A Summary of Menagerie of Misift's Story

While I do plan my stories ahead and plan all kinds of details, big and small, for them, I usually do so in my head. Hardly even I put these down on paper.

Because the planned 1st arc of Menarie of Misfits is a bit long, I thought of writing this brief summary of the story of the first arc, with 6 chapters (between 20 or 30 pages per chapter would make this whole arc around 150 pages, give or take) planned to begin with.

Be mindful that this is a HUGE SPOILER for the rest of the story, even though some details might change, the overall gist of it all should remain the same. So if you don't want to be spoiled for the story, feel free to dismiss this whole post. Otherwise, have fun and let me know what are your thoughts.

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Gundhr is the name of the world where the story takes place, which is a world I have developed through running several D&D games for people, over time, I deppened the lore of the world, developed some factions and plenty of characters, some of whom where unique enough to make an impact and become recurring characters in the games. Some, however, became a bit more than that, like is the case with Ragamuffin.

The main group is called a “menagerie of misfits” because all of the characters have a problem of a higher scale that turns them unfit to live in society, or at least, to lead a normal life. Ideally, the story will see the characters coming to term with these problems, and finding a hidden strength in embracing them.

The first arc of the story focus on the characters meeting one another and finding a bearing on what they ought to do as a group. Originally I thought about it having 5 chapters, each one introducing a different character, and a last one to send them off in their mission, but maybe the mission ends up being a bit longer, so the idea would be to expand the whole arc into 6 chapters. Each chapter that introduces a character in the party would start with a little 3-page flashback showing off a bit more of this character and how different they are from their current time version.

CHAPTER 1: We have a flashback introducing Ragamuffin as a scribe on the run after stealing a book. A year later, in the city of Redemption, he’s back into stealing spellbooks, but now he’s more confident on his abilities. After escaping, he’s found by the commander of “the Hunters Guild”, Anthony,  who says he has to pay for his crimes.

Rags is sent with a caravan, tasked to escort it into The Crossing, the next city over. Therein he meets Elyon, a half-elf who seems to have a curse. Coincidentally, he’s looking for an arcanist at The Crossing by the name of Adnis, who Rags is also after, and after talking for a bit about their outcomes for life, the caravan gets attack by flaming skeletons.

The caravan guards are killed, Rags is about to be struck by a skeleton when he is saved by Garreus, who shields him and rallies him back into fighting. Rags taps into some dark, abyssal power within him and raises one undead ally of his own to fight the skeletons. Garreus invokes the power of Igglebeth (a deity of death and shadows, seen as evil by virtually everyone) to smite the skeletons. Some surviving guards witness this and use the chance to run away.

CHAPTER 2: We have a flashback of a young Garreus, a tiefling (half demon person) with a very bestial look who is disparaged by his fellows for his appearance, he becomes the squire of a hedge knight and learns the doctrine of Igglebeth under him, but confesses he doesn’t wants to perform violence. We return to the battle against the flaming skeletons with Garreus very violently dispatching them. After the remainder skeletons are dealth with, they regroup.

The only ones who are still standing are Rags, Garreus, Elyon, and the undead that Rags has risen, but instead of looking skeletal, he looks like just a regular Dwarf with a missing eye and amnesia. The group decide to name him Therev (short for The Revenant), he seems smart, sentient and able to make decisions for his own, albeit being very disorientated by everything. The group then decides to finish making their way towards The Crossing to get paid for the service and seek Adnis.

They find that the Caravan leader is gone, but Adnis is around and willing to help them. She is very curt with the group and very matter-of-fact, she helps Rags with his search for missing friends and Elyon with his curse, but to a very small degree and suggest they seek a healer in a city to the far south, she also suggests Garreus follows because the healer is also a follower of Igglebeth.

At the party’s request, Adnis tries to dive into Therev’s memories with magic to learn about his past and what exactly is keeping him alive. She starts to uncover baffling things, like the fact that Therev had been buried in a site by the side of the road for a little over 1000 years.

CHAPTER 3: We see a Flashback of Therev’s days back when he was alive. He is part of a noble family with a long tradition of honor. He has been chosen against his will to become a Grave Warden and a defender of the family’s secrets. His body is coated with paint that turns him somewhat immune to the effects of necromancy and to a degree, death itself. Then, one day, the site is attacked and Therev is killed in battle by a group of attacking dragons.

After learning this, Therev refuses his family ways and his real name, deciding to start a new life for himself like he always wanted, but he’ll need to be done with his “undeath” and truly return to life. Like all the others, Adnis recommends he goes with the group to the healer who seeks the teachings of the deity of Death. The party then decides to depart back to the city of Redemption to pay for a ship to carry them to this southern city.

Some of the surviving guards, however, recognize the party and decide to ambush them, blaming them, their dark magic and worshippery on the skeletons attacking the caravan and killing some of their friends. As the group was in town, none of them were armed. They’re surrendered and the guards moves to kill them. That’s when Elyon, seeing no other recourse, turns into a werewolf to defend himself, giving the party a fighting chance.

CHAPTER 4: This last flashback shows Elyon’s past, trying to learn how to control his inner beast by training with his mother, a druid. But then when she’s gone, he loses control and accidentally kills his father. His secluded village decides then to kick him out and he then starts travelling around seeking both a cure for his curse and his mother for answers.

Back to the present, Garreus and Therev take the opportunity to fight off the caravan guards alongside Werewolf Elyon. After the fight is over, everyone is surprised to see that Elyon is completely in control of his faculties, and apologizes for the savagery. The group then quickly returns to the tavern to get their things and make an emergency getaway back towards the city of Redemption.

In Redemption, they find Anthony talking to Budropturhu, the owner of a tower in the mage’s district, the party demands payment for the job, since the caravan leader didn’t pay them, but find out it’s not nearly enough to get them to the southern city. Budropturhu decides to intervene and offer the party a job for the money. Anthony warns the party to not make deals with Budropturhu, since he’s a devil. The party dismisses and warning and follows through with it.

“Buddy” tells the party he needs them to kill another devil, who resides in the hells, he promises safe passage to and back from the hells. The party then decides Anthony was right and that they shouldn’t take job offers from him. So they try to look around town for other ways to earn money.

They learn, however, that scouts have already let the whole city know about their involvement in the caravan attack and a mauling of some survivors back up in The Crossing. And while there are no proofs, people refuse to make deals with them. So they begrudgingly return to Buddy and accept his job after all.

CHAPTER 5: Buddy opens a portal inside his tower for the group to make their way to the hells, along with guidance on how to find the other devil and how to return home once the job is complete.

The group goes and start to investigate an infernal city, trying to be discreet and not engage other devils in anything. Eventually they learn of a tavern where devils hang out at and where they can stalk out their prey. They learn the devil is a lietutenant of Baphomet. While trying to make plans, Garreus announces they are instead going to capture him and bring him back for interrogation. When the party disagrees with his reckless plan, he announces that he plans to kill every single follower of Baphomet, since his father is among them, and he wants revenge for what he did to his mother.

The party is surprised, and Garreus uses this moment of surprise to rush the devil. However, before he can do anything, a bard in the tavern uses magic to put Garreus to sleep. The devil then captures Garreus and takes him away. As the party is panicking about what to do next, the bard approaches them in secret, a human woman, who says she’ll help the party rescue Garreus if they help her get her freedom.

CHAPTER 6: There is a flashback of the bard woman’s past (yet unnamed), she learned the magic of music from an early age and learned how to talk to devils through these songs. Eventually an inquisition found out about it, and killed her whole family to stamp out the evil in their bloodline, when they were about to kill her too, one of the demons offered her a deal, to save her life and give her the power to defend herself in exchange for her soul.

In the present, she reveals to the party she’s given up living in society since the inquisition would likely try to kill her if they ever learned about her whereabouts and has been living in hell ever since, but she wants to be free from her soulbound contract, and asks the group for help. The devil that she has a contract with is the same the group has to kill. They agree to help each other out.

Together, all four raid the devil’s office, rescuing Garreus and killing the devil once and for all. The bard doesn’t ever raises a finger to attack the devil, due to the terms of her contract, but once freed from it, she urges the party to escape. They all regroup and rush back to the portal with whatever proof of the devil’s death they can produce and make it back to Buddy’s tower.

After which point, Garreus says he wants to make a deal with Buddy, requesting his help to kill off Baphomet itself, who is his father.

(At this point, it is uncertain if the bard woman will join the party as a permanent member or not. Highly depends on what the readers thinks of her as a character overall)

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We will see that Rags has some sort of problem that allows Abyssal magic to course through him. Garreus is a direct descendant of a powerful devil, and worships a deity that is almost universally hated in this world. Therev is an undead who died a millennia ago and is not up to speed with the current world. Elyon is a lycanthrope, exiled from his village due to his curse. And the bard woman is a known devil cohorter, hunted down by the inquisiton. All these characters have a deep problem that doesn't allows them to exist in society and live a normal life, but they can band together and form a Menagerie of Misfits.

The Second arc of the story would see the party facing new problems as they go towards the Healer, where their notoriety as a group would start to affect them negatively, but they also become more involved on the overall politics of all these groups that they’re involved with. This would focus a bit more on their backstories as well.

While the first is what would be considered in game terms an adventure of levels 1 through 4, the second arc would be an adventure of levels 5 through 6 (or 7).

As always, thoughts, feedback and critique is HIGHLY appreciated, and in fact, needed! So let me know what you think after reading through this all.

Lastly, hope you all have had great holidays and a happy new years! Keep on being awesome and cheers, everyone! x)