First Dragon – Day 4 D&D 40th Anniversary Blog Hop

This is day 4 of the d20 Dark Ages’ D&D 40th Anniversary Blog Hop Challenge! Based off of the challenge’s prompts I will be sharing personal stories about my history with Dungeons & Dragons every day in February. You can hop to another participating blog by using the links at the end of the article or click here to see my previous answers.

Day 4: What was the first dragon your character slew? (Or other similarly powerful and iconic monster.)

Most of my D&D experience is within Eberron,  a setting more interested with relatable villains than fire breathing creatures. I’m not recalling much in the way of slain dragons, manticores, devils, etc. But if I recall my first notable kill something quickly comes to mind.

When I moved out to Seattle I joined my new roommate Pel’s established gaming group. Pel was running the Crown of Shadow adventures for the Midnight setting. At a point towards the end of the series of adventures one of the PCs is captured and replaced by an evil cleric wearing the crown of shadow, an artifact that allows you to perfectly intimidate anyone else. (The setting is full of gonzo things like this, you should check it out.) So in the third act one of the players becomes a double agent for the DM’s team. Pel chose me to be the mole.

But this was my first ever long term D&D game! My simple rogue was my introduction to 3rd Edition; when I was handed a high level cleric spell list I hardly knew what to do with it. As the newest player in the group and the roommate of the DM I was hesitant to do something brazen (like coup de grace characters in their sleep) because I was afraid of the real-life consequences with my new found friends.

Stuck between a perceived rock and hard place I chose to reveal my evil nature and assault the group while I had high ground that wasn’t too high. They reduced me to a pulp within three or four rounds with their superior numbers and mastery of the system. But before I was killed I did I manage to hold person one of my friend’s characters (rendering them helpless) and lopped his head off with a flourish. Quite the end to my first long term D&D game.

Honestly, the game needed a more confident and practiced player to pull off the heel-turn successfully. But I did get to kill Dave! And that was awesome.

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