Throughout the last three months, I ran my first ever Dungeons and Dragons campaign that was a prequel to the main story of Blood-Soaked Pier. I have to admit that the story took many twists and turns I did not expect, especially the ending of the campaign. There are some plot points that I now need to address, but I feel like I can handle that pretty well. Ultimately, I really appreciate the character work that I had to do while writing the campaign. For example, I had to write out the shifting dynamics between Ezekiel, Mariella, and the player characters involved in the story. Funnily enough, all but one player’s characters in the campaign hated Ezekiel for one reason or another, which makes sense.
The worldbuilding opportunity made me think about the various magical abilities that would need to be in place for a vampire hunting order to be successful. One such implementation that I created was a class of healer that was able to use a golden, light-based magic (which was Mariella). Ezekiel gained the ability to transform into an Angel (albeit under very specific circumstances). Victoria was characterized through being kind of bratty at times and murderous, except for when her mother was around. Speaking of her mother, Arabella was a pleasure to write as a character, mostly because she’s a very sympathetic villain in my eyes. It also helps that she spoke exclusively in Shakespearean era English, which was annoying to try and get right. I inevitably had to use a translating tool to make sure I was getting my point across properly.
The experience of running a DND campaign was something special that I would definitely want to do again in the future. I’ve got an entire year between the campaign ending and Ezekiel’s excommunication from the Order, so there’s a lot of room for missions in between. Even with the craziest moments of the campaign, I never felt too overwhelmed by the craziness. I think part of the fun was adapting to the craziness honestly. One session revolved around the crew being transported to a shopping mall (since the campaign was set during the 1990s) which ended with them going to a famous store that definitely didn’t have a giraffe for a logo. Additionally, I did end up cosplaying as the final boss of the campaign, Arabella herself. That was a lot of fun too!
I’m definitely going to run another DND campaign in the future, though it might not be for another couple of months because the preparation while working two jobs and being in college was certainly a struggle!
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