Ledo's Traveling Circus/Three Rings Broken

So, I decided that I might detail my group's AD&D adventure here. Not it great detail, but enough so that you guys might enjoy that nice 40-pager I wrote for my pals. This post will be character introductions. If anyone has a desire to read more, I'll post more. If not, this will die, NBD.

The Story:

Ledo Jans, Crown Prince of the human realms of this world, has hired a group of adventurers to help him stop his half-brother from stealing ancient artifacts that will let him rule the land. These adventurers, led by Suto Otomo (and unofficially dubbed "Ledo's Traveling Circus"), must build their strength and tackle some of the most dangerous mysteries of the land to defeat the would-be ruler. The twist? The half brother seeks a ritual to transform him into a Lich, a powerful undead magic user, near immortal and incredibly powerful.

The Heros:

Suto Otomo: Human Samurai and last living member of the Otomo clan, Suto's family was wiped out by a clan of Ninja, his master included. Just before killing himself out of shame for allowing his family to be destroyed, his master, with his dying breath, ordered Suto to seek revenge. Suto now lives only for that revenge, and a chance to reclaim his lost Honor. Suto is the leader of the group, and while tough, has a wicked sense of humor, and is a master with his katana. Wields the powerful Art of War and Talos' Skin.

Runt: Half-Ogre Barbarian and son of the Chief of his barbarian village, Runt got his name from being the "Runt" of the litter when he was born. His mother is the human, tough enough to be the wife of an Ogre Chieftan, though she is never met in the campaign. Runt is the largest, strongest, and dumbest member of the group, but has a big heart. After rescuing (and later being rescued by) Suto, he has dedicated his life to following the Samurai around, considering him is best friend. Runt can only enter a Rage if he sees Suto fall in battle. Wields a Bardiche in battle.

Roy Falcion: Exiled Elven Ranger from a hidden village, Roy wasn't originally in the Circus, but found the group interesting, and sought to destroy the Lich to help make up for the shadows of his past. Not much is known about Roy at first, but he eventually opened up to the others. After a conflict on an island called Bone Head, Roy becomes a Lycanthrope, transforming into a Sea Wolf if near a large body of water at the full moon. Roy prefers to fight with a longbow, but is no stranger to melee combat with a variety of blades. He wields the mighty White Wing bow, and wears Chameleon.

Sky Creon: Human Cleric of Isis, the group knows little of this member. Physically the weakest in battle, but the strongest of will, Sky's cunning mind and iron will has saved the group multiple times. Originally from a desert far to the west and clearly a high-class member of her society, Sky hates the undead and false prophets above all. Despite her level head, she has found herself in a variety of clashes within the group, such as when Avlore Oakenshield accused her of being a spoiled princess, or at reaction to Smidget's new religion. She fights with a mace and shield, though in combat her role is mostly support.

Smidget: The Kender Thief/Illusionist and most unpredictable member of the group, Smidget's mischief has caused much trouble in the past. He joined the group soon after he discovered his father was imprisoned for theft. He would only be released if the artifact he had stolen was recovered, though it was taken from Smidget's father not long before his capture. As far as Smidget knows, the Lich holds it. Clever, sparatic, ADD, noble, fearless, those only scratch the surface of Smidget's character. His feats and most notable stories could fill books, though his most notable feat is becoming the "Prophet," and creating the church of the "Great Kitty Deborah," the first and only Kender god. Smidget fights with daggers, knives, and small crossbows, wears the incredibly powerful Shadow Skin, and holds a Crystal Griffon capable of transforming into a live griffon.

Luciana (We forgot her original name, so I gave her this one): Gnome Tinkerer, and second in command of the Church of the Great Kitty Deborah. She joined the group late into their adventure and found herself enticed by Smidget's teachings. She specialized in magic item creation, and one of her most famous creation was a monocle that could see magic items and effects with ease.

Avlore Oakenshield/Strikeshield: Human Knight, Avlore Oakenshield joined the group with his companion Wolfbane Throatslitter. Initially assuming he was a lower class, he cursed the upper class and well-to-do until he discovered his true name: Avlore Strikeshield. His family was a powerful group of knights with great influence. Soon after learning this, Avlore was accepted as a Knight of the Rose (The same order Ledo Jans is a member of). Despite clashing with Sky, Avlore cares greatly for his team and is willing to follow Suto to any level of danger. Avlore prefers to fight with Frostbrand, a magic sword, and a shield.

Wolfbane Throatslitter: Half-Elven Ranger and former Assassin of the Lotus Scar, Wolfbane was cast from the guild early in his life, and had his life saved by Avlore, following him into the group as well. Wolfbane uses a bow like Roy, and wields Black Heart, a powerful longbow.

Royol: Human Magic-User/Fighter, and perhaps the most dangerous member of the group for his own reasons, Royol's past and motivations are a mystery to all. Royol has great affinity with fire spells, but little control of them, often blowing up towns or the whole parts due to his reckless nature. Royol fights with a combination of magic and swordplay, including using the Rod of Force, which transformed into a powerful sword.

Benzo: Human Magic-User and arguable the most powerful member of the group, Benzo was quiet, calculating, and somewhat unpredictable. He also seemed somewhat lazy, often falling behind the group. Despite that, his magic abilities were second to none, and most of the group feared what the rage of this member could bring. His only driving motivation was wanting to build a Mage Tower and study for the rest of his life.

Various other members came and went. A few Dwarven fighters, A paladin, another Ranger, a druid, but the above characters are the main players in this story.

Side Characters:

Ledo Jans: Crown Prince of the human realms, Ledo ruled over Farpoint. A Human Paladin, he tasked our group with finding his half-brother and stopping him.

Misty: Human Monk and Ledo's personal bodyguard. Misty talked very little, but some said she was even stronger than Ledo. None challenge Ledo while she remains at his side.

Darla: A Silver Dragon fascinated with the group. She often takes the shape of a human, but her age is deceptive. Her power is great, but the party never sees its full extent. She has a habit of giving gifts to people that, if touched with bare skin, will leave an mark of her lips where it touched. This mark will occasionally let the person talk with her.

So that's the setup. If this has any interest/readers, I'll post some more stories and maybe get to the main meat, the 40-page epilogue.

I'm interested. I also want to know if you'd be interested in trying to gather up enough people to try and hold a D&D style RP. I know it probably wouldn't be too different from the norm, but if we write it following the rules of the game it could be a lot of fun.

Tbh, it's not difficult to make a "D&D Style RP". It's just Medieval times with magic and dragons. Since we're not rolling die, the only way to really make it D&D style would be to restrict classes, and I don't really want to be a stickler for what you can and can't do. It might happen, but don't hold your breath.

Oh right, and one more thing about the characters you should know, Sky and Roy (My characters) are notoriously cowards. Not because I role-play them that way, but because I failed almost every single fear check the DM threw my way the entire campaign. No, I'm serious, between these two characters I probably had to roll 40-odd fear checks, and I only succeeded on ONE. (Technically two, but the second one I had to keep rolling until I succeeded. Every failed attempt was another 10 minutes spent running in fear. I think I failed it two or three times before finally getting a decent roll.)

Couldn't we use an online rng or dice thrower?

As it stands, given the pacing of a D&D game a forum board would not be the proper place to run a campaign with dice. Normal sessions in person can last days at a time and only cover a small fraction of the campaign.
We've done sessions over Skype before, but those campaigns generally died pretty quickly. Like I said, don't hold your breath for a D&D thing from me other than maybe posting the rest of this.
Also, I'm no DM. I tried it once, and it wasn't bad, but I just have no desire to do it again.

So let's begin our tale. Like I said previously, I wasn't around for the first few sessions. As far as I can recall, Suto, Runt, Benzo, and maybe Smidget were around for the first session. In that session the group was hired by Ledo Jans to help escort a wagon with an ancient sarcophagus needed for a powerful ritual.
The escort was going swimmingly until a few Hill Giants show up. Suto bravely challenges them and proceeds to get punched halfway to Neverland. After seeing that, the group just kind of sat back and watched as the Giants ripped the top of the wagon off, grabbed the sarcophagus and walked away, unable to really do anything.
The driver of the wagon didn't seem phased, and insisted we continue moving. When the group pressed him for answers, he ignored them, so Runt decided to check the wagon. He reaches under the wagon to see if there's anything there, and proceeded to join Suto on the other side of the field, his hand smoldering. They see that the crest of the Jans family is now burned into Runt's hand, so they flip the wagon more carefully this time, and see a massive shield with dozens of runes on it tied to the bottom of the wagon. Turns out that the sarcophagus was a distraction; the shield was the real part of the ritual.

(Now, forgive how brief I'll tend to be in the following passages, this campaign lasted several years, and I'm a little foggy on the details and the order that this stuff happened.)

This is around the time that Roy joins the group, sent by Ledo as backup. We adventure for a while, and eventually we gain Sky, Avlore, Wolfbane, and some of the other nameless party members (Including a mage other than Benzo whose name for the life of me I can't remember. He was sort of important, but his player ended up sleeping through most of the sessions) and eventually came across a city that has suffered from a bunch of disappearances.
We search around and find a farm that has been raided by Crabmen. This is the point where our Cavalier (We had a Cavalier at this point, but he left very quickly after this) got a Six-Legged intelligent horse that almost trampled Roy.
Anywho, we find a dungeon under a hill close to the city, and in the city we find costumes made to make the wearer look like a Crabman or Lizardman. While we're screwing around with these costumes, another party enters the room and attacks us. We beat them into submission and proceed to loot their bodies. One of our players picks up a cool looking Flail, and proceeds to start attacking us.
We immobilize him long enough to figure out that the Flail took control of his mind. While trying to figure out what to do with it, Runt picks it up. We're ready for a shitstorm to start, but nothing happens. It's at this point that we find that the seal of the Jans family on Runt's palm has made him completely immune to the effects of evil items.
We complete the dungeon and now need to do something about this stupid flail, and after consulting with Ledo (Who knows the weapon, calling it "Devil's Tongue") suggests we take it to an island called "Bone Head" to dispose of it. We agree and go off to do that.
We research a bit and find that Bone Head is apparently haunted, and few who go there come back. But being an adventuring party, this just shouts "LOOT" so we go anyways. On the way we kill a Dragon Turtle and learn that Bone Head is actually a Zaritan, basically a giant ancient turtle. We get to the island, Roy and Suto get bitten by sea Wolves, unknowingly turn into Lycanthropes, and... well, this happens:

So, we needed to get rid of the Flail, but Ledo wasn't exactly specific about what to do when we got to the island, so we did the most logical thing at the time: Fed the flail to the turtle. Normally our DM wouldn't railroad us, but in the interest of not killing the island, he suggests that we explore first. So we go along for a bit and come to a deep ravine. We throw a rope down and go down to find a golden coffin. Curious, we cast Detect Evil, come up with nothing, and open the coffin. Inside is an ancient corpse, blackened by time.
Smidget: "I pick his pockets."
Everyone slowly turns to look at him. "What."
Smidget: "I pick his pockets!"
DM: "Roll it" (In AD&D, you have a percentage chance to complete skill-related actions and roll percentile dice. Lower is better.)
Smidget rolls a natural 100.
DM: "You die."
Smidget: "What?"
DM: "You are dead."
Smidget: "Well. Crap."
Turns out that Smidget, while trying to root through the corpse's pockets, he touched the body. Of the Archduke of Hell. And his soul was ripped from his body. Yeah.
The rest of the party, determined not to touch this stupid thing, figure out that the flail is supposed to go here. So we put the Flail in the coffin and walk away, and a Solar (A type of Angel) appears before us, and congratulates us. He also tells us that Smidget's soul wasn't "stolen," it was switched. Yeah, the corpse we were lugging around wasn't a corpse. The Archduke of Hell was just looking for a chance to get away. The Solar helps us switch the souls back, gives us a session of 20 questions and then sends us on our way.

Next time we go search for the famous Ninja Compound!

So, when we last left our heroes, Smidget had been brought back from the dead (Don't worry, this will be happening a lot more).
So our party heads off to find the Ninja compound where Suto's Big Bad Evil Guy is hanging out. We decide to take the long way, heading through a mountain range. While on our way through, we're ambushed, but we manage to fight our attackers off. We search the canyon and manage to find the entrance to some Dwarven Ruins which weren't marked on our map. We enter, and after shuffling around (Every door in this stupid place was hidden and we needed to search for each of them) for a bit we found some odd carvings in the wall of dwarves. They were really good; almost lifelike. Smidget messes around a bit and gets one of his ideas, and goes missing. We think little of it, and keep searching.
Until someone sees Smidget in the wall carving. Now looking more closely, we find that we can reach into these wall carvings. Runt does so, and being the strongest member of the party, he's the only one strong enough to pull anyone out, and yanks Smidget out.
We realize that all the Dwarves in the painting are still alive, but reaching in to grab them one by one would take too long and would risk Runt falling in, so we keep looking.
Eventually we find a picture of what looks like the King, so Runt yanks him out.
We question him for a bit, but something seems off, so we ask him for the date. He gives us a year about 3000 years in the past.
So, Suto decides to break the news to him that he's been in the wall for three millennia.
Our DM makes a roll and informs us that the Dwarven King just died from shock.
(This is where one of the most famous lines from the campaign comes in. One of the players, while we're freaking out over the king being dead asks "So how much XP does Suto get for the Dwarf King?" Suto ended up getting 3000 XP, BTW).
So, we go hunt down a Dwarf who looks like a Cleric (Sky isn't yet a high enough level to raise the dead) and get him to raise the king. We also discover that casting Dispell Magic on a wall would free every dwarf in the wall, so we did that and got a handful of Dwarfs on our side.
With the dwarves out, they inform us that they were sealed there by a pair of (Lesser) Black Dragons. The distinction is important, because Greater Dragons would have curbstomped us in no time flat. So, they show us how the recognize the doors that we had such trouble seeing, and we set out.
We eventually find a room with some weird looking guy and we kill him before he can even attempt to talk to us (Hasty? Probably.) Thanks to a Silence spell, no one heard the racket. In the next room, the dragons are waiting with a mirror that can capture our bodies, so Roy summons a Djinn that we have (A weaker version of a Genie) and have him try to silence the Dragons to keep them from using the mirror, but that fails (Even lesser dragons have good magic resistance) so we just beat them into submission. We eventually find their horde, split it with the Dwarves, and head on our way.

We continue towards the Ninja compound, on the way finding a battlefield littered with ghostly images of a battle that happened thousands of years ago. We're warned not to go towards it at night, or we would become part of the battle forever. We screw around with it during the day but find nothing worth going on, so we leave it be. We also come across this old knight, and stuff happens between him and Avelore, but it's nothing terribly important, so whatever.
Then, we come across the tree.
It's an enormous, ancient tree surrounded by shrubs and odd plant life. As we approach, the Ranger and Druid stop the party, saying that something looked weird about the rosebushes surrounding the tree. While we're trying to find out a way to safely figure out what it is, I look through the pot (Our pool of money, magic items and mundane equipment), and see that we have something interesting in our Box of Holding (Magic container that can hold a LOT of stuff).
You see, a while ago we fought some Kobbolds, and Suto intimidated them into thinking they were his god, so we tied them up and put them in the box, and promptly forgot about them, but they were still in there (Probably should have been dead from suffocation/starvation, but the DM let it slide). So we tied a rope to one, sent him towards the bush, and watched him get ripped to shreds.
Demon Rose Bushes. Awesome. Well, it actually didn't turn out too bad, because our Druid had a Wand of Earth and Stone, which let him dig giant pits very easily. Using this, he destroyed the root systems of the evil plants, leaving us only to deal with some corrupt Treents, which doesn't take long. We find that this giant tree actually was home to the last Grand Druid, and manage to find some nice stuff there. Though it does seem odd that all these evil plants be at this Druidic place...
And so, we entered the Cursed Desert.

Next time, we explore the desert and finally make it to the Ninja Compound!

Pause before reaching the Ninjas to tell a few other parts of the campaign of some importance.

This first one I swear I have no idea when it happened. I believe it was some time between getting Devil's Tongue and talking with Ledo about it.

So, we were heading back to a town we had previously been to stock up on supplies before continuing on. When we reach it, we find that it's full to the gills with undead, including the church on the edge of town. If that weren't bad enough a group of giants at the edge of the city were bombarding it with boulders. We're trying to decide how best to retake the town when the group notices a group of undead being lead by three Death Knights trying to get into the church. Fueled by her hatred of these monstrosities, Sky charges them, dragging the party into the open and hits one of the Death Knights in the face with her mace.
It's at this point that the DM simply says "Oh crap."
I turn to him. "Oh crap what?"
"Those... are the wrong Death Knights. I put the wrong Death Knights at the church."
"What does that mean?"
*DM rolls some dice* "The uh... the Death Knight you hit turns and lops your arm off."
So that's how well that went. Luckily Bruce with his crazy dice rolling got Thor to come bail us out. Thor didn't kill them, but he relocated us to Farpoint or something. A few bad disarmed puns later, Ledo helped reattach my arm.

There was another encounter in which I won't go into great deal with in which our party was attacked by a bunch of Dragonkin and due to our idiocy they killed almost all of us. Again, a god had to come bail us out (Weird AD&D rules give you something like a 2-10% chance to call your diety to come help you. I think the DM was being overly nice with those, but whatever.)

So, back to where I left off. We head the long way around to the desert where the Ninja compound is, and finally get inside. So, we travel for a while, kill some bad guys, and eventually come across a town. We check our position and realize that we're still not far enough south for that to be the Ninja compound. We then realize that it's one of two settlements in the desert. The twist? It's cursed. Completely abandoned and a dead-zone for deities and divine spellcasters. We're considering going inside to check things out, but our better judgement is encouraging us to just go to the ninja compound.
That is, until Smidget steps up. You see, he has a special set of armor called Shadow Skin which lets him jump through shadows at will, allowing him to travel quiet quickly, and he says:
"Okay, I'm going to scout the Ninja Compound."
"That's not the ninja compound."
"Alright, jumping into a shadow to scout the Compound."
"That's not the ninja compound!"
"I jump out of the shadow inside the Compound."
DM: "You die."
"DAMMIT SMIDGET!"

So yeah, stepping into a cursed city in the dead of night turns out to be a bad move when all the creatures and demons inside start attacking you. The party then dedicates 1-2 hours real time to getting him out mission-impossible style. I would have been annoyed were it not simply hilarious all the absurd ways we figured to retrieve his body (Which we needed to revive him). Eventually with the help of a flying carpet (Don't ask) and a Warp Wood spell, we manage to get Smidget's corpse and use a Potion of Life to bring him back.
We stay the night outside the town.
The next morning, we're surprised to see the the Town is... populated. There are people walking around in the street, there's trade going on, ect.
Confused, we stay outside the city and beckon someone out to talk to. They have no knowledge of demons or curses, and don't seem to realize that they're in a desert. They also think it's several hundred years ago. We question them about the town and discover that there are four individuals in the town who the townfolks regard as gods. Humans who are passing as gods.
Yeah, remember when I mentioned that Sky has a thing about False Prophets? Well, I acted on it in character, and it was a hell of a time to roll a Natural 20, because that right hook from Sky broke that poor guy's nose. Guards from the city quickly came and arrested Sky who, against her better judgement, decided to go peacefully. It's at this point that Sky realizes that her divine magic is useless in the city and her link to her god is gone, she nearly panics but manages to keep it together.
Once inside, one of the leaders (One of the "God" dudes) decides that Sky's punishment will be 20 lashes in public, but instead Suto offers to take her place. The others leave the city (But Smidget buys some silverware in the city for an experiment first), and Suto takes his lashes near four odd-looking statues. Afterwards, the leader-guy instructs Suto to place his hands on the statue, which is now covered in his blood, and his wounds are partially healed. Suto leaves and returns to camp, where the group hatches a plan. (Result of silverware experiment: After dusk when the town turned back into a cursed nightmare, half of the silverware disappeared).
Smidget shadow-jumps back to Farpoint and finds that an army of giants is attacking it, but Ledo has it under control, and offers a few Scrolls of Restoration to help, since we think we might be fighting ghosts which can damage stats.
We enter the town (Minus Sky, who's in no rush to return to the city, and considers herself useless without her magic) after dark and approach the center of the town where the statues are, and break one of them. It's at this point that the whole demonic party shows up: Four greater Oni, and over a dozen lesser Oni. We begin fighting them. One fear check later, Roy and one other person is fleeing the fight. On the upside, the Lesser Oni are staying out of the fight for now while we fight the Greater Oni.
That is, until Royol decides it would be a great idea to throw a fireball at the lesser Oni. He fails to constrain the fireball, which results in the fireball being at its maximum Area of Effect, which is about half the town. He toasts almost all the buildings, but the Oni, being immune to fire damage, are unimpressed. They then kill Royol and continue to watch the party.
After a long, hard-fought battle, the group manages to break all the statues, but are taken down.
It's at this point that Sky sees Roy and the other fleeing member run out of the city. She stops them and gets them to snap out of their fear craze. Concerned now, Sky decides to brave the city with her allies, and returns to where the others are, to find their comrades in various states of unconscious/dead and the statues broken, but no Oni. That quickly amends itself as the hiding Oni reappear and continue fighting. When Sky hits one of the Oni with her mace, it triggers a Turning effect, sending the Oni back to its own plane. Sky realizes that the holy Turn worked because the statues, now destroyed, allowed the god's influence to reassert itself in the town. Together, the group makes short work of the remaining Oni, and realize that it was the hubris of the humans attempting to play god and dealing with demons that damned this town.
Disgusted, the party leaves, finally ready to confront the ninjas for real this time.