I am sad to report that this will be the last in the series of Being a Bard blog posts as the campaign featuring our intrepid bard, Roger Sparx, has come to its conclusion. For those of you that have followed the story from the beginning, it started with an account of The Bugs Bunny Maneuver, explained How to Punk a Dragon and even touched on Being a Bard During a Quarantine. This final installment will show you one possible path to making your character immortal. I am, of course, talking about making your character a deity in the Dungeons and Dragons pantheon.
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In brief, the final session of Roger Sparx’s party involved fighting a series of beholders, dragons and an evil wizard warlord. To what end isn’t particularly important for this topic so I’ll spare you the details. What is important is what happened after the massive brawl. Upon defeating the evil wizard, the party, naturally, set about searching his horde for treasure and unique items. All they found was a small box. Our DM, being the creative sort, then presented us—as in “us” the actual players—with a puzzle box. It took roughly ten minutes of trial and error, but we managed to get the puzzle box open; and what was inside you ask? Only one item: a Deck of Many Things.
For the uninitiated, a Deck of Many Things is the ultimate Dungeons and Dragons gambling game. Only you are not gambling with money—you may very well be gambling with your life. There’s a lot of risk involved with meddling with a Deck of Many Things but the rewards can also be unimaginably fantastic.
Usually found in a box or pouch, this deck contains a number of cards made of ivory or vellum. Most of these decks have only thirteen cards, but many have twenty-two. Each player will get one chance to declare how many cards they want to draw from the deck (from 0 to 13 or 22 cards). Some of these cards, when drawn, contain horrific fates such as:
- You disappear and become entombed in a state of suspended animation in an extradimensional Sphere. Everything you were wearing and carrying stays behind in the space you occupied when you disappeared. You remain imprisoned until you are found and removed from the Sphere. You can’t be located by any Divination magic. You draw no more cards.
- A powerful devil becomes your enemy. The devil seeks your ruin and plagues your life, savoring your suffering before attempting to slay you. This enmity lasts until either you or the devil dies.
- You summon an avatar of death-a ghostly Humanoid Skeleton clad in a tattered black robe and carrying a spectral scythe. It appears in a space of the DM’s choice within 10 feet of you and attacks you, warning all others that you must win the battle alone. The avatar fights until you die or it drops to 0 Hit Points, whereupon it disappears. If anyone tries to help you, the helper summons its own Avatar of Death. A creature slain by an Avatar of Death can’t be restored to life.
On the other hand, some cards bestow amazing favors upon your character such as:
- You gain 50,000 XP, and a wondrous item (which the DM determines randomly) appears in your hands.
- Increase one of your Ability Scores by 2. The score can exceed 20 but can’t exceed 24.
- Reality’s fabric unravels and spins anew, allowing you to avoid or erase one event as if it never happened. You can use the card’s magic as soon as you draw the card or at any other time before you die.
- You are granted the ability to cast the wish spell 1d3 times.
This brings us to matter of how one becomes a deity. Roger Sparx, as luck would have it, drew the Moon card, which is the card that bestows wishes. Knowing that this campaign would officially end after we all had our chance with the Deck of Many Things, Roger Sparx quickly spent his wish. The last sentence spoken by a party member in this campaign was that of Roger Sparx: I wish to be a God! As described by our DM, the sky darkened and a loud thunder clap could be heard—the established Gods were not happy to welcome a new member to their ranks.
As a bonus, the DM went on to explain that Roger Sparx would be an official deity moving forward and would be included in all campaigns that this current group would play in the future. Now that’s how immortality is achieved.
