The Chronicles of Thraxx – Episode 0-2 – An Odd Beginning

Written by Flamereptile

Written: 12/29/25

The Chronicles of Thraxx – Episode 0-2 – An Odd Beginning

Having (happily) put myself in the position of forever GM, I am often reminded that I have far, far more play time as a GM than I do as an actual player, and I yearn to play on occasion. It was only a few weeks ago I called a few of my local game stores to see when their open play nights for TTRPGs were. After running games at one store, now a bit too far of a drive to consistently go there, I was weary of the… characters that might be running the games.

Episode 0 – Not Where I Wanted to Start

Weary or not, I was given a time, date, and phone number for a fellow that was running a game that next Monday. I was anxious to hop in but also excited at the prospects of playing.

Now, you need to remember while reading this, I’ve been running games consistently for over a decade now as the GM. I have developed over that time a perception of the kind of game I might like to play in, whether it’s true or not, and expectations for what should happen before, during, and after you’re at the table.

When I reached out to this GM I was left a little confused and unsure. He said we would be playtesting the 2024 Edition, and playing RAW. Now I’ve skimmed the 2024 books, and listened to countless hours of commentary on them, leaving me unimpressed at best and a bit disappointed at worst. Our home games haven’t switched over, and we were unlikely to do so.

I wanted to play a Minotaur, and that was 86’d immediately. Seemed a little silly, but it was what it was. He also gave us the setting: the Doomed Forgotten Realms – the setting that happens if the players fail every 5th Edition adventure there is. A neat concept, but I was unsure how it would work. Finally, we were starting at 12th level.

Now there were some hangups while creating my character: poor, inconsistent answers in the chat, seemingly strict rules, and what was the worst: being told that at 12th level I wouldn’t be able to take any magic items because my character hadn’t earned them. I wasn’t really sure if I wanted to go and play, but I figured I’d give it one game at least.

I rolled up an Orc named Thraxx. A proud Barbarian/Fighter/Rogue from a hunter/warrior culture. I wrote a whole system for gaining and losing honor while on the hunt, developed the bones of his whole culture, and wrote a neat little backstory for him… all to maybe play one game with these people and decided it wasn’t for me. I did eventually get to pick some magic items, and since I was told that the GM would be running difficult encounters I chose to boost my AC to the max while also giving myself some real damage making capabilities.

Thraxx was ready, and I was reluctant, but we were going to play anyway.

Episode 1 – An Amazing Surprise (12/15/25)

Now, I kind of hope that this GM doesn’t read this blog, at least the Episode 0 part, because it’s all uphill from here.

I arrived about half an hour early to the game that first night, hoping to claim a nice seat and maybe meet the GM and players before we start. I was pleasantly surprised to meet the GM, a really nice and enthusiastic guy who was eager to get me started. He was walking me through the whole of the game, how they played, and what they were doing with the gusto of somebody truly passionate about what they were doing.

Thraxx joined this party of odd ducks in the middle of a colosseum battle. At level 12, four of us fought a Dragon Turtle and a Dracolich, neither of which Thraxx would deliver the final blows to, preventing him from taking trophies. But that wasn’t the point… yet. I was having a crazy amount of fun! I hadn’t had fun like this as a player for… well nearly a decade when I was first drawn in to TTRPGs!

After these tough battles, the god of Orcs, saddled in his sleight pulled by two flaming boars, began to fly over the colosseum, throwing celebratory Christmas battleaxes to all the good orcs below. This was my time to see what I could really do in this game. What I could get away with.

I positioned Thraxx atop an outcropping, holding his Action to rip this “gOd Of OrCs” from his sleight and assert dominance. To my surprise, he did it. Through a few good rolls, Thraxx ripped him from his sleigh, slammed him to the ground, and tore his head asunder as a trophy. Brutal and maybe a little excessive? Yeah, but I was testing some bounds. And to my amazement, the table erupted in excitement, laughter and cheers! Thraxx would bring a new dynamic to the party, one a little more serious and a lot more brutal, but a nice dichotomy to the silliness already there.

I talked with the GM a bit after the game, thanked him for running it, and listened to his excitement about me joining and having Thraxx in the party. It felt good, and I’m thankful to have been included. I departed that night with dreams of brutality, and fantasy fondness.

Episode 2 – A Return to Excitement (12/22/25)

Surely lightning couldn’t strike twice, right? Wrong.

I arrived at the game the next week, skeptical that I would have as much fun for a second week in a row. Surely it was a fluke, right? Wrong again.

We started the session by finding out that the “gOd Of OrCs” Thraxx slew was the leader of the Orcs that patroned the colosseum, and they were in need of new leadership. Thraxx made a power move to start the game, slaying  a mammoth that was the symbol of their old, weak regime. They were dumbstruck, but fell in line.

Well that was fun. What’s next? We were given a quest with promises of greater foes for Thraxx to fight… he was in. We flew upon the party’s Roc to complete a sort of fetch quest. Go here, get a guy, find out his interplanar travel visa was rejected, promise to get it fixed for him… a little odd, but fun nonetheless.

We took a portal to the home of a fey queen, which was stuck in a time stop spell. We bypassed the strange guards, fed a fat giant with some big cake, and entered into a fight with a Jabberwocky.

Now the last week we fought a Dragon Turtle and a Dracolich, and not once did Thraxx feel threatened. He had a Cloak of Displacement and a 24 AC, so why would he? But during this Jabberwocky fight, which used the 2024 stat of an Ancient Black Dragon with a few of the Jabberwocky abilities from another book, it was different. By the end Thraxx was drained. He’d hit 0 and barely survived because of his Relentless Endurance. He’d been charmed and confused and felt a bit hopeless during much of the fight (stupid burble ability).

Honestly, the whole party was doing rough. We nearly TPK’d! But it was great! The stakes were high, our blood was pumping, all good things!

But there was one moment where it all changed for the better. Thraxx broke his burble (really it just wandered a little too far away) and used his Horn of Blasting to deafen it, freeing the party of its nasty ability. We made short work of it after that, but Thraxx (and I) felt like a hero! It was super fun, and one of the most memorable battles I’ve ever played. I even got to use a cheesy line like, “Thraxx isn’t trapped in here with you! You’re trapped in here with Thraxx!”

After the big battle a few clowns, I mean…, troublemakers walked in. A cleric, a mage, and a warrior, old names from old books. The smarted off to our nearly dead party, but seemed to not know that Thraxx was always rearing for a battle, and even while on death’s door he was hard to hit. While the party healed up, Thraxx claimed three new skulls for his belt. Even this little side fight was memorable.

We ended the game there, and I was met with the same kind of enthusiasm as the week prior. I thanked the GM again, wished everybody Merry Christmas, and went home, looking forward to what next week would hold.

Retrospective: Now, I’m writing this all in retrospective. It all happened a few weeks ago for me, and I’m checking my notes again before writing about it, but these are easily some of the most fun TTRPG games I’ve ever been a player in. I’m so grateful to have been able to find this group, to be able to play with them, and to look forward to playing with them. I’m still happily a forever GM, but it’s nice to be able to be a player as well.

Thank you again to the GM for running the games. I look forward to next week’s game, and to writing about how much fun they are. Until next time, thank you for reading.

The Chronicle of Thraxx – Episode 3 – To Hell and Back Again

Written by Flamereptile

Written: 12/29/25

The Chronicle of Thraxx – Episode 3 – To Hell and Back Again

Recap: We pick up this week having just slain a Jabberwocky in Episode 2. We happened across a library where we met a strange librarian who gave us many tomes on demons, and took us to the fey queen stuck in time. Our party approached the fey queen, imprisoned upon her throne, but as we approached, three hags appeared.

The hags tried to convince us to slay the fey queen, but Thraxx informed them he was here to stab her with a unicorn horn. They obliged, hoping he would fatally wound the queen,  but instead he used the horn to free her of the time stop. The fey queen and the hags bickered of right and wrong, pointing fingers, but the queen would inform Thraxx the hags ate children, a dishonorable act.

Thraxx rushed at the hags, hacking and slashing as his party assisted. He would wound one hag, as another party member finished her off, then decapitate a second. The third would call upon the obese giant from Episode 2, but the party druid would instead convince it to venture off elsewhere to consume the corpse of the Jabberwocky. After Thraxx had damaged it considerable, the had would plane shift away.

The party’s wizard (still not really sure what he is) would plane shift us in pursuit into the Hells. Thraxx would chase the hag, spearing her with Speak With Animals, then subduing her with a net. Another party member would deliver the finishing blow. Afterwards, the party would be approached by a group of fallen angels who would lead us to their queen.

Before the queen of the fallen angels, the party would negotiate, but Thraxx was disinterested in their affairs. Afterwards, they would venture back to the material plane to confront the queen of hags.

Beneath the colosseum, which Thraxx would soon claim, they would confront the tricky creature. She would dishonorably teleport, perform spells of mind control, and conjure lightning. At one point, the hag had confused Thraxx, suggesting that he would be better served to sell tickets to the colosseum than slay her. Charmed, Thraxx would stow his flaming greatsword, now called the Chime of Opening, and exit the tunnels, screaming at the peon guards to sell more tickets.

He would never admit it, but it took the dispelling of his charm, a mere moment later, for Thraxx to truly become enraged. He sprinted through the tunnels, all the way back to the queen hag’s throne, where he would lift her cauldron and use it to bludgeon the queen hag to death. He would later have it reforged into a powerful greatclub that he would name Dispel Magic.

An that is how Episode Three ends, with Thraxx and the party slaying an Arch Hag.

Retrospective: This may not make a ton of sense, since I’m jumping into the middle of a story with an unknown character, but in time it will. Tonight’s game was an absolute blast, and I’m thankful to have been able to play. I’m still riding the rush of excitement that came with playing tonight. I will soon do a blog of Episodes 0-2, giving some insight into who Thraxx is, what the setting is, and more. Until then, thanks for reading, and thank you to the GM for running this game.

The Tale of Westerin

Long ago, there lived a humble craftsman named Westerin Wester. He was a soft-spoken, simple-minded man whose greatest ambition was to rise above his station and claim a noble title of his own. That dream might have faded into obscurity, had Westerin not wandered one fateful day into the domain of a cunning Green Dragon.

The wyrm saw in Westerin a malleable mortal, desperate enough to bargain, and too naïve to understand the cost. The dragon promised him lordship and influence beyond his wildest dreams. Westerin, blinded by aspiration, agreed without hesitation.

The dragon performed an ancient, invasive rite upon him - one that was neither a blessing nor a curse, but a remaking. The ritual ignited Westerin’s dormant potential, sharpening his wit to a razor’s edge. The man who had once struggled with simple arithmetic now grasped alchemical formulae, biomancy theory, and arcane patterns as though he had always known it.

With his mind awakened, Westerin discovered he could sculpt a perfect lineage that could conquer empires and outlive this world. His dreams had changed. Nobility no longer satisfied him. He now wanted a dynasty, a line that would spread across the Coastlands, generation by generation, until his descendants occupied every seat of power, from the cold northern wastes to the fair lands to the south.

Westerin would divide his perfect bloodline into two castes: the greater of his line - bold and decisive rulers that would command the lands they had conquered - and the lesser of his line - deliberate and precise administrators that would advise and serve their greater kin with absolute loyalty. To prevent his dynasty from collapsing in upon itself, from greed or pride, Westering would weave into his lineage a deep seated loyalty and aversion to the spilling of Wester blood.

From his stronghold in the north, Westerin began siring descendants, and placing them into positions of influence. He did so quietly at first, spreading his domain southward like a creeping vine.

Decades would pass, children grew, and grandchildren were born into the burgeoning Wester Empire. Only then did Westerin realize what he had overlooked - the dragon’s “blessing” had concealed a curse. The dragon had placed a draconic seal upon Westerin and his line, and through it, the dragon could whisper to his descendants, influence their thoughts, and peer through their eyes into the world they lived in.

Westerin had found the Greater Westers - willful and bold - could resist the whispers, but the Lesser Westers - supportive, deferential, and orderly - took to the dragon’s whispers like dry parchment drinking spilled ink. Unable to differentiate the dragon’s whispers from their own thoughts, they would become its unwitting mouthpieces, relaying its nudges and suggestions to their greater counterparts, swaying their every decision through everyday bureaucracy.

In time, a horrifying revelation overcame Westerin: the traits granting the greater of his line resistance to the dragon’s influences were recessive. If left unchecked, his lesser kin would quickly outnumber the greater, and his dynasty would become nothing more than the dragon’s pawns.

Old, weary, and burdened by the consequences of his past, Westerin would institute a grim family tradition to preserve his dynasty. His lesser descendants, short and thin, would be magically sterilized at birth, not out of cruelty, but out of love for his dynasty.

With death approaching, and paranoia of a failed dynasty tightening its grip over him, Westerin sought to free his family from the dragon’s clutches. In secret, even from his closest of kin, Westerin created the Artifacts of Wester, a set of ceremonial weapons, armor, and tools forged with alchemical precision from black onyx. He bound them to the fate of his lineage as the weapon that would either save them or damn them to servitude.

In his final moments, Westerin would imprint his spirit onto the artifacts, staying behind as a guiding echo, awaiting the day a worthy Wester would take up his burden.

The Bleeding of the World Tree

Only the most ancient elders remember when our world was alive - when rivers still flowed with shimmering lights, an the air was thick with love and hope. In those days, the World Tree towered above all, its roots binding the earth, it crown brushing the heavens, a sentinel that nourished every living thing beneath its canopy. Peace reigned, broken only by petty quarrels of kingdoms long since turned to dust. But the peace of the World Tree was fragile, and its end came swifter than any could have then imagined.

It was the Elves who dwelt beneath the boughs of the World Tree, shepherds and wardens of life itself. However, they would not foresee the darkness that descended from beyond the stars. Vast ships, like fingers from a cruel god, reached down and exhaled black clouds upon the tree. By an enemy unknown and unprovoked, the Elves were slaughtered before they had even known they were fighting. Their voices silenced, their works unmade, and the World Tree itself began to wither beneath a shroud of blackened corruption.

The nations of man stirred, raising armies and sharpening steel, awaiting the invasion that never came. Days faded into weeks; scouts retuned only with tales of charred earth and vast, hollowed wastelands where life had once thrived beneath the World Tree. In desperation, the rulers of old gathered their hosts for a grand assault. They marched to the Deadlands - the blackened scar left by the invaders - and there they beheld their foe.

The creatures were abominations: draconic in stature, but insectile in form, their swarms appeared endless. They fled at the sight of the mortal armies, drawing them into pursuit - only for fire and sorcery to rain down from the skies. The hosts were butchered before their charge could reach the tree. The World Tree remained defiled, and no banners would return home.

Time crept onward. Magic bled from the world as the tree's strength waned. Sages wept blood as the first of its branches cracked and fell, unleashing clouds of the swarming creatures, but never finding rest upon the blackened earth. A final desperate coalition formed, all peoples bound together in their final acts of defiance. But when they reached the Deadlands, the swarm rose from the tree like a storm. Before their eyes, the tree was devoured, ripped into splinters by a living black tide. Before they could reach its base, only a lifeless, gray stump remained, and above it a new finger of the enemy's fleet began to take shape. By dusk, it had joined the others reaching down from a darkened sky, then, as suddenly as they had come, the invaders departed.

The death of the World Tree marked the death of our world. Leylines cracked and faded, the spellplague raged unchecked, harvests rotted in the fields where they were planted, and plagues swept across the world. Mages, desperate to save what once was, drained the last vestiges of life from the earth itself - first its forests, then its beasts, and finally its people. They became pariahs, hunted and hated by the shattered remnants of once-great nations, now reduced to scavenging tribes.

What remains of our world is a husk. It's barren, a graveyard of dust and ruin, a wasteland where the bones of the World Tree fester. Go now, children - walk the corpse of our dead world and endure. Wander the wastes and carry with you memories of a world long forgotten.

The Stronghold of Security

Remember when we were young, playing Runescape 2 and venturing just west of Varrock into the Barbarian Village for the first time? For some of us, including myself, this wasn’t so long ago… As a child I never really put any stock into passwords and account protection, but then again, when I was a child the internet was a very different place.

For those of you that haven’t played Runescape, the Stronghold of Security is a multi-level dungeon that requires the player descend deeper until they reach the prize at the end, however, traversal requires that you, as the player, implement certain game security features and password protections. As a child I saw this as an irritating block between me and a free 10k gp and a colorful pair of boots, but as an adult I see the merits.

I bring all of this up, because, this morning I checked my Reddit, as I often do, to see what was new in the communities I followed. However, upon logging in I was met with something unusual: lots of messages and comments and a banner that stated my account was permanently banned. This was a shock, as I typically only lurked on subreddits, using them as methods of polling others for information rather than true interaction. I checked the “messages” and “comments” and discovered that I had been hacked, and not only hacked, but whomever took control over my account had entered some inappropriate communities and had posted some very inappropriate things.

Sitting there, staring at the carcass of my first Reddit account, I mourned as I deactivated it. This must be a facsimile of how NPCs feel when a PC casts an enchantment spell on them. A bit powerless, a bit sad, and very embarrassed for something they didn’t even do themselves.

Be better than me, make sure you use varied passwords for everything. Make sure you use 2-Factor Authentication when you can. And make sure you wear your Ring of Mind Shielding when you surf the web.

Thanks for reading,

Flamereptile

Web-Developer Blog #1

This marks the first of the Dime Novel Adventures Web Developer Blogs. We got a lot done on the site today! We finished the first version of the homepage, revised the site Footer, finished the first version of the Contact Us page, and… guess what? Started the Blog Page! We hope in the future to do away with the Web-Developer Blogs and post primarily short-stories, lore, and tales of our games.