Steal My Idea: Occam’s Razor and Arkham’s Razor (Part Three)

laser-sword-452474_1280 — *[Picture courtesy of pixabay.com]*

[Figure out what’s going on with part one]

The party now had Occam’s Razor and Awesome’s Razor. They were actively working against Solaris who they knew had access to Arkham’s Razor. While they did not know where Solaris was, the effects of Arkham’s Razor were becoming more and more disruptive to the world around them. Cities full of people were springing into existence. The laws of physics would sometimes change for a brief moment to ensure the party did not succeed at a specific task or so an adversary could gain an advantage. Worse, there were signs of reality beginning to tear from excessive use of the sword’s powers.

The party eventually tracked down Solaris. Unfortunately, none of them realized he laid a trap for them. Upon arrival, Solaris (dual-wielding both Arkham’s Razor and Unawesome’s Razor), some mind-controlled slaves, and a massive white dragon ambushed the party.

While I had a contingency plan if the players won the fight, Solaris’ trap and a bit of luck allowed him to best the players. He stole Occam’s Razor and Awesome’s Razor from them, tied them up, and carried them to his secret base.

Solaris’ plan was to use the power of all four razors to bend reality so that he could teleport back to his home dimension, at the possible cost of the dimension they were currently in. In most games I run, I inform everyone before they roll their characters that any spells, class abilities, artifacts, or anything else they could find that should allow them to teleport would not work. Only RP related plot items could ever hold such power, and they were rare.

With the power of all four razors, Solaris could use the power of the logical, illogical, awesome, and unawesome to counter any problems that would keep him from teleporting back to his home plane of existence. Had the player’s obtained all four razors, they would have had the ability to do pretty much anything they wanted.

Unfortunately for Solaris, the power of the swords backfired and his plan did not work. Unfortunately for everyone, his plan failed so hard it ripped a hole in reality.

A hole opened in the sky, and a roiling mass of utter darkness spilled forth. The mass stretched from the tear in the sky to the ground below. Two tendril-like arms stretched out from it, slashing at the world as it moved across the ground. In the sky and on the ground, its darkness engulfed the world in its wake, leaving a void where it once stood.

This manifestation of a paradox was the game’s final boss.

For the last game, the party’s goal was to defeat the spacetime paradox manifestation that was devouring the world. And since it disobeyed the laws of physics and their understanding of how objects should interact with the world around them, it was going to be an exceptionally difficult task.

Three players were at the final game:

– Bruce: The suave incubus I mentioned in part two

– Xan: A young gold dragon who knew kung fu

– He Who Consumes the Souls of Those who Dare to Trespass Against Him or His Brethren: A peace-minded mind flayer. He thought the name was a bit embarrassing, so he preferred to go by Soul Brother.

After Solaris’ plan failed and it was clearly his fault the paradox was tearing the world apart, Solaris requested forgiveness and swore to work with the party to defeat it if they would accept him.

For the four characters fighting the paradox, each one got a razor. In addition, I told them that due to the hole in reality, the razor’s reality bending powers had unlimited uses.

There was one additional fact I did not tell the players that they quickly learned. If they used a razor or its power to directly affect the paradox, it would heal the paradox’s HP, make it grow larger, increase its speed, and give it additional actions on its turn. This kept the players from saying “Wouldn’t it be awesome if this thing vanished?” and ending the fight. What they could do was use the razors to affect themselves and the world still untouched by the paradox.

I’ll list a few highlights of what they chose to do, but there were so many great ideas. They got insanely creative.

– A large helicopter carrying the band Motörhead appeared. The band was strapped to a portable stage blaring The Ace of Spades. They were level 20 bards that worked to buff the party.

– Soul Brother turned Solaris into a sentient mind flayer/motorcycle so they could move faster than the paradox and still gave Solaris all of his normal actions.

– Xan increased his age from a wyrmling to an old gold dragon (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/dragonTrue.htm), giving him all the racial effects of being a dragon of that age.

– Xan also wished that an army of grizzled, fairy soldiers would blossom out of the flowers that grew on his back (the flowers were the effects of a lingering curse, which is another long story), and shoot heavy artillery at the paradox.

Aside from damaging attacks, the paradox had a touch attack that could remove the part of the person it touched from existence. Over the course of the battle, this attack caused Solaris to lose a leg and Soul Brother to lose an arm and a face tentacle. Fortunately, the player using Awesome’s Razor used their action on their next turn to say “Wouldn’t it be awesome if their missing parts were replaced with robotic ones?”

It was an epic battle. After almost managing to kill a few players, they defeated the paradox. Solaris turned himself back into a full mind flayer again and no longer allowed himself any say over what happened to the razors.

The party thought that even if they tried to use the razors’ powers for good, it would end up hurting more people than it helped. So after fixing the holes in reality left behind from the paradox, the party decided that the razors were too dangerous to exist. They used the razors’ powers in tandem to remove them all from existence, ending the saga and saving the world from what could happen the next time someone used them.

After an eightish month campaign and the battle against the paradox, the players decided to accept Solaris’ request for forgiveness and let him go on his way. Humbled by his massive mistake, Solaris is now friendly toward the party and has the ability to offer unique aid.

If you’re looking for a plot with powerful items your players won’t expect, steal Occam’s and Arkham’s Razors.