The Heroes of Heroism & The Crystal Tomb – Dungeons and Dragons Sunday

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For the past few years, the stalwarts of the Bonfire team have entertained and shared their collective knowledge and creativity around gaming culture from the factual to the opinionated but another interest and desire has been burning in the background, that of the world of Dungeons and Dragons. Utilising a loose variation of the traditional rules and guidelines, the team have developed a world, constructed using figures and sets predominantly from the Warhammer franchise to craft season based narratives and content with loving homages to all forms of popular culture and media. Set in the fictional world of Plagaria, a variety of characters have emerged from the shadows to take on the various quests of the dungeon master of the day, from an epic quest to rescue a ‘friend’ to a prison break, even a nightmare future ravaged by cyborgs, terrorists and xenomorphs, no threat has been to great for these champions to overcome.

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In the presence of the Grand Master Flash

In the latest quest, the Heroes of Heroism were tasked, ostensibly by no less than Grand Master Flash, a legend of the wizarding world to retrieve the mysterious Pearl of Wisdom from within a notorious, ancient tomb, fabled for its traps, pitfalls and perils and the last known location of the gem the heroes were hoping to locate. Now, with a new quest to pursue, and the promise of fortune and glory the intrepid adventurers set forth. Whilst not strictly employed to locate the gem by the Grand Master himself, the intentions of the quest were clear, retrieve the pearl and gain fame and prestige from their exploits. This party consisted of the talking cross cultured Koala, Bruce, a magically charged marsupial from an alternative future timeline. 20190219_202520The halfling adventurer Benjamin and Nobslag the Orc, the greenest of all green skin orcs pursuing his great love, a good hard krumping. Accompanying them on their travels was the knight in training Violet Rose, a plucky hero destined for ‘great things’ at a later date. The heroes woke to find themselves deep within the tomb, memories of a fight against the mighty Octodrumbo reverberating all around them. Thankfully the heroes were relatively unscathed and pushed forward although the path to freedom and their escape was relatively obscured and hidden immediately. With the promise of treasure and a good few enemies to krump the heroes pushed forward deeper into the unknown. immediately, it became clear the threats to the group were immense with challenges presenting themselves immediately, a shrinking room, a crumbling bridge, even a crushing orange colored boulder the path to freedom and escape was a dangerous adventure awaiting the heroes with every perilous step.20190219_201601

With Nobslag intent on finding enemies to Krump it was left to the smallest of the companions to push forward in his curious animalistic way venturing forward and eventually arriving at a large cavern below. What awaited the brave adventurers was a creature unlike any they had seen before, a dinosaur who viewed Trinsic’s mightiest warriors as a breakfast snack. Showing a dangerous level of bravado, the mighty opted to engage the dinosaur in combat, and received a mighty wallop to the head.IMG_2155 With no obvious path to freedom the heroes decided to opt for emergency plan B, better known as, leg it. Dashing across the vast cavern they barely survived before finding themselves on the edge of a tremendous waterfall and seemingly only one way forward for their quest to continue. With the choice between a careful descent and a seeming suicidal dive into the waters below, the orc decided instead to take matters into his green hands, literally and pitched the halfling into the waters below with seeming glee before the female knight followed shortly after. Bruce, recognising the danger of such a fall opted to revert to his animalistic tendencies and held on tight as the Orc jumped forward into the unknown and the pool below. Thankfully, no harm came to the heroes and they survived their descent, finding themselves blocked by three doors containing tombs of various challenges and threats beyond.

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With three heroes, three doors and three keys to find, some may have seen providence, some may have seen purpose. For Nobslag, it was an opportunity to krump some bag guys and the path of the skeletons provided a challenge for the party to fight the undead with the menace of the skeletal warriors infused with magic posing a constant challenge as they progressed on their quest. 20190218_082655Although with the combined intelligence of an enraged orc and a curious Koala devoid of his afternoon nap and leafs to eat gaining entry proved challenging at first, the mighty strike of the orcs hammer seemingly having little impact on the skeleton door. However, thanks to an ingenious suggestion to try, pushing it open, it worked, and access was granted to this first challenging temple room. The skeletons within posed no great threat to the party who swiftly deposed of the challenge and gained the first key. Having successfully navigated the threat of the undead, the next challenge was a water temple, bringing back memories of another elven heroes adventure. 20190219_203022A series of challenges that required either great memory and skills or dumb luck. Thankfully, the heroes were blessed with the latter and were able to navigate the various switches and levers as they dipped, dived, gulped and climbed their way to the top of this challenging environment eventually locating the obsidian key that would lead them to perhaps their most challenging and menacing room in their time together. Entering a relatively unremarkable chamber with only a dark lord present, the heroes reached the end of the room and were presented with a perilous foe, a dark knight with his trusty red laser sword that challenged themIMG_2179 to a battle of wits and memory on the Star Wars saga. The first to undertake the challenging test was the orc Nobslag who despite his insistence he had no knowledge of this alien sounding concept seemed able to satisfy the dark lords questions for the most part. Unfortunately he was unable to solve the puzzle and it was in the hands of Benjamin the halfling to overcome this challenge. Thankfully it didn’t require Bruce to step forward who honestly prefered Trekking around the room as this was going on. The Koala from the future was able to challenge the validity of a question thanks to his memory of a film quote that validated Benjamin’s objection and the party proceeded on their quest into the final area, the lava filled chamber of skeletons and demons where the Pearl rested.

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Trinsic’s Mightiest Heroes

Surrounded by deep pools of deadly lava and the vision of skeletons wondering freely the heroes faced a linear path to their destination, a skull shaped entrance that led, presumably to their final destination and the treasure that would please the Grand Master. Venturing forward led boldly by the mighty green skin orc the party charged for their final encounter, the small Koala following in the shadows of the ‘tank’ and utilising his foraging abilities where possible to removeIMG_2183 the menace of the skeletons before they could form back to life. The halfling using his archery skills kept the skeleton on the bridge at bay as the orc and koala pushed forward and reduced the undead threat to dust. With a seeming clear path to the skeleton Bruch dashed forward, the narrow bridge and the heat below unsettling for a small creature more accustomed to the trees and natural environment. Just as he was about to reach the archway a lava demon appeared, a magical creature with fire at its wing tips ready to unleash upon the heroes. Realising the threat and seemingly acting solely on knowledge of pocket creatures logic20190219_203246 Bruce channeled his magical abilities and ‘morphed’ into his polar bear form hoping to counter the threat of fire with ice and conclude this conflict long before GRRM finishes his novel series. Despite his best efforts to quickly overcome this threat Bruce couldn’t unleash his attacks with any great focus and relied on his companions to charge forward joining the fight. The knight charging in with her sword, Benjamin taking a higher ground perspective and scoring a good shot on its wing before Nobslag charged in for a good krumping. Overcome in the moment Bruce in his polar form and not much spatial awareness unleashed the full weight of his polar breath and froze the orc solid. Through a combined, almost terminal assault the heroes managed to ‘work together’ in their own unique style that used a frozen team member as a make shift battering ram to pin the lava demon down and the ‘brave knight’ delivered the final blow killing the foe once and for all. IMG_2188With the threat defeated that left one final room to explore and they entered the treasure room to collect the Pearl of Wisdom. Benjamin, the forward thinking opportunist moved forward and took his seat on the throne to gain the Pearl on behalf of his team mates. With the treasure obtained and a hidden exit revealed that allowed them to leave the tomb without having to circumnavigate the entire temple the band of heroes returned to the ministry of magic to deliver the treasure to the Grand Master. The wizard was disturbed from his sleep by the night-time receptionist and appeared somewhat confused at the tales of the adventurers before Bruce decided to speed up proceedings and lift the Pearl from Benjamin presenting the treasure to the wizard. With a reward of treasure points and a curt dismissal the heroes disbanded for the night and with it concluded their adventure.

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Cast Photo

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