that would be -78, but the kicker is that because I'm a Revenant, I don't fall unconscious at 0, I can just keep fighting but all the other related penalties (which I'm glossing over) still apply.
The party was shocked. A few reminded me, out of character, that I don't drop and 0, and I told them I knew that. The Rival continued to attack.
Froderick did some rolling for Insight, and realized there was no way that blow could have dropped me, and that I must be up to something. So everyone held back. Everyone except Veeks the Barbarian, who just saw his compatriot fall. He charged in and whacked the Rival, despite an image in his head of the Raven Queen telling him not to (He later explained that A) He doesn't follow the Raven Queen, so it was just some woman to him, and B) He figured it was a mage trying to mess with his head.)
At this point a second image of the Rival appeared. It pointed at Veeks and the first Rival, and made a slashing motion with its arm. Then it pointed at Koloth and itself, made another slashing motion, and attacked Koloth once before vanishing. Translation: You interfered once, so I get to interfere once.
Now Xander received a whisper from the Raven Queen, and he was able to hold back Veeks. Now unopposed, the Rival continued his attack on Koloth, finishing me off. (Far past -78).
So, Koloth is dead and the Rival looks pleased with himself. He turns to leave, when Koloth's body floats in the air. Rival sees this and attacks again, knocking Koloth to the floor once more.
Koloth floats again. This time he speaks, and its with both the voice of Koloth and the Raven Queen. It explains something that Koloth already knew, but that the rest didn't: When the Raven Queen turned Koloth into a Revenant, she stored a part of her essence within him to do it. Since her apparent death she's been resting, but now it is time to retake her role from Kelemvor. As she spoke, energies swirled around Koloth's body, in particular a dark patch. Said dark energies lashed out at the Rival and leeched energies from him. Tiamat looked concerned by this, since she had been powering the Rival.
Over the course of a few seconds, the Rival rapidly aged, until it was just a skeleton, and then just dust, which blew away. That done, the dark energy left Koloth's body and headed out a window, but not before flying through Xander. Her voice told them that if he abandons his prideful ways (Xander has an inflated ego, which is a sin to the Raven Queen's teachings) that he would grow in power as her representative. And thus Xander gained his Epic Destiny!
Koloth stopped floating, falling gently onto his feet. Apparently as a reward for carrying her essence for about a year, the Raven Queen restored Koloth to full life. He is no longer a Revenant.
Then the Raven Queen did one last thing. She shoved the images of Tiamat and Bahamut from behind. They didn't expect this, and ended up colliding, with Koloth between them. Tiamat and Bahamut are now dead, and Io shall be reborn. Koloth gains his Epic Destiny!
The Raven Queen's final words before departing were to task us with raising an army to oppose Asmodius' forces. We know that he controls an army of spirits. Thus, Koloth took the hammer from the nearby anvil, and the group returned to the Breaker.
The Breaker kept his end of the deal, telling us the information about Asmodius we needed. He'd also agreed to forge each of us a powerful item. Except for Koloth. Instead of forging something for him, he will instead teach Koloth (who has a background in smithing) the ways of the so-called Soul Metal. Soul Metal is a magical metal in our campaign. It looks like silver, but is infused with souls, and has unique properties. The most notable is that a weapon edged with Soul Metal can harm spirits as if they were flesh.
Teaching Koloth will take time. A month, in-game. The party has agreed that Koloth will stay with the Breaker and learn, while the rest explore some of our options in gathering allies. We already have some that will likely help, as well as the various Raven Queen followers (Xander is basically the RQ pope, so he can probably amass something via preaching), and we have some enemies who hate Asmodius more then they hate us, so that might be an option. They're also going to see what the new status quo is with the followers of Tiamat and Bahamut is, since those gods are suddenly no more.
In next week's session, we're going to pick up a month later and go from there. Also, the experience gained pushed Khait to level 21 as well.
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