This is literally the most bomb-ass D&D story I’ve ever read in my life oh my god.
Holy shit ._.
Some RP sessions have better stories than actual fiction. I mean, goddamn.
For those having trouble reading the text:
We had a campaign in D&D where we assembled a steampunk-ish time machine. After many sessions travelling through time, uncovering mysteries and learning harsh lessons about changing history, we had to stop a time-travelling cult from destroying the gods, and therefore the world. We failed.
Our machine crashed, we were stranded earlier than we had ever been able to travel. We found the Gods, but only a few of them were present – it was as if some had never existed. Then we realised – we had to become those Gods. Our party was entirely divine (Cleric, Paladin, Avenger, Invoker), and each of us was a worshipper of a god who had been unmade – and we were the only people in existence with enough knowledge of the forgotten deities to assume their roles.
But two of the players were worshippers of Io (in his twin forms of Tiamat and Bahamut, who would of course form later after Io’s ‘death’), and only one could become Io. The other would have to be the un-created Asmodeus.
So the most just, honourable and dedicated Lawful Good paladin I’ve ever seen roleplayed became the god of tyranny and evil. If he hadn’t, the gods would never have defeated the primordials, and the world would never have been completed.
In our setting, Asmodeus is every bit the epitome of evil you would expect him to be. Nobody but the gods who abide his presence know him as otherwise. He adheres to his role because he knows he has to – and that in doing so, the world can exist. He can never tell anyone his duty, and no-one who knows can ever discuss it.
In the farthest recesses of the Nine Hells, in a chamber sealed tighter than any other in existence is a pocketwatch of finest gnome craft with a photo of his family in it – his wife, son, and little baby girl.
They were killed by an orc army marching under the orders and banner of Asmodeus. Their deaths are what drove him to become an adventurer.
You’re a mystic who runs a shop full of mysterious artifacts and potions and you’re sick of uninformed middle-aged suburban moms asking for energy crystals and herbal weight-loss mixtures while throwing around made-up terms.
When a middle-aged woman rolled into my shop and told me she
was looking for ichor, I didn’t think much of it at first.
You get all kinds in a shop like mine, and doubly so when
you put up the right signs on your door.
The signs that let certain kinds of people know they’re welcome, not
just the collectors or the curious or the new age mystics, looking for this
root or that crystal or wanting to gawk at a jar of old bones, but the less
innocuous individuals as well. The kind
who mean business when they come looking for their… less run-of-the-mill
specialities.
This scifi/fantasy story tells the adventure of a defiant young girl and five worlds facing extinction, unless the five ancient and mysterious beacons are lit. When war erupts on her home planet, she meets two unlikely companions and discovers there’s more to herself—and to her world’s history—than meets the eye.
Inspiration Haven 