Waife, the Below Average

I've debated for the last hour whether to write about DnD or politics.  I've decided to write about DnD and speak about politics on my next podcast.

This is a short tale about an Eladrin Blood Mage named Waife.  

Throughout the current Sunday / Every-other-Sunday campaign, our adventuring party (since my character joined them--which is a story in itself) has been hunting the Githyanki, which we suspect to be in league with the evil dragon, Tiamat.  Our most recent battle, which we did without our party's cleric, left us beaten but not defeated; however, Rolen, our ranger, perished in the battle.  It is possible to resurrect Rolen; however, time was not on our side, and the eight hour time requirement for the normal Raise Dead ritual was not a viable option.  Waife; however, has a special version of Raise Dead, which he learned as a young student.  This version, which would cause Waife to expend most of his magical energy, could be completed in just a fraction of the time--five minutes, to be exact.  What Waife did not realize was there was a great risk.  Normally, the Raise Dead ritual beckons a soul to return to the ream of the living.  Waife's version ran the risk of transporting its caster and nearby allies to the realm of the dead in order to contact the soul.

One heal check later (yes, Raise Dead doesn't require one; however, Waife's did), the party found itself infront of the Raven Queen herself.  A guardian of the Raven Queen immediately began to interrogate Waife on how the party arrived.  Waife, frightened, but able to make his outward appearance not completely craven, tried to explain how the teleportation might have occured.  The guardian was none too impressed and seemed ready to have the party destroyed on the spot for disturbing their realm.  However, it, or perhaps the Raven Queen (I cannot recall) proclaimed that it felt the Law-Maker (Bahamut the Platinum Dragon, the diety worshipped by Waife) had a hand in sending the party to the Raven Queen's realm; thus, seeming to make sense of how Waife was unable to explain the teleportation.

After making pleas and arguments to the Raven Queen about how Rolen and the party should be allowed to return to the Realm of the Living to continue their work against Evil, the Queen decided Kord, Rolen's lord, should make the final decision, and created a portal to Kord's realm.  I know I'm leaving out details; however, from Waife's perspective, he succeded in keeping the party from being destroyed--which isn't entirely true, but he'd like to think that.

Upon entering Kord's realm, which was really a realm of seven mountains, one of each controlled by either Kord, Moradin, or Bahamut, and the other four were fought over for fun.  By the time, I know I've shifted verb tenses, so shhp!  The party again made their arguments for returning to the Realm of the Living with their fallen comrade Rolen (resurrected).  Kord heard their arguments and was interrupted by a messenger with a message from "The Old Man" (Bahamut).  Kord gave the party a choice:  (1) Test their might, which, if proven worthy through battle, they can return or (2) Be sent back to the Raven Queen.  The party chose to test their might.

Here is where the "below average" comes in.  My roleplaying of the earlier events wasn't spectacular, for I'm not a spectacular role player, but I enjoyed the opportunity.  During the course of the battle, Waife was able to do some good with immobilizing a powerful Beholder for a round; however, his damage dealt was minimal, and he provided little help to the party in battle, and had to be saved once form death after being knocked unconscious.  Though his rolls were higher than normal, most were below 10 on a d20, and damage, with I think the exception of two spells (notwithstanding the auto damage of Magic Missle), was below the average of what the damage dice were capable of producing.

Why tell this story?  I'm really not sure.  I suppose it shows that clearly what I enjoy from the gaming session is the camraderie of my fellow DnDers.  Since my roleplaying ability, character building ability, and certainly my dice rolling abilities are sub-par, there would be little reason for me to return every week to two weeks.  I guess the alternative would've been to write about politics.  It would be nice to leave a gaming session beign able to say, "man, Waife laid the smackdown today" or "Waife's character added some flavor to the events in the campaign" more often than once in a blue moon.  Perhaps my experience as Waife the Below Average is meant to show me that the enjoyment of DnD can extend beyond the story and the dice rolls.