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How The Incredible Dungeon Master Used My Backstory For An Epic Storyline
My DM decided that while starting the campaign he wanted to have a session negative 1 with
all his players and play out their backstory individually.
I told my DM early on that I wanted to play a magic user, but that he could choose my
race.
I also gave him a vague framework of a backstory: I pretty much told him I wanted an older brother,
a bad relationship with religion, and that under no circumstances did I want my brother
to die.
I was not ready.
Session negative 1 went the following way.
My character at a young age was orphaned along with an older brother.
The two of us were taken in by a nomadic religious cult that followed the god of chaos and murder.
As the two grew up, the older brother was forced into committing murder and soon became
a proficient fighter.
My DM constantly eluded to the fact that my brother seemed dejected and sometimes in agony
after he came back from a raid, but only when he thought I was not looking.
Every other time he was my usual carefree and loving brother.
When my character came of age, the tribe tried to force him to participate in the murders,
but my older brother convinced them to let him take my place.
This lasted for three years in-game time as the DM and I discussed how my character used
the time to study magic.
But after those years it was inevitable, and behind my brother’s back I was sent on a
mission.
My character, proficient in magic, burned an entire village down.
After the fact, the DM told me that something inside my character seemed to have broken
as if a fire continuously burned his soul.
After some brief roleplay back and forth, I came to understand that my DM had made me
an Aasimar, and what I had just done was against my very nature.
Even after my DM said that the burning sensation faded, I continued playing my character in
a state of shock as my DM roleplayed the carriage ride back with the rest of the group for the
next 30 minutes.
He had a way of making me care about these side characters even when they talked about
murder in a way that would sicken most people.
At this point, the session had already lasted for 3 hours and I thought we would quickly
finish up and leave it in a place to start the real campaign.
I was wrong.
As the carriage travelled back, my DM started to describe the surroundings.
As our troop got closer to the village, a silence stood out as peculiar from the usual
vibrant nature of the tribe; my DM really tried to make this tribe lovable other than
the murdering part.
But this time, only silence.
Then he described the smell of iron easily noticeable in the air.
Finally, as we arrived at the center of the encampment, he described a familiar silhouette
visible -- only this time something was different: a pair of bony wings framed him like an angel
of death.
Countless corpses lay at his feet.
For the first time since the mission, my character shook off his shock and looked upon his brother.
The red eyes of my brother stood out as he rushed to the wagons at an insane speed.
I told the DM I wanted to move to intercept him, but the DM told me that something held
me back.
My character sat there, watching my brother pick apart every single one of the men and
women left in the tribe.
He described the people that I had grown to like to be brutally massacred by this avenging
angel.
I found myself so enthralled by the story the DM was telling that I forgot I could actually
do something.
My character slowly walked to his brother as the fallen Aasimar wings finally disappeared.
I tried to ask him numerous questions, but he would just look at me with sorrow filled
eyes.
The only words my brother spoke were, “don’t you fall.”
The look of sorrow disappeared, replaced by a flash of anger.
My brother rushed me and knocked me out.
In the darkness of my unconsciousness, my DM had my angelic guide speak to me for the
first time: “your brother let himself fall for you.
You are your brother's keeper.”
And with that, session negative one ended.
It was amazing to be able to play through the backstory, especially one I had little
control over.
It not only gave me a reason to be adventuring when we started the campaign but also made
me connect more with my character.
Little did I know that my DM had already planned my entire character arc the minute I told
him: under no circumstance did I want my brother dead.
We started the campaign and as with most homebrew campaigns, it was a blast to be able to get
to know everyone’s characters, and slowly but surely learn of their backstories.
We started the main story of the campaign 15 years after my backstory had left off.
And in those 15 years, my character sought to gain more power magically to be able to
somehow change his brother's fate.
After a year playing the campaign, we were level 12.
But real life has its own demands.
I had gotten a job that required me to work during our normal session time for about six
months.
My DM masterfully used a relationship with an NPC character that had slowly formed throughout
the campaign.
The NPC was a young cleric in the church of the deity of redemption.
During the campaign, my character and said cleric grew more and more fond of each other,
but I always played it that my character refused to love as long as his brother was suffering.
However, since I would be leaving for six months, the last three sessions were set up
to validate my character’s absence.
After dying and being revived by the cleric, I accept the feelings that I had refused before
and married the cleric . We settled down in the town that was pretty much the city of
her goddess.
During the six months, the campaign continued and during that time my group of adventures
sans my character, who had settled down started to uncover a plot from a group of evil gods
that had convinced cults to systematically attack the followers of every other religion.
However, stories started to reach the group's ears that a single man had continuously exterminated
both cults and religious groups.
The few religious ones in the group started getting messages from their gods that this
man had to be dealt with.
If left alone he would eradicate all religions.
In the background, I got updates from time to time how my character and his new wife
were madly in love and that I slowly started following the goddess of redemption.
He also alluded to a plot hatched by the evil gods.
But a few short months later, he told me that those evil gods had been dealt with and their
plot ruined.
Obviously, I thought it had been my group to do it and was excited after the six months
to get back to playing.
I finally returned and expected to probably have to make a new character, but my DM told
me there was no need to do so.
The other PCs had put the pieces of my back story together and had figured out the man
that their gods had feared so much was, in fact, my brother.
They had learned that after that fateful day at the end of session negative one, he had
gotten more powerful and fallen more and more into hatred, manifesting it into a hatred
of religion.
He blamed his childhood and eventual fall on the gods as a whole instead of the god
that the tribe had followed.
After hearing this my character obviously felt he had to go and stop his brother, but
more than anything he knew that if he did not go they would kill his brother.
Fast forward another year out of the game, and slowly the threads of everyone’s backstories
were being tied up.
More and more the looming presence of my brother invaded the world at large.
We had bumped into him twice: the first time he had been too powerful, the second time
the group succeeded in defeating him.
But when they were about to kill him, I refused to let them.
I tied him up and took him home to the city where I lived, the city where my new goddess
would hear my prayers to redeem him, the city where my wife spent everyday waiting for me
to come home.
I thought my back story had finally come to an end.
It was a nice resolution, one as a PC I was happy with.
In the end, my DM had kept his promise and had not killed my brother in-game.
My brother was beyond recognition.
It was evident that his psychosis had broken at one point, but he was still my brother
and I would not let him die.
In a conversation with the group I admitted that I blamed myself for what he had become.
He had always sacrificed for me and now it was my turn to take care of him.
At the end of that session as a PC I had decided to help the group tie up their loose ends
as thanks for helping me with mine.
The last thing that happened was my angelic guide saying one thing, “actions have consequences;
you are your brother's keeper.”
At the time, I thought my DM meant it as the last closing note on my character arc.
Like every time before, though, I was of course very wrong.
From there, the campaign quickly wrapped up the arcs and the main story were all slowly
completed.
And at level 20 we were pretty much at a godly power in this world.
We were all ready to finish the campaign as my party decided to return one final time
to my home.
This is where my DM finally let loose.
As we came up to the city, an unsettling silence permeated the outside of the city.
As we got closer, he described the heavy scent of iron in the air.
At this moment out of character my entire being went cold.
It had been more than a hundred sessions and he described the scene word for word the exact
same way.
Of course, the other PCs did not know what was happening, but I did and when I described
how my character unfurled his white wings and raced full speed to the center of the
city, the rest of the players were in a daze.
They explained how they raced off following me, but by that time I had cast expeditious
retreat and haste.
I got there well before anyone else as the bastard described the same familiar silhouette
with the same wings.
“Bodies litter the ground around him.
Most of them you recognize as neighbors and friends when you had lived here peacefully
with your wife.”
Fear gripped my throat as I slowly asked where my wife was.
He described that at my brother’s feet was a beautiful blonde cleric laying in a pool
of blood.
The next words crippled me to the core.
“You can see the light that used to emanate from her naturally has been extinguished.
Your brother is towering over her still form.
You have the power this time.
What do you do?”
I rushed forward.
A quick fight ensues but as a level 20 wizard, the fight was pretty fast.
In anger, I described how I mercilessly cast one high-powered spell after another.
With every roll rolling at a stupidly high amount of damage.
The DM described how my party arrived to see the white wings slowly lose their feathers
as revealing bony wings beneath the falling feathers.
Stricken by the brutality of the scene they came into, they decide to not interfere.
Before this, I played my character as always happy and cheerful.
In times of vulnerability, I showed sadness or sorrow.
But in and out of character, they had never seen this emotion: anger.
The fight quickly came to a climax, and the DM played my brother as so far gone that he
did not even recognize me.
He was insane.
He laughed maniacally with every hit he took or delivered.
Both of us would die in the next hit and it was my turn.
I decided on acid arrow.
The initial damage I was pretty sure would not kill him but the secondary damage should.
If it worked out, I would die with my brother.
I knew my DM understood my character and knew that I did not make this decision lightly.
He understood the toll this would take on me.
He had given me the option to choose his fate.
The DM turned off all the music and was silent for a while.
“Roll a D20.
On a 20 I play this how the character would.
On anything else we will go with how you played it.”
At this point I was kind of confused.
“Are you okay with whatever happens?” the DM asked me with genuine care and thoughtfulness
as I picked up my dice.
I nodded and finally understood that he had probably written a lot of this story and had
planned on something happening but did not want me to feel cheated in some way if I did
not like it.
I tossed the dice and could barely stand watching it tumble end over end.
I rolled a 20.
“The smile falls away from your brother's face.
Sadness creeps into the corners of his eyes and mouth.
He is not looking at you but just behind you at the now bony wings that have replaced the
usually vibrantly feathered ones.
His hand reaches out to grab you.”
I do not resist.
The DM continues.
“He grabs a part of the wings -- not viciously but delicately, tenderly.
You look at him and for the first time in a long time you recognize your kind and loving
brother.
He looks up at you and with a sad smile says, “When did you get taller than me?”
It was so cheesy, such a stupid line for the DM to use but my heart broke.
His other hand caresses the top of my head.
“I'm sorry I could not save you,” I whisper.
His smile slowly turns into a sad frown again.
“It is not your fault you little brat.
It was my job to save you and I did a crap job at it.”
“I guess we are both failures,” I reply.
He smiles again.
“Nah, I am the failure but you do not have to be.
I will let you be one.”
His hand touches the symbol dangling on a chain around my neck.
It digs in a bit.
He closes his eyes and says three familiar words “Don’t you fall.”
After a few moments of silence, the pressure is lifted and my brother falls to the floor
lifeless.
The wings on my back return to their glorious feathery white and the symbol on my chest
burns.
In his final moments he made a plea to my goddess.
There was not a single dry eye in the room, and never before have I been so connected
to a character.
Indeed, the stress, fear, anxiety, anger, happiness, and sadness had become so real.
At that moment I felt like had truly lost my brother.
The campaign finished up.
I revived my wife and lived happily with her till the end.
We had five children: 1 son and 4 daughters.
They grew up to have brilliant white wings.
As the other PC’s got their happy endings, the DM told me as a side note that his goddess
was not the kind to make a deal but rather that redemption was possible no matter who
it was as long as they were truly sorry.
What a fantastic DM to take a player’s backstory and create such an epic story.
Has your DM ever taken your character through a journey like this?
Please let us know and comment below!
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