One-Shot: The Lich's Hunger

## Player Characters

* Maria Silkseller is a half-elf sorcerer who is slightly taller than average and is usually seen with a staff.
* Nyroe is a Stone Gnome Rogue from the mountains. He has a dark past and suffers from PTSD and depression. He can be cunning and stealthy. He also has sporadic episodes of flashbacks.
* Fenfi is a ten year-old rock gnome who is very polite and likes to kill things!
* Dorn is a human with hazel eyes and wavy brown hair. His skin is tan and he seems to be always reaching for something at his waist, but there is nothing there. He is wearing chain mail.

## Recap

In **The Lich's Hunger**, a Lich has captured four random individuals, stripping them of most belongings and placing them around a tower. The tower is lined with overhanging ledges which hold glowing orbs, with ropes and handholds along the walls to get up to them. The Lich appears atop the tower and tells them to fight each other to get to the golden orb at the top and they might gain what they most desire. It wants to feast on their fears and deaths, it seems.

Rather than fighting, Fenfi immediately goes to help Maria - who is blind, it turns out. The Lich doesn't like teamwork, so it summons a staff for Maria and tells them to get on with it. They all start climbing the tower, with Fenfi rushing over to try and punch Nyroe off the ledge. Neither of them are able to move the other. Meanwhile, Dorn gets up to the second ledge and touches an orb, which gives him randomly generated shortswords. Maria dutifully climbs the tower and uses her enhanced senses for magic (and a nat 20) to learn that the tower and all its surroundings seem to be inherently magical.

Fenfi manages to push Nyroe down a ledge and run away, but the older gnome catches up and throws Fenfi to the ground. The child gives up and runs away (mainly because his player was very sick and exhausted). Dorn keeps climbing and sees that the surrounding landscape is made up of perfectly divided biomes inhabited by magical creatures: *to the North, a frozen series of hills and cliffs swirl with snow. To the East, a barren desert shimmers with heat and you think you can see some movement just beneath the sand. To the South, a humid swamp bubbles and slithers with snakes. And to the West, softly-rolling hills of green grass and beautiful sunlight lay home to odd, huge mechanical bulls.*

Maria gets some spell slots from an orb and then gets stabbed by a trap in the handholds. Nyroe tries to climb a rope, but it frays and turns to mist as he hears chuckling from around him before he gets a magic staff from an orb. Dorn gets a lance at the top ledge, seeing that the orb is still about ten feet above him. He tries to vault up to it, which takes a couple tries but ends up working. As he approaches the golden orb, he feels... fine. Maria is a bit annoyed, but calm. Nyroe's feelings are mysterious and hard to pin down. The Lich is upset by this, saying it shouldn't have chosen such experienced targets.

Dorn finally reaches for the orb, but it's replaced by the Lich who says it needs them to be afraid but they're too nice to fight each other. So... they'll fight the Lich and its many magical minions from the quarter biomes instead! Dorn grabs the golden orb and gets one wish: *"I desire that the contestants of this game defeat the lich."* The contestants are all teleported to the top while the Lich becomes tangible, corporeal, *killable*. They swap weapons so they each have what works for them (including Maria getting her original Staff of Thunder and Lightning back from Nyroe). They all attack as one and the Lich dies but turns into a banshee, feeding itself with its own deathly fear in an infinite cycle of horror. The magical arena fades away and the fighters all remember how they got here. They had been traveling with each other for some time... through Darkfall Forest.

## Continuity

This one-shot took place at least a few cycles before Maria joined the party in WoDaD Session 5.

## Trivia

* This was the first time Loxley ever ran a one-shot. Before this, ve had only ever run six sessions of WoDaD - no other TTRPGs!
* This was an absolute dumpster fire. Mostly because Loxley hadn't prepared enough for the one-shot and, rather than being scheduled, it was offered last minute when Haven had to back out of DMing due to sickness. None of the players had time to make characters who were actually suited for the one-shot either. So it was... rough.