Bak'nor

Taco’s Previous Character in AD&D

It was a couple of years back when I first came in contact with AD&D through a friend who told me a lot of stories about it. I bought the players handbook and read it a couple of times and waited until my friend got another group together to play it. That unfortunatly never happened so I was stuck with an expensive book and no group. After a couple of months I heard through my sisters friend that her boyfriend played AD&D and I was invited to play along. The group at that time consisted of Mark (DM), Joost (still just mage at that time and the one who invited me), Martijn (cleric with a god that nobody on this plane knew about) and Marieke (cleric; who most of the time didn’t play, just sit there. Although when she plays a gnome thief she suddenly gets very involved in the game). There where two elves in the group (Joost and Marieke) and I decided to be one too, coming from the same village (just to make it easy to get in the party). I didn’t know what a good character would be, so I decided to play it safe and became a fighter named Bak’nor. We used 8+7d6 and I came up with a elven fighter with the following stats:

STR:18/23
DEX:14
CON:18
INT:14
WIS:12
CHA:8

As you can see I had a CON of 18 which shouldn’t be possible for an elf, but I never made a character before and didn’t use the racial modifiers (so also no +1 DEX) and since the DM never said anything about it, it stayed that way. I also didn’t always think about the elven resistance to charm which lead to me becoming charmed by the henchman from the Lich and attacking my own party!

It was a fun character to play and one memory I still find very cool is this one: we just defeated the henchman and where searching his clothes, there I found two wardogs (somekind of special robe from the mage contained them) and a ring. The ring was cursed and caused me to become CE or something. When we got out of the cave complex, my character became enraged about those stupid party members who just wouldn’t do what I wanted them to do and who where undermining my authoritha. I started to kicking their asses, aided by my two wardogs. It’s that I wanted my wardogs and partymembers to live and the mage blinded me, or else I would have certainly killed a couple of partymembers. The way I got rid of the ring was because we didn’t need a ‘Remove Curse’ to remove it and I cleverly said that I was stretching my arm (with the ring) to find a party member who was near, that I wanted to hit. I had to say it a couple of times before the other player understood what I meant and he took the ring off.

Another memorable moment was when we encountered a Scalamogdrion in it’s lair. We just fought somebody or something (I can’t remember, but it probably wasn’t to hard) and entered the lair. There was a nest with eggs in it and some magical items as well. I didn’t want to fight it since it was only protecting it’s nest, but somebody (I think it was the LG mage or our ranger (Mattie, who just joined our group and didn’t know how to act like a ranger)) attacked it. We killed it and we found some magical items. I took an egg to make up for the wrong that we’ve done. I managed to get it hatched and from then on I had a pet Scalamagdrion! The rest of the party didn’t like it though (especialy Martijn’s cleric Questor), mainly because we wouldn’t get attacked when we traveled (‘think of the XP’s we are missing out on!’ is a famous one-liner in our group). I didn’t mind and it was a welcome adition to our party, even more since Bak’nor got another (much weaker) body when he died fighting a T-Rex.

‘Fighting a T-Rex?’ you might think. Well that’s partially the fault of both Martijn and Mathieu. Martijn is always busy saying things like:’when I’m level so-and-so we can take on that-and-that, don’t you think DM?’. We always tell him to shut up (he requested a dragon the last time!) and hope that the DM didn’t hear it. Well this time he heard it and we were in a town with a circus, and that circus had (surprise, surprise) a T-Rex! The people where scared and the speaker said that people from the audience could fight the T-Rex for a great reward if they won. Questor stepped in a got one attack before the T-Rex nearly killed him with one bite! He quickly left, and then Aremus said:’you can take him on, he’s a wuss!’. To confident for my own good I stepped in hit it with my longsword and got eaten in one bite!

I was a soul now and beeing chased by death himself! The rest of the party whent to a temple and there they they just happened to have a soulless body laying around that my soul could get in. I had to roll another character for the stats of this new body using 24d6 devided over the six stats and keeping the best three rolls on every stat. This body was totally average and the only good stats where the things I could keep from my old body (INT and WIS).

STR:13
DEX:10
CON:11
INT:14
WIS:12
CHA:7

Inspite the average stats I still enjoyed this character. Maybe even more then before, since now I had to use my INT to solve problems and defeat enemies who where to strong to fight. Like the time we had to find a temple that was the home of a Deathknight (how many are there in our world anyway? That’s at least three and two where working for the Lich!) to cure Questor’s weakened state, caused by putting on a robe of weakness. The rest of the party thought about attacking but I put away my sword and started to talk to the DK! The rest of the party freaked out:’you’re doing what?!?! Are you stupid?!?!’ but when the mage started to annoy the DK, being hit by Power Word: blind AND Power Word: Stun, they agreed that my plan was better (the DM didn’t read the part of the DK very well).

Bak’nor died again when we charged a DK and a group of ghouls that where guarding a gateway. That was by a Power Word: Kill and I never even gotten close to cause damage! Thankfully the DK had a resurrection scroll on him (thanks Mark) and Bak’nor got resurrected. When we finally killed the Lich we started on building a castle over the ruins of the Lich’s stronghold. Bak’nor handled the most things of creating the castle, except for the design (which Gramber did, the elf with an awfull lot of NWP’s). But first we had to clear the rest of the ruin. At one time we encountered a bone-golem (twice actually) and the second encounter was the coolest! That encounter Bak’Nor was not only the only one who could cause damage, but also the only one who always saved against it hideous laugh! Every time he laughed the entire party fell except for Bak’Nor! At the time that another member woke, they could only do one thing (the cleric had to heal me ‘cause I was taking severe damage) before an other laugh dropped them again! That encounter took the life of Aremus but we used the sphere to revive him. This fight was actually the downfall of Bak’nor.

A year (game-time) passed and we had the outerwalls raised when asmall army came (about 300 infantry). The army was lead by a DK (I hate those things!) and they demanded the castle. We refused, believing we bought it fair and square. They where setting up for a siege, and we set out on guerrilla actions to slow the attack. During one scouting mission Gramber was stupid enough to fly high above the trees to engage three wyverns and got killed by their poisson! We used the sphere to revive him, but he wouldn’t be fit to cast spells during the siege (luckily he still was able to use wands and rods we found). Then it was the day before the siege and Bak’nor asked for a spell check. Then the most important decision was made by him and he told Questor to pray for the ‘insect plague’ spell instead of the flamestrike he wanted. Then the day of the siege came. The castle was only reachable on one side over a slope and there the ‘insect plague’ was cast, totally routing the invading army before they could even reach the castle! The only ones that reached the castle where the DK and his bodyguards. At this time Bak’nor jumped down (using his ring of featherfall) and began combat. He killed the bodyguards with ease and began fighting the DK. This was going so well that the DK used Power Word: Stun and ran like hell! The wuss! Bak’nor didn’t take a lot of damage in that fight and gave the DK lot’s of it! This was a great battle and we’ve won!

Over the next few days the castle kept getting attacked by the DK using his 20HD fireball and by the mages who didn’t take part in the siege. We went out again on several guerrilla actions and one was devastating! Bak’nor and Aremus engaged a group of mages without mage support ourself and where captured. This wasn’t that bad but Aremus had the sphere on him and we’d lost it to the mages! We managed to get away but at great cost! To finally get rid of the pestering mages and DK, and to get our magical items back that we’ve lost, Bak’Nor (with his convidence pushed up immensly from defeating two bone golems, a Lich and kicking the DK ass just days before) challenged the DK to a magicless duel for the control of the castle. That was a bad fight with me rolling terrible and the DM rolling very good, and I lost more HP then I was dealing out! I lost it within a short time and when I finally fell, the clerics healed me up. I immediatly whent into a rage for losing, drank an entire potion of growth and charged the DK. I hit him ones before his supporting mages finished me off with magic missiles. Then Mir’Toh, my pet scalamagdrion, flew in, picked my body up and flew away into the sunset (okay it was noon, but it gives a better effect).At that point Gramber used a Wish (from a scroll) and wished for the ownership of the castle, which led to the departure of the remaining forces and gave us breathing room (couldn’t he used it before? Bak’nor would surely still be alive!).

After the death of Bak’Nor I was pretty down for a while, but it was meant to be. I knew the risk of the challenge, but it still hurts when the character you’ve played with since the beginning dies. I didn’t blame the DM but was getting steamed when some other players kept saying that is was stupid to challenge the DK. IMHO it was probably the only thing to do (I never heard that the mage had a wish) to stop the harrasment from the DK and since the DK was harrassing us for a while and I didn’t hear other idea’s from the rest of the party, I challenged him which proved fatal.The other players still where saying that it was stupid but then I asked them:’what would you say if I won the fight? Would it still be stupid or would it be incredible brave? The difference between being stupid and brave isn’t that great!’. They said I was right and since then I never heard of it again. Then I rolled Gri’shak but you can read that elsewhere!