Pre-Podcast

The Strings of Fate campaign began about a year and half before the podcast. It started as a Waterdeep Dragon Heist campaign, but quickly diverted from that because Christian didn't want to follow the books. He changed a bunch of characters, and many of them are much more important in the campaign than they are in the original book.

This page collects information and stories about the campaign pre-podcast.

## Meetings

In campaign time, the group met a little less than a year before the events of Episode 1. Azzurum and Lidara met first, and traveled together to Ciniath. Each of them had been assigned a job, and they ran into each other because the jobs had the same target. Lidara was chasing the person, and Azzurum caught them. Afterwards, since they were working in similar fields and were both headed to Ciniath, they traveled the last leg together.

Vincent came to Ciniath alone. He was sitting in the Yawning Portal when the others arrived. While there, some monsters from the Undermountain - trolls and stirges - burst through the floor and attacked them.

After the fight, a man approached them with a job to find Floon. When they found him, they were disappointed to find it was not Floon at all, but Renear in disguise.

The cast agrees that the first meeting was difficult, because none of their characters wanted to talk to the others. Azzurum in the beginning had a much colder personality than he does in the podcast, and neither Lidara or Vincent are the type to go out of their way to talk to strangers. Additionally, since it was Michelle and Mikayla's first game, they weren't comfortable roleplaying. Chris remembers them struggling for "like an hour" to get started talking, and Christian said it was "so hard" to get them going since all of them were like "my character wouldn't talk to the other characters."

### First Impressions

It took a while for Vincent to really like anyone at all. His impression of Azzurum (who was very different then) was that he was a bit of a dick, but straightforward. They butt heads a lot in the beginning, and still do. It didn't take long for Vincent to realize that Lidara had some issues, and he decided to be nice to her because he thought she deserved for someone to be nice to her for once.

Lidara's impression of Vincent was that she didn't want to push anything - he wanted to be by himself, and she didn't care enough to push on that. Now that they're friends, she's much more likely to be like "what's your problem." Lidara thought that Azzurum was very cocky, but that he could save her or help her if there was trouble since he was strong. She also didn't think he was the type to stab her in the back.

Mikayla doesn't have strong memories of Azzurum's first impressions since it took her a while to develop Azzurum enough to see things through his perspective. Overall, though, Azzurum thought that Lidara had issues that she doesn't talk about, but *wants* to talk about, so from the beginning he would push at her (e.g. "You're obviously upset about something - do you want to talk about it or mope about it?"). As a result, Lidara and Azzurum were closer to each other than Vincent for a while. Compared to LIdara, Azzurum's impression of Vincent was that he had issues but that he *doesn't* want to talk about it, and when he saw the whole Renaer situation, he thought Vincent *really* had issues.

Christian remembers their early interactions, and had to think of *why* these people would even be roommates. He described the relationships as progressing from roommates, to party members, and *then* to friends.

### Introducing Renaer

Renaer was in disguise as Floon, and was tied up in a back room by four "bulky" people. When SOF found that he wasn't Floon, Renaer told them that Floon was his friend and he wanted to find him. Then, when they fought the people who had kidnapped him, the party realized he could *fight*.

After that point, they started having Renaer around more often because he fought well and he was handsome (and all of the cast were interested). Chris remembers a moment when they were all in the tavern and Azzurum asked Renaer about what he was into, and whether he was looking for romance, and all of the other characters leaned in to hear, too.

### Introducing Davil

Davil's first contact with the party was when he sent Lidara a letter. Lidara was part of a group connected to the larger network of criminals called the Zhentarim. Usually, the Zhentarim are disconnected with no one leader, but there had a movement to consolidate it all under Manshoon, and Davil was one of the only people who opposed that reorganization. As a result, Davil spent a lot of his time stressed from organizing everything for keeping this network separated.

As a result of his criminal connection, the original first impression of Davil was that he was a slimy bad guy, but from the beginning, Azzurum was attracted to Davil. He thought his intentions were good. When a specific job that Davil had given them went south, it was Azzurum who went out of his way to tell Davil, and it was one of the first times that Azzurum noticed that he wanted to protect Davil's feelings. There were also a few episodes before Azzurum staked his claim where Lidara was interested in Davil, although Michelle recognizes it never would have worked.

## The Haunted House

After completing the initial quest for Volo, he gave them a house instead of gold as payment. That house turned out to be haunted by vengeful ghosts, and SOF had to figure out who killed those ghosts.

When they moved, Renaer gave them a housewarming present. As part of their investigation, the party also went to a nightclub called the House of Purple Silks. They met Renaer there, who was undercover for the Harpers and going after Xanathar.

## The Insecure Artist

In Ciniath, the Strings of Fate attended a ball, which *whywhy* they people areis referenced briefly by Renaer in Episode 19 of the podcast. This was one of the earliest Christian originals in the campaign.

The group were invited to the gala of very rich person who's family was known for their art, ranging from paintings to music to sculpture. The host of the gala was finally making his mark as a sculptor, but he had previously thought his art wasn't good enough for the public. He was last heir to this family, and had been recluse since his parents died. This gala was the first time the estate had been open to the public in years. The party was attending as part of some work with the Harpers, and Renaer, Davil, and Meloon Wardragon were all in attendance. The ball was a costume ball, and Renaer and Davil had the same costume, which understandably caused some tension between the two of them.

Azzurum's tactic to get more information about the situation was to talk to the sculptor. Azzurum rolled well and quickly gained trust of the host. As a result, the host confided in Azzurum, and brought him down the basement. There, he revealed that the sculptures weren't made by hand, but rather by magically petrifying real individuals with a pet basilisk that obeyed his orders. (This certainly contextualized the expressions of terror and panic on the faces of all of the statues.) In the basement, the sculptor cages of people that he planned to petrify - and one of them was Squiddly.

Meanwhile, the others had no idea where Azzurum had gone, since he had left with the sculptor on his own. The party went in search of him, fighting enchanted suits of armor as they went. Vincent was able to cast heat metal on the armor - a new spell for him at the time. They arrived in the basement in time to rescue both Azzurum and Squiddly, with Lidara ending the creature with a critical called shot that pierced it's skull and both eyeballs.

The artist escaped, and they chased him from the gala down to the docks. They figured out that he was not really an evil person at heart, just very insecure about his art. He thought that this was the only way to live up to family name. Azzurum approached him, telling him that this had to stop. The party ended up letting him leave, and said he would work on finding a way to undo the petrification.

## Madhouse

For a Halloween special, Christian ran a horror-based madhouse session for the group. It was at the end of this session that the people first asked the party "Who are you?" and they gave the name "Strings of Fate."

## Strings of Fate

The name was first decided pitched on October 29, 2019 by Chris. Christian had mentioned that they should think of a name, and the party texted back and forth with some ideas. Strings of Fate worked well for the music connection and because Christian had used the strings of fate as a storytelling element.

Alternatives considered: Cucumbettes, Song Blades, Arms of Hadar, Sentience of the Soul, Carpe Noctem, Carpe Vinum, Acta Non Verba

## Vault of Dragons

This "main" plot of the pre-podcast campaign started about 28 sessions in. The vault was a collection of wealth stolen from the people of Ciniath by Renaer's father, Dagult Neverember. The hoard included not only gold but priceless relics and powerful artifacts. The Vault is only accessible by Dagult himself or someone who knows its location, and the only way to get that information is with the Stone of Golorr.

Manshoon, a tyrannical fascist wizard, wanted power (he was the one trying to take over the Zhentarim) and access to the vault. He was also known as the "Iron Masked Man." He was killed by Lidara, and his body fell into the Astral Sea.

The party worked with Jarlaxle to steal the stone and the eyes (some from Manshoon, and one from helping Xanathar find a replacement fish). They told Jarlaxle that once they dealt with Manshoon, they would get Jarlaxle into the vault. After the battle, Jarlaxle came up to them to congratulate them on a job well done, and asked them to hand over the stone and eyes as promised. Vincent acted like he didn't know what Jarlaxle was talking about, and the others followed suit. The party instead left the stone with Durnan.

## Troll Skull Tavern

Mirt the Moneylender gave them money to buy a tavern called the Troll Skull Tavern. They hired some employees to run it.

## Theodore Stein

Early in the campaign, when Azzurum left to go to his guild, he got in argument with the party. They were upset with him for announcing that he was leaving with no warning, and providing no detail about what he was doing - he wasn't opening up to them. Vincent slapped him.

While Azzurum was gone, Mikayla played a temporary character named Theodore Stein, who was brutally murdered by Manshoon in defense of Vajra. Theo started as a timid young student in the Magist's Academy, but ended as a brave leader of his team. He caught the attention of Manshoon in the battle, and took the Finger of Death spell in her place. Following the battle, he was a zombie for some time, but Professor Vera Veramoss did something to prevent scrying, took Theo's body, and left.

Mikayla said that Theo had a wholesome story. When Azzurum returned, his reaction upon hearing about Theo was, "Y'all did what to that kid?"

## Mission Up North

One of the first instances of conflict between SOF and Davil was when Davil hired Garrick Landstone, a man who had caused Lidara a lot of trauma. Davil had no idea about the shadier things that Invictus Tome had done - he was desperate, and he simply knew they were members of the Zhentarim and that they would help him. Azzurum did not have the same disdain for warlocks that the others did, and so Azzurum was the only one that still like Davil at this time.

The first job they were sent on with a member of Invictus Tome was up north. That member was Dresden. As they traveled, they learned that Dresden's goal was to rise in the ranks of Invictus Tome so that he could one day kill Garrick. His village had also been destroyed, and that was a point of commonality between him and Lidara. Azzurum also liked Dresden since he was an experienced warlock and Azzurum didn't know *anything* about being a warlock.

It was during this mission that they ran into Chaol, an old love interest from Lidara's backstory. Chaol was sent on an opposing mission to the SOF's mission, and when pressed, Chaol chose his own mission over Lidara's life, and stabbed her.

Later, Chaol tried to get himself back into Lidara's good graces, saying that Lidara was powerful and strong and that he still had feelings for her. Lidara refused.

## Swords of Fortune

The Swords of Fortune used to be a group of prominent adventurers that now all have their own lives. There have been two instances where the amulet controlled Vincent and attacked someone, and both times were members of the Swords of Fortune.

One of those times, Vincent stabbed Agandour, who was on good terms with the Harpers. When the Harpers came out to investigate the battle (Azzurum had opened up a rift of tentacles through their wall), they asked who was responsible, and Renear took the blame. Vincent tried to object, but Renaer was like "Why are you defending me?" As a result of taking the fall, Renaer was kicked out of the Harpers.