>>9810737

Continuing where I left off, I let the players do detective work and investigate the town. They eventually find a little girl who's mother ate her father to death, due to the insanity. They decide they want to bring her back to the outpost and get her safely to the main city
Eventually one thing leads to another and they find out the priest is responsible. So it's a pretty standard fight, the priest is manipulating the people to fight for him and they have no choice but to kill some of the villagers in an attempt to defend themselves.
In the end, they kill most of the village, after performing a heal check on the bodies they find the process is irreversible. For the most part they're congratulating themselves on making the right decision in saving the little girl and vanquishing the corrupted villagers that would slowly turn into plague creatures.

They forgot, that the process was unstoppable, no amounts of magic or healing could save the people infected by this, their minds were corrupted and slowly their bodies would follow. They make a stunning and upsetting realization. The girl they wanted to save was slowly turning into one of these monsters. I gave it a twist, this is what this story is about.

The process would be slow. The bodies of children are fairly resistant, they have pretty good immune systems and a positive attitude. This deters the plague from taking them quickly. It would be a horribly long and painful process that the little girl would have to watch and feel herself change into a horrible monster.

>>9810740


Before I continue let me talk about the party dynamics. We have a TN Dread Necro (Necromancy is legal in this world due to bodies turning into plague monsters and undeath is a way of stopping this from happening), a CG Cleric, LG Paladin and a CN Barbarian. They all feel compelled to help this poor soul. I let them devise ways of how they could possibly save this girl.
They try everything, despite what I said about the heal checks. One of them rolled a twenty on this as well, and I told them the exact same thing. (I'm very serious about making a consistant world and they were adamant they wanted a very grimdark horror world). So after literally an hour of trying to think what they could do to save her, and what artifacts they could that they picked up on their journey.
Their travels eventually lead them through some tough stuff, I mean it eventually lead to a huge battle where they're being chased by plague fiends across a tundra and the barbarian is carrying the girl on his shoulders (they got along the most, despite the barbarian being the loner of the group before this incident).

The fighting gets intense and eventually they are overpowered by the plague beasts and decide to run. It gets brutal here, they can't all run, the wounded barbarian is struggling to carry his sluggish form and the girl across the tundra. He has die-hard but they don't have time to heal and they're out of spells for the day and the paladin had used lay on hands at an earlier fight.
This is problably one of the most surprising things I've ever had a player do. He puts the girl down and tells her despite the short amount of time they've spent together he's never felt so proud to serve her, despite all his glorious kills he had gained in the many campaigns he did before adventuring. He nods to the other PCs and uses his last daily rage, doing a leap attack at the remaining monsters after telling them to flee.

>>9810750

The players, and myself included are nothing but awstruck by the choice they made. The paladin says a blessing for the sacrifice made today and him, the necro and the cleric continue going, despite looking back. The barbarian nearly kills all the plague beasts but I kid you not, honest rolls. Eventually he gets knocked to -10 after getting crit by the last 2 plague beasts. He killed 3 on his own of the 5 chasing them (mostly due to lucky rolls).

The last image they are left with is their barbarian friend being impaled and ripped apart by the plague beasts. I watch the player accept his characters grim fate, but ask me to continue the adventure, mostly because I distrested concern about how he felt about character deaths.

So they camp for the night, but the cleric ended up getting too much taint, and he was slowly turning into the monsters they were fighting (we decided to calculate how much they had accumilated later once the combat was over just because how intense it was getting).
They come to the conclusion that there isn't much more he can do before he starts going insane and turning so he asks the paladin to accompany him on a walk. After a bit of talking the cleric gets on his knees and begs for the Paladin to kill him, for his last wishes is to get the girl to safety and to end his life quickly.

>>9810755

This is the point where as a DM, I started doubting my actions, despite this being epic story quality I felt myself feeling like I pushed my players accidentally into a death trap that would kill the party. I ask if we could rollback to before this side quest and we'd just start fresh.

They deny my request, saying that they want to finish this, regardless of the outcome.

I ask the Paladin to roll a d20 to determine how fatal the coup-de-grace will be. He rolls a base 18. I say that he quickly stabs the cleric through the heart, killing him instanstly. I tell him that the cleric dies with a smile on his lips. Both players are "content" with this ending

The Necromancer had been the most apathetic towards the girl (it was his characters style, so I certainly approved, he was the "continue my life by all means possible" type of character), but even he was starting to warm to the idea of getting her to safety so perhaps she could be saved by the Arch Mages in the capital.

>>9810762

They make it to morning, and the Paladin puts his ally to rest by making a small grave by making a gravestone of sticks and attaching his cloak and holy symbol (a brooch) to the gravestone.

They continue on their journey with a full set of spells, and slowly the small encouters they get throught the day get harder due to the lack of healing, however they're making very good speed, and maybe a days journey away from the beachside settlement that will get this girl to the capital.
Night falls again and they set up camp. The Necro ends up telling the little girl about how he became a wizard, and how old he was. It was a very cute and brief chat, which consisted of him saying "I'm actually 179" and her responding "but you don't have any grey hair!" - they were suddenly interrupted by a plaguebringer scouting troop

The paladin and the Necro ready for battle but they had not yet gotten their spells per day back.

Along the journey the Paladin found a ring of Fireball, it had one charge left (I didn't want them to have unlimited casts to I put a max of 3 on it). It was their only tool left however they were pinned in a cave and the only way out was the way they came. The Paladin realizes the sacrifice that must be made, and does a valiant charge attack, before using his second action to activate the ring, incinerating everything within a 40 foot radius.

>>9810769

There is nothing left of him except molten pieces of armor. Despite me telling him that I would certainly allow him to use that ring at range and ignore the possible friendly fire for the sake of continuing the adventure he denied.

Taking this advantage before the reinforcements came, the Necromancer grabs the girl and starts running for his life as they are only half a days journey away from the outpost.
He rolls well, I make him do constitution checks constantly to see if he can continue the journey (he didn't take Necropolitan or anything so he doesn't have undead like fortitude).
They are an hour away from the encampment but it is not yet in sight, encompassed by a hill. On the left side of the hill is a cliff leading to the river that will take them to the seashore.
He fails his consitution roll and he cannot continue, the girl refuses to make the run down to the fortress without him, despite him trying everything, diplomacy, intimidation, everything.
It all fails, and eventually the Plaguers catch up with him and have them cornered on the edge of the cliff, they scream and yell how they've been chasing and watching them and how they will rape and torture the girl before she turns into a plague monstrosity.

To be honest I got bored reading your first post. I didn't even read the subsequent four.

>>9810774


The Necromancer turns to the girl, holding her close.

"I've been alive a long time little one, I've seen a lot of a pretty things, but you know what the prettiest thing I've ever seen is?"

"No" responds the girl

"You're smile, now can I please see it one last time?"

despite the hostility of the situation, I tell her that she squeezes out that smile.

He gives her a hug, and then prompty asks her this question:

"Do you trust me?"

"Yes, always" she responds"

"Even if we have to die?"

"Yes" she responds as she begins to cry.

The Necromancer throws them off the cliff, both of them dying on impact at the bottom. The other players see this as a sign of defeat and I see real tears in their eyes, but the Necromancer is smiling, tears also forming in his eyes.

>>9810780

It's not over, he tells me, and he reminds me of the undead he had raised earlier and had them assisting the defenders of the camp.

He tells me his last action was to use his Necrotic syst he had placed in the Mummy he had raised earlier and ordered it to come to his body and pick the girl's corpse from his mangled arms and bring it to the encampment

They had done it in their minds, despite being defeated in every way, shape and form. They had done it. They got that little girl to that camp.

I have never felt any kind of emotion in a D&D campaign like this /tg/, it was probably the most proud I had ever been of my players/friends.

I'm glad I had the opportunity to share this with you. /tg/, I don't even mind if no one reads this.

You're a fucking dick of a DM, but awesome story none the less.

...words fail.

I baww'd a bit.

Nice story op, not sure if you're still here but did everyone end up rolling new characters and continue the campaign? Or did you find that you wanted to leave it at that?

>>9810893

OP Still here, somewhat, actually this happened last weekend - we're still not sure if we want to continue in the same world, despite me putting a lot of effort and writing into the campaign.

I just feel anything else I'd ever write would never compare to what happened in this campaign, I have no idea honestly.

i don't think i could ever play D&D again if that happened in my group.

Wow... I wish my players were capable of something like this.

Well OP here, going to bed now, glad some people appreciated/read it.

One more thing /tg/:

It's never the outcome of trials that matter - only the emotion, friendship and courage you show during them.

Goodnight.

>>9810940

>>9810911
In spite of GRIMDARKAN and everything, do something to honor the PCs' glorious sacrifices. I don't know if you had established a possible cure or not, but perhaps from dissecting her body, the fresh body of a healthy child who had not yet succumbed to the taint, the priests or whatever find the first inclination that there may be a cure. The next campaign can be rolled up PCs searching for this cure based on this information.

Of course, I can't come up with anything that's not immediately "imprison children and do horrible testing on them to find out why their immune systems are so badass", and that would not be very honoring to the PCs' sacrifices. Maybe it's something like, children are closer to the ethereal world or whatever, and therein lay the cure. Or maybe your quest is to derive a philosophy of living from the way children act and compile it into a codex that, when followed, would allow the taint to be staved off, and eventually through a breeding program, completely immunized against.

And have them find the grave of their cleric years later, barely there anymore, overgrown. Have an important character mention that "many good men died to get us this information" when referring to what they found out about her immune system. Perhaps the quest, program, or whatever is going to be named after her, or the town she came from.

It's too GRIMDARK to make the PCs themselves into tributed, statued heroes. I think your players, who wanted a GRIMDARKAN campaign, would frown on that. But they made a small, tiny, hinted impact.

And then, maybe, some of the NPCs have fond memories of the order for which they were working. "Oh, you're working for those guys? I've met some of your agents before. They were honorable and professional, very impressive." or something like that.

>>9810940

If that was your final outcome and the purpose of the campaign to make the players feel that, my hat goes off to you, goodnight bro.

>>9810961
>>9810940
Oh god damnit. I hope you're still up so you get this. Your players may deserve closure (unless they're okay with leaving it with THE WORLD IS TERRIBLE, and their closure was getting her body to the place).

God damn, that was a glorious way to die.

>>9810961

I agree with you in the fact that I think OP should have in some way venerated the heroes despite the grimdark world.

However, maybe that was the OPs objective (going off what he said in >>9810940 ), to only give the players the satisfaction of knowing that they did the right thing, regardless of the reward.

I would have personally told the players that the girl was eventually saved, but perhaps not knowing what happens, or just leaving it at the ending he provided was enough.

>>9810937
you and me both buddy.

>>9810989
Well, I meant more along the lines of, run the next campaign in the same world for the purpose of playing tribute to their sacrifice by using it to resolve the overarching conflict, or hint at a resolution for the conflict.

>>9810786
I was half expecting the Necro and the girl to be raised and live on in undeath

>>9810975
>>9810989

OP here, I picked a good night to get insomnia, just made myself some more coffee, I can't believe I got so many responses.

As to what you said >>9810961 I'm considering giving them an answer like this:

"Over the front - as this plagued war rages on, there are whispers of 4 agents that that defied the odds and brought a dying girl to safety, many just say this is hearsay and myth sent by the higher ups to send young men to their deaths quickly in poor attempts of heroism, some of us believe it, we see acts like this committed every day, and although they will be forgotten as we turn to dust, or this plague consumes us maybe one day some soul will read this story".

I haven't decided yet that was just a rough draft of what possibly might be the ending note.

A good group is one of the finest things to have

>>9811022

oops forgot the end bit of that

"and in reading that story, you venerate our memory."

Jesus, I'm tired.

Stories like this are why I come to /tg/, and why I still play tabletop in spite of all the hurdles and bullshit.

>>9811011

In some ways I'd find that an appropriate ending, but then I feel it would cheapen the death of OP's other players.

>>9811053

That's one of the only reasons I come to 4chan anymore, I swear to god /tg/ shits nuggets of gold once in a blue moon. It's kinda unfortunate that this thread happened so early in the morning for most people.

I guess that's what makes threads great, obscurity.

> I ask if we could rollback to before this side quest and we'd just start fresh.
>They deny my request, saying that they want to finish this, regardless of the outcome.

This moved me strongly. I saw the ending coming (although I didn't want it to happen) yet I was at the edge of my seat because of their conviction.

OP, you give us a bit more details on the world or the taint, why was the girl curable?

Whelp, I almost cried

>>9811086

Sure, I don't mind

Basically, the taint "bomb" if you want to call it that started 5 years ago in the player's lives.

It started out as weird cultists just starting a new religion (the pantheon in this world is very active so they didn't like the new comer to the group), however most people ignored them and just thought they were creepy and weird but in the end they ignored them.

Well, that was a big mistake, eventually after enough ritual sacrifice, rape, murder, and other fun things they were able to create an artifact/creature called the Plague Heart or "bomb" as my players called it. It was unleashed in the main capital city of that continent.

It got bad, at first the mainland sent help to battle off the empowered cultists and the plague beasts, however so much of the population was turned and people didn't know how to fight this biological war.

It's come down to Sanctuary is the last (known) city to be mostly taint free, it's on a small break off island of the continent it's close to.

>dat group

>>9811118

Continued.

People tried to flee back to the mainland (which was a fantasy roman empire style democracy) and were essentially told to either get back on that ship, or they were cut down and killed, then had their bodies burned and strung up to warn other people from that continent not to come back.

So they have no choice, there's still a decent population remaining so they fight, no matter how hopeless the odds are. The dwarves on that island dug too deep, hit tainted adamantite and went insane, despite being super isolationists (kinda like the states were pre-pearl harbour) and the druidic elves pretty much said "FUCK THIS, I AINT LEAVING MY FOREST" and look for ways to heal the dying land.

Nobody is working together, everyone is desperate, backstabbing each other.

The players are the 3rd conscript of the Plaguestriders, a group of soldiers, the last bit of talent to essentially do hit and run, learn as information as they can, get tainted and die fighting.

I warned them that death was a real possibility in this campaign and they all loved the idea because some of them do occasionally over optimize and wanted a challenge. The one player I was worried about the most, the barbarian played out his character so well, that I was not hesitant about how much he optimized it.

But the girl died. They lost.

>>9811176
see
>>9810961

>>9811176

NO THEY DIDN'T DON'T TROLL US :'(

>>9810780
>You're smile
>You're
Killed and raped the mood for me...

>>9810786
thanks for sharing story. i always like to see these threads.

>>9811185

Haha, OP here, I apologize I literally wrote this out at 5:00am going off memory, you have my apology.

>>9811197

jesus op, you are making less sense as you go along, great story now go to bed, i archived the thread for you.

my eyes started to well

voted on the archive for this great, thread. FUCKING AWESOME.

>>9810737
I really liked this part
>They forgot, that the process was unstoppable, no amounts of magic or healing could save the people infected by this, their minds were corrupted and slowly their bodies would follow. They make a stunning and upsetting realization. The girl they wanted to save was slowly turning into one of these monsters and her mom got scared, and said, 'You're movin' with your auntie and uncle in bel-air.'

And this is why grimdark worlds are ok. Because it's in peoples darkest moments that they find their nobler selves. I know this is just a game, but this is the type of things people often do in real life. We're contrary creatures, humans. Despair breeds Heroes.

>>9811454

Yep, pretty much anyone that is constantly quoted today is the product of a war, political strife, etc.

How do we archive this shit, or does someone want to make a screen-cap?

>>9811548

Go to http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/, click archive, go crtl + f and search for sacrifice, someone already archived it - thread number 9810737

Also vote it up while you're there, providing you enjoyed the thread.

>>9811197
While I appreciate the fact that people can notice grammatical/typographical errors, I don't see how the story can get "killed" by running into them.

You did a fine job considering your lack of sleep, and your players are top tier. Got misty at the end...

OP I really hope you don't mind if i take your plot/ campaign hooks and apply them to a horror/space campaign I am going to be trying to run in WARS.

>>9811920

Not at all bro, by all means love you to borrow ideas from it.

>>9811967
Awesome. Also this thread has taught me a little bit about how to be a better DM. From a fledgling GM Thanks /tg/