Revelation for RPGs: One Last Surprise
The heroes now have the artifacts they need to heal the land: they have taken Weeping Wounds, the diseased dagger, from Garrett the vampire, and they have recovered the Dragon’s Heart from a far-off land where it was taken centuries ago. All that remains, the players think, is to take these artifacts to the dragon Agondre’s chamber and do…something. The Oracle instructed them to return there with their loins girded for battle and they would learn what to do.
That sure sounds like we’re about to have one climactic battle and then a tidy wrap-up, right? Surely at this late stage in the game there are no secrets to be revealed, right? Wrong.
In this last post in this series I’ll show how the GM revealed one final surprise, and what happened next. I’ll also talk about some of the “meta-game” aspects that enhanced this game over its four-year run.
To explain what happened next I will excerpt from Larissa’s journal entry for that day:
Tobin met us there anxious with worry. He had done an augory and seen both great good and massive woe; a further divination brought the message “Agondre’s greatest blow brings Agondre’s greatest good”. (So why should prophecies suddenly start making sense at the time?) When he sought further guidance he learned that we must strike hard and follow through, and use all our protective magics. Whatever was going to happen, it appeared, was going to be big. I so, so misunderstood just how big.
So we loaded ourselves up with magic, and Tobin imbued Liandra and me with some of his spells as well. I don’t think I’ve ever had so many spells active on myself before. The Dragon’s Heart followed me, magically floating behind me as it did for Kepta-Mor.
When we entered we found but two creatures waiting for us. […] Both were dead in a matter of seconds. This could not have been the battle for which the oracle told us to gird our loins.
So I flew to Agondre, hovering in front of his face above the pool, and asked what to do. We all saw the vision in his eyes — Kotara-Nar was cutting open Agondre’s chest to allow the Dragon’s Heart to be pushed in. I felt a wave of strong, mixed emotions — joy, sadness, relief, and maybe a bit of fear. But I didn’t have time to analyze it then; that came later.
And then Turok was at my side, casting an enchantment on Kotara-Nar to make the blow land true. I think we both held our breaths as Turok got into position and, with apologies, struck a mighty blow.
Searing hot blood — hotter than any fire I’ve felt — sprayed out, and Agondre flew into a savage rage, striking out at everyone. I tried to push the Dragon’s Heart into the wound but Agondre jerked away; the wound started to close and Turok slashed again. I heard and felt other things happening around me, but I was focused only on the Dragon’s Heart and that wound. Liandra shouted out that while it feels wrong we must attack Agondre.
I tried again to push the Dragon’s Heart in and again failed. Agondre slammed me with a wing and a claw, but I held on and my third try succeeded. At last, I thought, we can truly heal Agondre.
But as I pushed the Dragon’s Heart into his chest, the searing blood enveloped it and cracks began to form. Wait, I thought! We can’t have the heart be damaged after all of this! And then Liandra and Hrolf both said it was cracking like an eggshell.
This was the GM’s final surprise, and none of us saw it coming. The artifact was called the Dragon’s Heart, not the Dragon’s Egg.
Agondre continued to attack us, and Liandra told us we must press on. Everyone attacked, and when Turok dealt two mighty blows Agondre staggered and collapsed with a mighty roar and a look of gratitude in his eyes. I was stunned. We weren’t supposed to kill Agondre! What would that mean for the land? But he seemed grateful — huh? In sadness, we all gathered around to say our goodbyes to Agondre and pay tribute.
At that point, the egg in Agondre’s chest split open and a small dragon emerged. The pool surrounding Agondre was burned away by his searing blood, leaving a young dragon and Agondre’s corpse on the stone floor. The baby looked curiously at us.
All of the prophecies had talked of healing Agondre. We thought that meant the dragon. But the dragon we’d met was only the current instance, the draconic manifestation of the land of Agondre. We did heal the land, but we couldn’t save that dragon. However, Agondre the Younger became the new dragon of the land.
And that land had been scrubbed clean of disease. Turok was healed, Weeping Wounds was now a rusty dagger with no magic, and Garrett had crumbled to dust right after crying out, “someone killed Agondre and it wasn’t me!”. The ghosts of the emperor’s guards faded away, their job now done. Later, we would learn that a new, baby oracle had been born in the Gorge of Fire.
This was the final game session at which we rolled any dice, but we gathered once or twice more to wrap up player-character storylines. As expected, Larissa became empress. Turok became the chief knight of the empire; he had also just been reunited with his ladyfriend of the past, who had come back damaged and fragile. Liandra was about to ascend to her own leadership position, taking over as Lady of Oakhame, and would soon wed as well. Kyle, the halfling rogue-turned-ranger who had always somewhat kept to himself, had some plans of his own. Among non-player characters, the elf Elys’ would soon be reunited with Therion the (no-longer-)sleeping bard, Tobin the rat-kin would stay on in Cardior as a priest to Agondre, and Seamus would have many new songs to write and perform. And somewhere, we knew, Prolix and Nithelin, the gnome wizards, were doing wild magical things that only gnome wizards could ever understand.
Our group met to play about every two to three weeks. Between sessions we discussed plans by email, which both allowed the GM to see what we were thinking (mostly :-) ) and allowed us to be more organized come game nights. Sometimes bits of game (and world) development happened through interactions on that email list. The email list was an important channel for the group, even if many messages were about organizing the Subway order for the next session.
But the biggest boost, outside the game sessions themselves, came from the shared game journal. We were lucky that one player was interested in keeping an in-character journal, but that wasn’t actually the reason the GM set up the site. He’d intended to use it for rules clarifications, to post artifacts like letters and maps and songs, and to share rumors. Once it existed anyway, the players started using it for more. And the GM and other players, in turn, reacted to those posts.
Some of the depth of the world came through because the GM wrote letters from home to characters (and, later, other written records). Some came from characters writing journal entries or letters and needing some previously-unspecified detail. Sometimes we asked the GM to supply it; sometimes we players just made stuff up, allowing the GM a veto. Almost everything written in the journal after the rebirth of Agondre was player-invented. The result was collaborative worldbuilding around the edges while the GM retained control of the core. The GM told the story he planned to tell from the beginning, and the players helped to flesh it out. That would still have happened without the shared journal, but I don’t think it would have been as rich and detailed.
It’s also important to note that different players participated in this to different degrees. One player wrote a character journal. Two others wrote occasional letters to significant NPCs but didn’t write on a regular basis. Two others didn’t participate in the journal at all but were active in email discussions.
As a GM you don’t know whether your players will be interested in side activities like this — or, if they are, to what extent. And that has to be ok — your side activities shouldn’t leave non-participating players feeling excluded from the game proper. Your worldbuilding needs to be able to stand alone, in case your players are really just interested in showing up to sessions and playing. But having a “second layer” to the campaign (shared journal/blog, wiki, email list) available for those who want to partake can enhance the experience for everybody.
When we reached the end of this campaign we all felt satisfied, that we’d created something great together. I hope you can do the same in your game-worlds.
See the other articles in this series.
