During my tenure in college I usually was the DM of all of my groups games. But there was one, run by my friend Chester, where I got to be a player. It was a homebrew system, not just a homebrew world, and readers let me tell you, I loved it. It was balanced, it was perfect. I believe he is still looking for someone to publish it. He called it Mortal Kind.
Well, he was one of my players, and when it came time to test his system, he asked if I would join as a player. He had a group in mind, and he knew what they were all planning on running character-wise, and he knew they were gonna need a tank. He also knew that I would play any kind of character the party needed, and I would have fun with it, so he thought I would fit in perfectly.
Well the game went for about 6 months, and was some of the most fun that I have ever had gaming. I played Tyr, and he was not your typical tank. A defensive style martial artist, who wore no armor save for a pair of silver bracers, he fought with twin over-sized butterfly swords. My character did very little damage, as everything about him, almost, was stacked toward defense. But he was the best meat-shield that any caster could ever ask for. I knew my roll on the team, and I was good at it. Well, we had been through some notable encounters, and our characters had all advanced a bit, and the GM thought that we needed to try something a little tougher, which was kind of a joke as we had barely been beating back the challenges that had been thrown our way. Anyway, he sends us into the thick of the fire, for what he told us was going to be a two-part session. Well that two-part session turned into a 7 session story-arc, and it was the absolute best thing that I have ever played. It required teamwork and intelligence and style and we nailed it. The only problem was, that I was leaving town. I had graduated from Mizzou, and my lease on my apartment was coming up. So I told the GM that we only had a few weeks left to wrap up. Well, we were so close to the end of the arc, and it was my last session that I would be able to participate. So here is the final story of Tyr...
As they breached the other side of the portal, they found themselves in a vast underground cavern system. There were piles of goods all over, which almost were tall enough to hide the lizardmen who were trying to hide behind them. Tyr, with his massive seven-and-a-half foot size, jumped out in front and began diverting opponents away from his friends, as his friends, for their part, pulled weapons and staves and started doling out simply punishing damage. In short measure the foes in the main room were defeated, and Tyr led the party down one of the smaller side hallways. They had portal'd into this place from the doomed city of Vertand, which was on the verge of being erased from creation. Here in this place they hoped to find the machine that was capable of doing such a thing, and destroying it, and its maker, so he could never commit such a heinous act again. Hallway after hallway they fought through the hordes of enemies that came for them, and with Tyr in the lead of the narrow hall, none could get by him to harass the party who stood behind the shield that was his body and skill, and dealt both ranged and magical damage to all who came in range. They finally found there way down the last hallway, and they found themselves looking at the machine. It was huge, sitting along one entire wall of the cavern, its control station along a raised platform off to the left. As they entered the room, with the whoosh of the door opening before them, they stared at nearly a legion of troops that waited between them and their quarry. From his spot in the front, Tyr knew that against such a number holding the doorway was their only option, but before he could relay his plan, they heard the sounds of soldiers coming up from behind. With only one option left, Tyr bellowed a warcry and dove forward into the fray. The rest of the party, no slouches on their own piled in after him, and soon the battle was well and truly joined. All was chaos as the heroes fought with all of their prodigious skill to beat their way to the machine. But the enemy was just too many, and more would be at the door in moments. Throwing one of his beloved swords into the chest of a rushing enemy, Tyr yelled for the group to push on without him, as he turned and ran back toward the door he yelled at the mage to raise the earth behind him and maybe with only a portion of the enemies on their side, they would be successful. Turning back to the doorway, and the warriors who stood in front of him before it. With a mighty heave Tyr through his second sword which struck the control panel right as the door was opening. Through nothing but his divine luck did the door stop opening. But now Tyr stood before his foes empty handed. As they closed in, the leader crowed, "Fool, now you are trapped in here with us" and he closed in rapidly for the kill. Throwing aside the cloak, that he had worn for the entire adventure, but that none of the players had ever seen him remove Tyr drew a truly massive falchion and with a single stroke beheaded the officer who had charged him. He then looked at the rest of the soldiers who were with him on this side of the wall, "No, it is YOU ALL who are trapped her with me". With that he dove into the tightest knot of fighters and started swinging.
Now here I would like to point out, all of the other players at the table had stopped and dropped their jaws at what had just happened. They had not seen me exhibit any kind of truly offensive capabilities AT ALL, during any of the 24 session campaign. At one point they had seen me resort to punching people because of my lack of offensive skills with my chosen weapons. But I am sure some of you out there have had a character that for purely role-play or backstory reasons has held something in reserve, and this one was Tyr's.
Tyr cut his way through the warriors on his side of the wall, and by the time those outside the door had wrenched it open, he was ready for them. Rushing down the hall, he swung left, right, and center, and cleaved his way through the entirety of the soldiers coming in to the room. As Tyr came back into the room, covered with blood, both his own and his enemies, he saw that the earthen wall had fallen, and he could see his compatriots standing at the control panel for the device. He hurried over, and arrived just in time to hear their plan. They would use the device to create a portal to bring them home, and they would wait long enough to make sure that the self destruct countdown could not be over-ridden and then jump through and escape. It was a perfect plan, if it wasn't for the roar that they heard coming from the main chamber. The dark-robed mage dropped in staff in terror after hearing it. It was the battle cry of a shadow dragon. They had no time for anything except the portal home, and the machine was made of such a material, that none of them had anything that could harm it, or so they thought. Tyr yelled for them to open the portal, and the he lifted his mighty falchion and brought it down on the base of the machine. With a sound like thunder striking iron the machine was fractured, the blow having split the falchion in twain, but it was enough as the powers that kept the machine started tearing it to pieces. They all rushed to the portal, and two were through, when the shadow dragons call came again. It was moving down the hallway, its size passing through wall and door and hall as if it were not but the size of a man. Tyr knew that the portal, if it stayed open, would lead the shadow dragon back to their home on the mortal plane, and he knew what he had to do. Yelling for his companions to flee, he jumped off of the platform and ran for the door, pausing only momentarily to grab 1 of his swords out of the corpse of the foe it had vanquished. As he made it to the door, and pulled his second sword from the remains of the hatch control the door slowly began to close. The hatch was made of adamantine, as was the rest of the chamber, and they knew that the shadow dragon would not be able to move through a material imbued with magic, as adamantine was when it was smelt. So with the door closing, and the portal closing as well, Tyr turned to run back to the portal. That is when he heard it. The iris on the door screeched with an ear piercing noise, to a halt, and refused to close. Tyr knew he did not have time to use his mammoth strength to close the iris and make it back to the portal in time. Throwing his swords through the half-closed iris, Tyr dove through, and as his friends yelled for his retreat, his muscles bulged as he closed the iris shut....
That is where the session ended. We had run 2 hours over our normal time, and people had things to do the next day, so Tyr did not get to play out his fight with the shadow dragon. To this day the GM admits he has no idea how the battle would have played out, because he knew that unless I really screwed up that with all of my bonuses to defense he does not believe that the dragon would have been able to hit me. At the same time, we ALL knew that I would not be able to kill the shadow dragon. The rest of the players hold to the fact that with the machine collapsing behind us that if Tyr could have fought the shadow dragon to a draw, the resulting explosion would have provided victory enough, even in death. Myself I hold to the fact, that Tyr could have made it back to the portal in the main hall, and portal'd back to Vertand. Although the city was doomed and was crumbling to chaos, it would have held more chances then remaining where he was, but, the world will never know.
As it stands, it was another for the list of heroic sacrifices of my characters, and like I said, it has become almost my distinctive style as it were. I did have some characters that didn't die the tragic hero, maybe I will have one of those for next time...
-Eraser
