And We're Off

Inspirational song: Who Are You (The Who)

And just like that, a new campaign has been born. Six of seven player characters sat around my dining room table tonight, each of us waking up in a strange room, not where we were standing last when we lost consciousness. When we got up and walked around our individual cells, we learned that everything except the cots where we had been lying was an illusion. A voice called us to walk down a hallway, compelling us to climb stairs to a large room with tall windows and bookcases, where we all encountered each other for the first time. We circled each other like wary alley cats, not saying much. Well, one of us was talkative, and we all looked at him like he was touched in the head. Other than getting introduced to each other and learning what our general mission was, we didn't do much. We ended having been in each other's presence for at most twenty minutes, after finding ourselves on a hill in a forest, overlooking a large village.

The new group is slightly larger than before, with my daughter and son-in-law joining us this time. They have been wanting to play D&D for a while, in a separate group, and they never seemed to get together to do it. It was my daughter's character Bill who did all the talking. He is a Japanese businessman, her character, who comes from the early 20th century, and he confused all of us with chatter about virtual reality and game theory. Doch, my half-orc, just stared at him, baffled.

My daughter volunteered to be our scribe, taking notes along the way. I've done this in the past, but have had less focus to do it for the last few months. She started with sketches of each character, with a surprising amount of detail for having banged out seven drawings in under an hour. I loved the one of Doch. He wasn't quite orcish, but part of his backstory is that his brother was so cruel to him for being too pretty, taking after his human mother more than his orc father. So the drawing was perfect.

I kind of like how suspicious we all were of each other. I've had campaigns start where complete strangers immediately team up and trust each other, and it didn't feel right. Other than Bill, who wasn't necessarily talking because he was friendly, but rather because he wanted to dazzle with BS to make us lower our guards, no one did much more than frown and size each other up. I can't wait to see where this campaign leads.