A masterful GM called Dave decided to run a 4th ed D&D game. He gathered together a diverse collection of his friends: Charles, an upper-class Englishman who hasn't quite realised the Empire is no more; Pete, an Australian philosophy lecturer; Ed, an experienced roleplayer; and Tom, who...well, he's just Tom.
They created their characters (Charles made a dwarven cleric, Pete, a human swordmage, Ed, an eladrin rogue and Tom, a human wizard) and settled down to the first session. A storm hit, causing the electricity to go off. Dave borrowed a black, skull-shaped candle from his creepy housemate - a mistake as it turned out as it gave off a lot of smoke and smelled awful. First Dave, and then the players blacked out.
And the four players came round in woodlands, inhabiting the bodies of their characters. To their confusion, they seemed to have all the knowledge and abilities their characters would have. Before they could spend too long pondering over what had happened, they were attacked by a group of kobolds. Shortly after obliterating them, they were approached by a Gnome wearing red robes and carrying a staff, who told them they would have to search to find the way home and gave them all shiny items. Pete got some magic leather armour, Ed got a dagger which did thunder damage, Tom was given a green hat which could conjure up a small creature to fight for him, and Charles got some goggles which told him more about the creatures he was facing. The Gnome (quickly nicknamed "Dungeon Master" by the players) also told them of more kobolds hiding out in an abandoned hall to the north, who had been harassing the nearby town of Fallcrest, and suggested they do something about it. He was confused by their apparent reluctance to do as he said, but as they had nothing better to do, they decided to go hurt some more kobolds anyway. After that, they mostly refused to pay attention to Dungeon Master (much to his annoyance) and headed north to find more dragons to kill, as Charles wanted a trophy.
There was a brief interlude where they were attacked by drop-bears, took one prisoner, and then negotiated peace between the drop-bears and some lizardfolk. Then they came across the remains of a battle and were attacked by some skeletons that were less dead than the rest. The nearby town was populated by creepy clones who seemed blissfully unaware that the battle was long over and were awaiting the return of their warriors, oh, and who turned into mindlessly violent zombies come nightfall. Dungeon Master arrived to provide exposition - turns out some guy called The Magus had arrived and performed a ritual that went wrong - during the day the townsfolk looked like him but carried on with their previous lives - and also took the magical stone that was preventing the dead from rising in this Shadowfell tainted part of the land. They enlisted the help of a nearby dragon who was an expert ritualist (and much too hard for them to kill, yet) and managed to undo the worst of The Magus' doing, but without the magical stone the town would continue to be plagued by zombies. The party set off after The Magus, to the City of Vek.
On the way they came across a ranger and his son who were vaguely helpful and offered them shelter while telling them of a mining operation nearby which was causing problems. The morning they decided to go investigate this, they awoke to find Pete had disappeared and in his place was a half-orc fighter who claimed to be called Chuck. Mysteriously, Chuck told them she'd come in place of Pete as he couldn't make this week's session. As none of the others remembered anything from outside game, this didn't seem to make much sense, but they soon forgot about it and beat up some orcs. Investigating the orcs' mine they came across some kuthrik which they killed, and some more orcs, which they killed. The deepest point of the mine turned out to be the lair of two purple wyrmlings....the party fought well, but the wyrmlings' breath dazed them and after a long fight and the rogue and fighter on the ground, the other two decided they had to flee to heal up. Before they could come to the rescue, Chuck came round, alive and a prisoner of the orcs. After fighting off the orcs, Chuck met up with the others and they went back to finish off the wyrmlings, finding the rogue's corpse there. They took the body of their friend to bury, and one of the wyrmlings to stuff for Charles' trophy. They also discovered that part of the treasure they'd looted was a special Artifact that could by used by the cleric to deal extra damage to undead. This seemed like a useful thing to have when going to confront a necromancer like The Magus.
Outside, they ran into a drow sorcerer who looked a lot like Ed. In fact, he claimed to be Ed, although he also had a vague memory of having always been a drow. Chalking this up to another weird thing about this place, they continued on towards Vek.
To Be Continued....
*Still trying to think of a name.
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