So, I've been with this particular DnD group for several years now, since 2019 if I'm remembering right, and we're currently going through a heavily modified version of the Call of the Netherdeep campaign setting. One of biggest changes so far is the inclusion of an entirely homebrewed prologue chapter that gave explanation as to how our party came together and ended up in the city of Jigow, where the book starts proper. Character creation was also entirely different than how it would normally go. Instead of coming in with a pre-established character or build in mind, the DM took us through a narration of each of us waking up in a black void, and rolling each individual stat only when prompted, and in a very specific order. From there, we'd pick our race and class based off those finalized stat arrays, and the set list of approved races, all done completely independent of each other with the only communication being done between us, the DM, and the Co-DM. This meant that the Co-DM was the only player with any idea how the party comp would look until we each revealed our characters. This resulted in our party of the Co-DM's High Elf Chronurgy Wizard, a Drow Blood Mage Wizard, a Wood Elf Way of Mercy Monk, a Half-Orc Echo Knight Fighter, a Yuan-ti Archfey Bladelock, and my Leonin Oath of the Ancients Paladin, exiting a structure known as the Betrayer's Rise in the city of Bazzoxan, with no names, backstory, and one single unified memory of a battle from an unknown time as our only connecting thread.

Over the course of the prologue chapter, our party ingratiated ourselves with soldiers overseeing the city, got into trouble as DnD parties tend to do, and were eventually told that it would be best if we relocated to Jigow for now, with the occasional moment both in Bazzoxan, and on the road with the caravan escorting us to Jigow, where something would trigger a memory for one of us, allowing us to slowly start piecing together who we were and what happened to us. One such moment happened just this last session at the time of posting this.

One night, a few sessions earlier, on the last leg of the travel, my character and Yuan-ti are asked to help keep watch over the camp, and notice something unusual scuttling around in the night. Closer inspection revealed a little armored critter (later revealed to be a pangolin) trying to get the attention of the pet Moorbounder of one the NPCs, to no luck. Being Oath of the Ancients, I automatically know Speak With Animals, so I cast it, and start to converse with the little guy. Turns out he was a very polite individual, who was just looking for directions to Bazzoxan, since he wanted to help them out, and when I asked his name he says he used to be called "Little Gummy", but "Old Gummy" would be more fitting nowadays, while looking very wistfully at my character. After a bit more conversation, I gave the directions he needed, and he departed with a Sonic Spindash.

Cut to last week, and a few in game days later, when we get a call on the sending stone we got from one of our allies in Bazzoxan, saying someone arrived recently after I gave them directions, and that "Agumbaji" has been a big help. This immediately triggers a memory for me of my character when he was just a cub, and his mother figure, a firbolg woman, was holding her newborn baby in her arms, saying he'll be my brother, and naming him Agumbaji, but only after I made the remake of him not having teeth, and calling him "Little Gummy".

This hit both me and my character like a ton of bricks, as he was pretty well convinced at this point that it had been so long that anyone the party may have known before getting trapped in the Rise was long since passed away. He had already had a memory of someone dear to him falling in battle, and High Elf had just remembered being child DURING THE FALL OF AVELIR at the start of the Calamity. This single handedly reignited his hope that the world they left behind and time they lost still had ties the party could find and reach out to, as if he still has family alive and thriving, the others might as well.

I hope it's clear from this that I have been loving this game so far. Every session is full of excitement and intrigue, as we continue to piece together the puzzle that is our party. Our DMs have been doing an amazing job every week, and it's easily a highlight for all of us, especially now, 20 sessions in, as we only just now enter the city of Jigow, and the true start of Call of the Netherdeep begins in earnest.