Kevin Dahm

Kevin Dahm is Katie Schiffler's cousin who joined us part of the way into Under the Bus and played a paladin called Kamal.

Campaign Anecdotes

The Fastest Game of Battle Chess

Kevin had never played Battle Chess before.

When the party finally located Thorn Runehammer at the End of the World, Thorn agreed to answer their questions if they could defeat his champion at Battle Chess. He selected Bo Duke as his champion.

Kevin and Jones thought that, to make the game fair, some members of the party should be placed on Bo's side. Noel and Nate opposed the idea, with Noel thinking it might be the stupidest idea he'd ever heard.

Kevin ended up playing Kamal as Bo's queen.

Despite having never played Battle Chess before, Kevin immediately adopted an extremely aggressive strategy. He deliberately moved his queen where an enemy pawn could capture it because he figured that if Kamal defeated the pawn during the capture attempt, he would then be in position to attack the enemy king.

It worked.

The entire game ended in only a handful of moves, and Thorn declared it the fastest game of Battle Chess he'd ever seen.

Noel, who had been adamantly opposed to putting Kevin on Bo's team, was pissed off.

Insane Paladin Seeks Atonement

During the party's disastrous battle with the lich, Kamal was struck by the indigo effect of a Prismatic Spray and driven insane. At the same time, his paladin mount was struck by the spell's purple effect and sent to another plane.

The party was forced to restrain Kamal because his magically induced insanity left him intent on killing his companions.

After defeating the lich, the party discovered a Limited Wish scroll among its possessions. They sacrificed the extremely valuable scroll to restore Kamal's sanity.

Despite knowing that his actions had been caused entirely by magical compulsion, Kamal was disturbed by the fact that he had intended to kill his companions. Kevin insisted that Kamal seek Atonement anyway.

Because Kamal's transgression had been involuntary, the clerics were able to perform the lesser form of the Atonement and restore his peace of mind.

Killing the Mother Dragon

When the party confronted the mother of the two red dragon hatchlings they had killed, the resulting battle was brutal.

Near the end of the fight, the dragon unleashed another blast of fire. Demetrius failed his save and was killed, while Tim was knocked unconscious. Dew managed to bring Tim back into the fight, and an angry Tim responded with a Cone of Cold that left the dragon badly wounded.

The dragon had reached the point where she was considering trying to parlay with the party.

She never got the chance.

Kevin took a big swing, scored a critical hit, and killed her.

Battle Chess as Demetrius Management

After Orinder raised Demetrius from the dead, Demetrius returned convinced that Demmazon had personally told him that a Messiah was coming.

As the party traveled west, Demetrius became increasingly obsessed with the prophecy. He spent his time studying the Pythia writings and relentlessly preaching about the coming Messiah.

Nate tried talking to him and convincing him that behaving like a fanatical prophet was not helping.

That didn't work.

Kevin tried a different approach.

Having apparently decided that his unexpected talent for Battle Chess might have other practical applications, Kevin tried keeping Demetrius distracted by playing Battle Chess with him.

That didn't work either.

Demetrius kept preaching.