I think I forgot to report one or two sessions of my Gardmore Abbey 5th edition rerun. The campaign suffered from something very typical of campaigns in my local role-playing club: Player attrition. You start with 5 players, all very enthusiastic, and then over the months real life intervenes, or enthusiasm fades, and in the end it is hard to get a quorum together.

Today we finished the campaign. The players were level 7, but they had never fought the orcs who were the main force holding the abbey. So for the grand finale I strung together two encounters: The defense of the watchtower against attacking orcs (who had brought a hill giant and dire wolf cavalry), followed by the group attacking the keep with the orc chieftain. As there were only 3 players left, these were tough fight, especially with some lucky dice rolls on my side, like the hill giant scoring a critical hit.

But in the end the group prevailed and, having done all the quests in the abbey, returned to Lord Padraig. Having previously found out how the abbey fell through the use of the Deck of Many Things, they were able to persuade the lord to give them the last remaining cards. That assembled the deck, and allowed them to draw from it.

Ander the ranger drew just one card, but it was the Talons, which destroyed all his magical items. Ouch! Raymond the librarian barbarian drew two cards, but ended up drawing cards that gave him more draws. In the end he lost 10,000 xp, got permanently cursed, and gained a rare magical weapon. Kaze the monk drew 3 cards: The first lost him 5 points of intelligence (and he had only 10). The second gave him 50,000 xp and a rare wondrous item. And the third allowed him to erase the effect of the first card. Which meant that he was the only one who got really lucky, gaining 3 levels and some nice magic boots.

The Deck of Many Things is by itself frequently a campaign-ending item, and thus not recommended unless you don't plan to continue anyway. But with the dwindling player-base this was the good opportunity to end the campaign on a high note.