My players are unpredictable and it’s hilarious /u/Icy_Clench DnD: Roll for Initiative!

Just had a cool character arc yesterday. The party was trying to investigate why a river’s holy blessing that keeps evil monsters away disappeared. The faithful holy knight finds an evil-looking book hidden in secret in the nearby temple.

Another PC grabs the book to keep it away from the knight. This triggers a deadly combat encounter with lots of undead. The book shows visions to the knight that it was once used to fell evil, and that he can do the same. Everyone starts telling him don’t open the book and starts attacking him instead of the monsters as he contemplates and moves near it. They try playing keep-away with the book, grabbing him, shooting him, etc. Of course, to make this scene epic and terrifying, the book is glowing, statues have glowing eyes, shadowy tendrils sprout from dark corners, and the whole temple shakes and crumbles.

After some history/religion checks and pushing his way to the book, he opens it and becomes a level 3 eldritch knight, stunning all of the undead for a round. They use the time to dash the heck outta there. The temple keeper who I initially planned as a key NPC was actually in a bad spot and couldn’t escape despite the stuns, and was left to die. As he reads the book later, he discovers a lot of things that contradict his religion. Turns out it’s a necromancy book wielded by a once-thought holy warrior.

Just had a cool character arc yesterday. The party was trying to investigate why a river’s holy blessing that keeps evil monsters away disappeared. The faithful holy knight finds an evil-looking book hidden in secret in the nearby temple.

Another PC grabs the book to keep it away from the knight. This triggers a deadly combat encounter with lots of undead. The book shows visions to the knight that it was once used to fell evil, and that he can do the same. Everyone starts telling him don’t open the book and starts attacking him instead of the monsters as he contemplates and moves near it. They try playing keep-away with the book, grabbing him, shooting him, etc. Of course, to make this scene epic and terrifying, the book is glowing, statues have glowing eyes, shadowy tendrils sprout from dark corners, and the whole temple shakes and crumbles.

After some history/religion checks and pushing his way to the book, he opens it and becomes a level 3 eldritch knight, stunning all of the undead for a round. They use the time to dash the heck outta there. The temple keeper who I initially planned as a key NPC was actually in a bad spot and couldn’t escape despite the stuns, and was left to die. As he reads the book later, he discovers a lot of things that contradict his religion. Turns out it’s a necromancy book wielded by a once-thought holy warrior.