Awesome / Belkinus Necro Hunt

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General

• Cami-Cat, Renee's player, actually sings some of her songs in bar/tavern scenarios instead of just simply rolling Performance. These include singing a happy drinking song in Yedsall and a somber yet comforting song in Cloveway.

Session 1-7: The Adventure Begins Arc

• In the very first session, Nathaniel was able to fool Bloodstride into thinking that the former is a high-ranking necromancer sent by Kara Miharian, the latter's superior. While this performance was only able to fool Bloodstride for a while, it was amazing how convincing Nathaniel's act was. Special mention goes to Nathaniel casting Enthralling Performance to secretly charm three of Bloodstride's necromancers into acting as if Nathaniel is the higher superior when compared with Bloodstride.
• Session 3's signature scene is when a fight with a pack of worgs on a snowy mountain turns into a time-sensitive survival scenario when all the fighting caused so much noise that an avalanche is triggered and the party has to find a way to survive it.
• Session 5's fight against the Spine of Death is pretty cool. Not only does it serve to be the closest thing to being the first actual fight against Bloodstride, but it also introduces Thorne, an infamous vigilante who hunts down any necromancer and is capable of killing a necromancer in a single hit.
  • And while Bloodstride was able to escape, Nathaniel was able to injure the necromancer as a 'returning the favor' for knocking down the witch taker earlier with a powerful Blight spell.
  • It is also where Enoch resorted to going all out by handing his body's control to Alter. Que full-angel mode.
• In Session 6, the party is confronted by Alter after the group learns about the terrible history of Enoch's childhood and Alter's actions. Luna proceeded to verbally tear Alter down for the latter's actions.

Session 8-13: Chester City Arc

• Session 8 has an entertaining dance battle between Renee and a bugbear by the name of Rottak, with the addition of some Ship Tease between them.
• In Session 9, after Enoch accepts and understands the situation over Serene being a necromancer and how the former's mother had been protecting necromancers, Enoch decides to confront Alter. Enoch made it clear that Enoch is the one in charge, using an allegory of a king and his horse. And when Alter tried to dodge the question and leave, Enoch proceeds to 'force' Alter to stay in order for Enoch to make it absolutely clear who is in charge.
  Enoch: (to Alter) Do you know the difference between a king and a horse? ...It is based off of instinct. One makes decisive action and the other leads the other into battle. Where do you think you stand? Are you a horse or are you a king? ...My instincts tell me to do what is right. What is necessary! Your instinct tells you to survive. That is what an 'animal' does! You are a horse. I'm the king around here and I will prove that point.
  • As an added bonus, Enoch proceeds to threaten Alter into accepting who's in charge by pointing his gun to his own head and threaten to shoot himself dead, robbing Alter of Enoch's body. While he ultimately fails to intimidate Alter into submission, Enoch was able to scare Alter enough into revealing the latter's true appearance for a split second.
• The Stinger for Session 11 is one of the most memorable scenes for the whole campaign.
  • The set-up that Nathaniel created in order to expose Magnus was very brilliant. First, he sets up a Zone of Truth in a small room to interrogate the captured Protectors (and secretly Magnus as well). Because of the room's small size and the Zone of Truth's range, Magnus was affected by it and failed to save against it. Second, talking with Magnus over the Protector's plans to use the unactivated Warforges, Nathaniel was able to casually slip a question towards Magnus on whether or not Magnus was planning the same thing as the Protectors. Magnus, forgetting about being affected by the Zone of Truth, accidentally answers yes and realized too late that he revealed that he was working with the Protectors.
  • After cornering Magnus, Nathaniel made it clear that Magnus was trying to divide the players' party by pitting Nathaniel and Enoch against each other. However, Nathaniel revealed that the bond between them was much stronger than Magnus could anticipate. Considering how Nathaniel and Enoch butt heads with each other as early as Session 1, seeing these two reconcile and be able to band together against Magnus is both amazing and heartwarming.
  • The Cliffhanger involved Alter (Thyrmelius Cog) escaping Enoch's body and possessing Magnus' body in order to destroy the remaining crystal keeping the barrier for the Warforges sealed. When it happened, Enoch was able to resist being blinded by Alter's bright glow and shoot Magnus' controlled body by the head, splitting it and exposing Alter's ethereal head.
• The difficult yet exciting boss fight against Alter (Thyrmelius Cog) is a sight to behold.
  • Alter's true form was led up pretty well. It started with Magnus' possessed body being slowly broken apart by the small mechanical robots that Nathaniel controlled as a result of trying to slow Alter down from reaching the Warforges. By the time that the party arrives at the Warforges' room, what remains of Magnus' body is swarmed by an army of robotic mines. The mines exploded by a bright light, revealing in its place to be Alter in the form of a mechanical angel with glass wings, a golden metallic body, and a halo made out of gears.
  • Alter's skill set is pretty terrifying. He is capable of magically controlling previous inactive Warforges, casting an angelic version of Scorching Ray (called Holy Ray), and using strong spells like Wall of Light.
  • Enoch used Kuro to use the Warforge Soul to reactive and control the remaining unactive Warforges, including a massive titan Warforge. With these, the party was able to gang up on Alter and deliver some extra heat on him.
  • As Alter's health dwindles closer to zero, the Dungeon Master (Jocat) describes how Alter's body is being literally being chopped off one at a time (based on the amount of hit points that Alter had left). It starts off with Alter losing one of his wings (removing his ability to fly), then losing his other wing (removing his ability to cast Holy Ray), and then losing the arm that he held his weapon with (rendering him prone). As an added bonus, all of these actions were done by Luna.
    • To make this extra spicy, Alter had previously said that Enoch deserved to lose his arm for just lying. But now, Alter, just before he is killed, had lost his own arm as a result of his own lying.
  • By a stroke of fate, Enoch was able to be the one to deliver the finishing blow on Alter. The latter had been lying to Enoch, using him, manipulating him, abusing him, and even revealed to be Enoch's father as well as being responsible for the death of Enoch's mother. So it is satisfying to see Enoch tell Alter that the former will be apologizing to Enoch's mother in the afterlife for everything the latter had done, followed by Enoch impaling Alter's head with a rapier as Alter's body breaks apart and melt into goo as Alter screams a Big "NO!".
• Doubles as a Funny Momment. After all the trouble Castilla had done to the party, ranging from holding Mirth hostage to beating up Scorpio, it was satisfying to watch Luna give Castilla a well-deserved knock out punch after the Protector got captured.
• After being donated money by the part back in Session 1, Grikyak had been trying to restart his business. It was during this that the goblin merchant crossed paths with a business-savvy merchant. The latter challenged Grikyak into gambling the goblin's few coins to see whether or not the business world is for him. Grikyak lost, but he refuses to give up. The business-savvy merchant applauded Grikyak for this, as an important trait for being a merchant is to never give up. So the mysterious merchant taught Grikyak everything he needs to know in being a merchant and even gave several of his wears to Grikyak in order to help start his own business again.

Session 14-18: Cloveway Arc

• The aforesaid singing in Cloveway by Renee. Cami actually sings a heartfelt song about making a place into a home for her friends. She passes, no roll required, and even gets an inspiration token for her troubles. Everyone, the live chat included, immediately praises her singing.
• The boss fight against Kara Miharian near the end of Session 14. With everything that the party knows about Kara's past and her reason for continuing necromancy, the group wanted to convince Kara that they wanted to find a way to end everything peacefully. Unfortunately, Kara doesn't believe them, leading to the beforementioned fight. Despite being bombarded by powerful spells, an increasing army of skeletons, a large skeletal golem, and hidden traps with dangerous damage, more than half of the party attempted to roll Persuasion after Persuasion in order to convince Kara to stop fighting. Luna and Renee even went as far as completely going with Sheathe Your Sword in order to focus on convincing Kara on a peaceful resolution (with Enoch just focusing on fighting and Nathaniel going for a mix of both). And the group was able to successfully end the battle without killing or knocking down Kara.
  • One great moment from the fight is when Kara, using her legendary reaction (after taking some serious damage and side effects from Nathaniel's Psyche Lance), cast a powerful thunder spell at the whole party. Three out of four of the party take full damage and suffer a unique Bane effect that would subtract 1d6 on their d20 rolls. In addition, the windows of the chapel shattered as a result of the spell (complete with the map's windows being shattered).
  • Renee happened to find a locket with Abbigail's portrayed during the fight. She uses it during her Persuasion rolls in order to help convince Kara to stop fighting.
    Renee: (To Kara while holding up Abbigail's picture) You are a better person than this! And someone knew that you were! If you remember what they were, then you should know that this is bullshit!
• The boss fight against Thorne is pretty tense. Fearing that Thorne will just keep hunting them down and being downright tired of this armored vigilante, the party decided that they needed to finish this individual here and now, despite the group being low in spells as a result of being unable to perform a Long Rest after going through a boss fight with Kara and an ambush by the Protectors. Fortunately for the party, they got very lucky rolls when the team successfully piled Thorne with disadvantages from Enoch's Winging Shot (causes Prone), Nathaniel's Hold Person (causes paralysis), and Luna's Exhaustion Oil (causes disadvantages on strength-based rolls). Combined with the team's attacks & damages gaining some serious advantages and Enoch's Haste allowing him to attack so many times in one turn, Thorne's health quickly dwindles. Even after a Legendary Reaction midway and exploding a necromantic gas that dealt 30+ necrotic damage to everyone without resistances, Thorne was forced to retreat. However, before that, their helmet got broken by the finishing blow (courtesy of a rapier to the face by Enoch). This revealed a part of Thorne's face to the party, revealing that Thorne is Abbigail, who seemed to have been turned into an undead.
• As the party is about to access the Spine of Death's hidden base in Verteheim, they're ambushed by a legion of Thorne duplicates. However, in the nick of time, The Cavalry arrives in the form of Juliana, Ketrig, and Lancel, using their talents to evenly match the legion and give the party the opportunity to reach their destination.

Session 19-22: The Final Arc

• The official boss fight against Bloostride is nothing but true terror. Unlike most fights, the party has their attention divided between killing Bloodstride, fighting an army of undead monsters of all kinds (including an undead Naga), and protecting Verteheim's crystal from being destroyed (as the crystal is all that's preventing Verteheim from breaking apart and killing the evacuating necromancers).
  • With the reveal prior to the boss fight that Bloodstride had been researching weakness for each party member, the party saw for themselves that Bloodstride and his undead army prepared accordingly to that research. The one that sticks out the most is skeleton archers using special wand projectiles that cast unmissable Magic Missiles on poor Luna!
  • Bloodstride, despite not using any magic or attacks himself during the whole fight, was able to sabotage the party by taunting the party into wasting their time and magic by attacking him instead of the undead army who were attacking the crystal.
  • Just as the crystal was literally ONE ATTACK away from being destroyed, Nathaniel gambled with a last resort in the form of his skill Dominate. By the miracle of the dice gods, Bloodstride fails his save and was magically force by Nathaniel into dispelling all the remaining undead and repairing the crystal.
    Bloodstride: (being forced into raising his hands) No! NO!
    Nathaniel: (casting Dominate on Bloodstride) DISPEL!
  • While using Dominate, Nathaniel was able to force Bloodstride to reveal the BBEG's true identity.
  • After a controlled Bloodstride declared to the party that he won't stay dead, Nathaniel gives Luna the permission to finish Bloodstride off. Luna then proceeds to knock off Bloodstride's Tarask Skull Helmet, grab the necromancer by the neck, and then pierce her sword straight through Bloodstride's body. Once Bloodstride is dead, Luna tosses Bloodstride's body into the murky water for it to sink into its depths.
    Luna: Give my regards to the [Raven Queen].
• As the party has killed Bloodstride, dismantled the Spine of Death, and leaves Verteheim, Luc Badeaux secretly stays behind to pull a potential Redemption Equals Death, using magic on the dimensional portal network to forever cut off the dead world from other ill-intended necromancers.
• The final boss fight against Chandrelle has exciting moments from beginning to end. She fights with a squad of her most loyal soldiers and an undead Bloodstride. And then the fight becomes more chaotic once Thorne/Abbigail crashes the fight. But one of the best key moments was Chandrelle's One-Winged Angel transformation, with her giant dragon zombie form consisting of multiple components that each have their own health value.
  • Then there's Abbigail's sacrifice by collapsing part of the ceiling to help destroy Chandrelle's dragon form, at the cost of getting crushed into oblivion by that same rubble.
  • And there's also how Luna ends the fight, driving Absolution into the last component with such force and fury that it breaks at the hilt while Chandrelle's form is reduced to dust.