Given the amount of time we've spent on the campaign I thought I ought to break out some talk about the party and how they function in the game. This will be more about mechanics and roles than background though I might have the players write something up about the rest of it themselves later.
In no particular order ...
Sir Lantor - Lantor and Kentor appear to be related somehow though they do not discuss it with the others. They are both from the same region (the Shield Lands) and appear to have already known each other. Lantor is the classic two-handed weapon fighter, eschewing greater protection for bigger hits. He is almost always the first to drop in a big fight, partly because of this and partly because he and Kentor are the front line and get hit the most. He doesn't lack for armor but he does lack a shield but he is pretty ferocious in battle.
The player here is constantly upping his offensive power with little regard for defense besides the occasional magic item. By the end of the campaign he is getting multiple swings, then an extra swing if he crits, with an expanded critical range, and then a bonus action to sneak in a punch on top of that, and I don't know if there is anyone in the world who loves to shout ACTION SURGE! as much as he does, as he blenders through the bad guys.
Lantor's player is Kentor's player's son and while he is the youngest he's been playing with us since 2017 so he is not a newbie in any way. This experience does not stop him from occasionally charging into a room, greatsword swooshing, while the rest of the party is still debating, but he can't use inexperience as an excuse! We do lose him near the end as he heads off to join the Marines but he is here for most of the run and hopefully we will get him back soon.
Sir Kentor - Mysteriously tied to Lantor, Kentor is a sword and board paladin who does occasionally drop despite his ridiculous defenses. Between his magic sword - first Vermithrax, then Zwei, then finally the flame tongue - and a willingness to use every spell slot for smite, he does some ridiculous damage while also maintaining a ridiculous AC. If Lantor is all-offense Kentor is is the yang to his yin putting most of his effort into defense. This means he pushes into the mid-20's pretty early and the high 20's before the end. This is a bit of a competition with the cleric through most of the campaign as each tries to have the highest AC in the party. By the end he is giving people close to him bonuses to saving throws, putting disadvantage on a first strike near or on him, and generally annoying the DM with interrupt type abilities.
Kentor is a paladin of justice (subclass) and loves to pronounce judgment on his opponents, usually tying it to the "judgement" channel divinity ability he picked up at 3rd level which gives him extra damage and advantage and probably some other annoying bonuses when he uses it. See why he focuses on defense?
Early on he was the first to start using his background ability to grant bonus hit points to the party and this quickly took the form of a big bowl of chili cooked over the fire before setting forth, typically made up of whatever the party butchered in the previous fight - spiders, wyverns, carrion crawlers ... it all goes in the pot.
As part of a deal with one of the town elders he was convinced to take on of their daughters to dinner and this turned into a romance that carried on through the rest of the campaign and their wedding was one of the big parts of the epilogue to this initial campaign (trust me we will get there).
The player here has played a lot of paladins and fighters over the decades I have known him so he figured out how to run this class mechanically pretty quick. Then it was just a matter of adding the shine - what kind of attitude will this guy have? We've known each other since the 80's so we go way back and he has played in nearly every campaign I have run since then - and I've played in a few of his. When Kentor starts his monologue there is a bit of eye-rolling around the table but we do love it as it is totally in-character for this character.
Jaric the Cleric (no he doesn't go by this) is a - well, you get it. he is a priest of Trithereon the god of vengeance in the world of Greyhawk and is a nice mix of religion and a very practical outlook. He is pretty much third man up when it comes to the frontline and is often found in battle next to Lantor trying to undo whatever trauma the optimistic fighter has suffered. When not trying to un-kill the fighter he will typically open with a spiritual weapon and then proceed to wade in, swinging his staff of striking as needed and not hesitating to use its power at all to achieve victory. He was a war cleric (subclass)He seems less concerned with vengeance in general than in increasing his personal power and giving rival clerics some tough talk before and during battle. He is also very much concerned with his personal survivability and constantly seeks to improve it with magic.
In Hommlett he mostly dealt with Terjon and the church of Cuthbert - with some exasperated sighs along the way. In Verbobonc he met the lone priest of Trithereon who maintained the Garden of Vengeance and learned some more about the area, and who sent him off with an "alright alright alright my brother"
When he has played a cleric before he has often leaned into "healbot" but for this campaign he really broke out of that and for once I never heard a complaint that his character just didn't work. A staff of striking and a 20+ armor class will do that. The ToV war cleric gets a chance to make a second attack once on a short rest so you can imagine the amount of damage one could do with two chances to triple-charge that thing. Then of course once he discovers the awesome power of Spirit Guardians at about 5th level he can cause carnage as well as anyone else in the party.
We've known each other and been playing together since the 90's and he is the least predictable of all of my players as to what he will play in any given game.
Braedon is the master hunter and tracker but mostly master archer as it turned out as he was the party's back line for the campaign. We went for many sessions without ever seeing him draw a blade, then when he finally did it was dual shortswords and he was damn near as capable with them as he was his bow! He was a hunter (subclass) so no animal companion which in party this big was not missed. He mostly stayed back, watched the rear, and shot whatever the nastiest target was at the time.
His background bonus ability involved telling stories which quickly became the repeated re-telling of how he had lost his brother to a werewolf out in the woods one day. There were groans around the table of course, every time, but when the party met a new NPC that had not yet heard the tale of the not-so-valiant they were quick to steer him over and then snicker as they walked away.
In town he mostly stayed in the background, mainly befriending Jaroo the druid and taking the search for Conn Shaunnery - his apprentice - as a personal quest.
The ranger was a welcome addition as we've all heard complaints about the 5E ranger and I wanted to see if Tales did it better. I don't think he had any complaints. His character was stupidly deadly and by the end was shooting 3 or more times per round - I'm not sure what it officially ended at as he was hasted quite a bit of the time. He also got a bonus or advantage when shooting a damaged foe so often the plan was to wait for the wizard to fireball a group and then start annihilating the survivors with bow fire.
He might be the least experienced player in the group - I believe he played a little 5E and then joined my Deadlands game a few years ago, then Mechwarrior, then this one, so he's not new by any means - just less jaded. He's played BattleTech and other similar games for decades so he's no slouch on picking up the rules.
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