Situational Blindness Season 1, Part 1: Meeting Everyone

WARNING: This game is not... age appropriate. It includes instances of manipulation, rape, devils, contracts gone wrong, murder, child abuse, and all sorts of unpleasant things. The world is a dark place But it also includes people who want to go above all that. There are heroes. Please keep that in mind as you read through.Otherwise you might get depressed and/or offended. For those of you who want the list of characters before-hand, click here.

When I first started this game, it did not start as a 4th edition game, but as a playtest for the Journey System, a game system that Carpe and I were working on at the time. I pitched this game as story-intensive dark fantasy at the RRPG club, where about 30 gamers had gathered. Given that I was completely new at Benedictine I mostly got blank looks, and most people avoided the game in favor of DMs they knew. But four brave souls signed up after some prodding from Kurlacker, who had played with me before and gave me some high compliments. One of them couldn't play for a few weeks, and one dropped out almost immediately due to illness. So that left two people. I had them draw up characters, Vladmir and Char.

The two of them woke up in a dungeon, without any knowledge of how they got there. Vladmir couldn't remember anything at all, whereas Char remembered exactly who he was: a prophet of the god Bane, who would conquer the world. While Vladmir had some intuitive idea that this wasn't someone who he didn't spend his time around, the two agreed to a truce until they could figure out what was going on. They traveled the dungeon, fighting goblins they encountered. The place was dank and overgrown with vines. They found some vines thickly growing out of an alcove and, climbing up Zelda-fashion, they entered the tunnel. That's when the vines moved, and they realized the vines were actually hair for a monster! They set fire to the vines, and ran like hell. The place shook, and the vines attacked them. They didn't stop for anything, especially not the puny little goblins who were trying to get out as well. They found a spiral staircase and ran up it, exiting out of an old and run down castle.

They didn't look back.

After a few weeks we had another session, but we switched over to 4th edition at this point, because Andy and I didn't have the time to devote to a Monster Manual, which was sorta necessary for me to run the game. I hadn't thought about just winging it, but oh well.

As Vladmir and Char traveled the lands, they encountered a group of goblins. After a stiff fight (as I attempted to teach them 4th edition), they killed the vast majority of the goblins.

Aaaaand.... right about here my player base sorta exploded. Not only did the player who couldn't play immediately show up, but so did three more people! The group jumped from two to six overnight.

Vladmir and Char traveled to the nearest city, the goblin town of Billi. On the way there, they found a bunch of elves attacking goblin women and children. Even though Char didn't particularly care, he wished to have the option to exploit the women and children and later, so he joined in with Vladmir to fight the elves. A group of 4 adventurers who were also traveling to Billi stopped and helped. They were Gant, Talnor, Poultrin, and another character I just cannot remember the name of right now. She dropped out within a few sessions. Anyway, the fight was really on. Gant only joined in because it was quite obvious the elves were in the wrong, and he didn't want to be pinned as an elven supremacist.

Anyway, after a fight on the bridge the elves were killed. The goblin women and children thanked their saviors, commenting that they were waiting for their husbands, who had left the day before in the same general direction that Vladmir and Char had come from! With horror, Vladmir realized he had slaughtered the husbands and fathers of this group!

At this point, it was made pretty clear in out of game talk that Gant was a sick character. The player joked about how Gant heard dark voices in his head. All of a sudden I got a text from Gant's player:

"What do the voices say?"

I paused a moment. I thought through the full ramifications, and figured that if I was gonna go dark, I was gonna go dark. My text read as such:

"Impregnate an elvish woman."

He laughed. I realized I had someone who may have some issues. Oh well, it would make for an interesting game, if nothing else! (For the record, the guy who plays Gant is a really nice guy who sometimes has a sick sense of humor. I don't have an actual sociopath in my game, so don't worry...)

The party had left one elf alive, whom they "convinced" to give up the location of their hideout: an abandoned keep to the south (NOT in the direction of the falling apart castle) Gant, being the only one with stealth, snuck in before all them and lit up their kerosene barrels and, with a little bit of improvisation, killed everyone in the tower.

Except for one particularly beautiful elf, whom he teleported into the flames to save her. He covered her mouth, and told her that he was a servant of the Raven Queen, and that she had a destiny bound to his. She was to serve him for the rest of her days. The elf nodded, eyes wide with panic. Gant took out his knife and carved the letter "A" into her shoulder. She didn't whimper. He covered up the mark with her shirt, and told her to tell no one of it.

The rest of the party came running in just a minute later, having heard the explosion. They asked who the girl was, and Gant replied he had saved her from being despoiled by the bastards, hence the explosion. They asked the girl, who could only reply "A". Poultrin fell head-over-heels in love with the girl from the moment he saw her, and (since he had the Heal skill), attempted to check for injuries.

Yeah, he rolled a nat 1.

Instead of fixing her up, Poultrin unwittingly deeply scratched the "A" in the elf's arm. She screamed, and ran away. The party followed, and found the A marked into her arm. They tried to apply some herbs so it wouldn't scar, but the elf refused, and even rubbed dirt into the wound, pointing at herself and saying "A" the entire time. Vladmir looked suspiciously at Gant, but kept his mouth shut for the moment.

Until the next day, when they woke up and found Gant and A missing.

Situational Blindness: Players

Situational Blindness is many things, but it's not simple. This is a game that's gone on to it's 3rd semester, and has been filled to bursting with people who all wanted to cause trouble. They all got their wish. Even the ones who didn't wish it got it. But, before I can start, I need to outline all the characters who are in this dark tale. Things change so quickly from time to time that I think a general guideline is absolutely necessary, so I have provided it.

 I have plans to either end Situational Blindness this semester or next semester. It's my longest running (and thus far, most successful) game, and I've had a blast with it. Fortunately, so have they (for the most part). And it honestly wouldn't have worked without  any of the following crazy bastards.

Vladmir: (Season 1-2.5) Vladmir is a human paladin. Eleven years ago, Vladmir was a famer, married to an eladrin lady who wanted to run away from the bureaucracy and depraved religion of the elves. One day Vladmir found a dying man in his fields, who gave him an incredible gift: a shard of the god Bahamut.The shard was not meant to be given to an untrained initiate, however, and Vladmir lost his memory.

Char: (Season 1) Char is an invoker of Bane. His actual name is forgotten. The name indicates he's of the Char race from Guild Wars.

Poultrin: (Season 1) Poultrin was an elf warlord who became an elf invoker later on in the story. Little is known of his backstory other than that, but all you need to know at the moment is he is the most influential person in this story. There are lots of "almost's" (Gant, Didier, and Thade come to mind), but pound for pound no one has influenced the game like Poultrin has. Why? Stay tuned ;)

Gant Arro: Shift the name around, and you'll get the essence of the character ;) Gant is a sociopathic eladrin rogue who wants to destroy all the goblins he can find, but only because he wants his own race, the already-powerful-and-in-control-of-an-empire elves, to become stronger. Ba

Thade: (Season 1-2) Thade is a drow bard who later became a seeker MC'ed into Beastmaster Ranger. Thade was a slave (the drow are slaves to the other elven races in this world) who fell in love with Ila Merinbourne, the daughter of his master. They decided to run away and get married, and have been hunted by the Merinbourne's ever since.

Ila Merinbourne: (Season 1-2) Ila Merinbourne is an eladrin cleric, and a damned good one. I can't remember a single session where spending one healing surge due to her Healing Word didn't recover at least half health. Granted, she's a pacifist. But still. Anyway, she fell in love with Thade and the two ran off, trying to find a place where the two of them could live together in peace.

Talnor: (Season 1, shows up as a guest from time to time in other seasons) Talnor is a monk who left who left his monastery to see the world. Meeting up with this group is about the last thing anyone would expect (or want).

Didier: (Seasons 1-3) Dider is an elven ranger with a starting Constitution of 9. The fact that he survived so long was... a mystery. You'll see why when we get there. Anyway, Didier was originally put into the party to kill Vladmir. Just be a bit patient.

Nicell: (Seasons 2.5-present) Shardmind battlemind, who became a runepriest later. Nicell is yet another amnesiac who is looking for something I can't talk about in this post right now.

Garrett (Seasons 2.5-present) Halfling Rogue. Garrett was an orphan, who was hired by the Royal Guard for his skills at stealth and sniping. More than that I cannot say.

Gore: (Season 3-present) Child drow who heard dark voices and gained the ability to blow things up. All you need to know at this point.

Eela: (Season 3-present) A hammadryad Bard, who was just introduced, so we don't have much beyond that at the moment.

Valanae: (Season 2-present) An eladrin Psion. She was friends with Vladmir's wife (and was one of Vladmir's babysitters when he was younger!), and also fell in love with a human, who died due to circumstances you'll find out about later.

Grarg: (Season 1) A half-orc barbarian who was in it for shits and giggles.

I think that's it. If not, I'll add more later.

Situational Blindness: Races

I'll be posting my campaign notes online, but to do that, I have to set up the races and cultures first. These are the race sand cultures that are a prominent part of the world and the storyline so far.

Char: Use the stats of a gnoll, but add fire damage to the encounter power. Char are a war-like race that count Bane, the god of Conquest, as their chief. They're highly competitive and simple.

Eladrin, Elf, and Drow: All three of these races form the Elvish Empire, known for their vast naval fleet. The empire is divided into four castes: eladrin, elf, other races, and slaves (drow). There is a state religion dedicated to Sehanine and Corellon, one involving ritual sex and indulgence in the finer things of life. Drow are entirely reviled as the dirty lower class.

Human: Humans are in fierce competition with the Char, and are currently at a draw with them. Humans are not necessarily all spread out, and are in their own empire.


Vampire: The scourge of the known world and the elves, vampires are the singular most important race on the entire continent. Immortal and impossibly powerful, the vampires have been held in check by the elves for centuries, despite massive victories for the vampires (including taking over the former capital of the Elven Empire, Paris, which they used as a massive slaughtering house).

Wyrms: Also known as dragonborn, wyrms are humanoid-ish draconic humanoids that can transform into drake form. They're known for their combat prowess, and are responsible for the much lower population of dragons that exist in this realm.

There are other races in this world: avians (shapeshifting flyers) mutants (kalashtar), dwarves (who are mostly underground), and halflings. But the above are the power players on the continent, which has no name as of yet.