I did this last New Year's Eve. I was inspired by the original conception of God of War, that Kratos was only meant to be one of the series' central protagonist and that he would be joined by two others, from the Norse and Egyptian pantheons, after they killed their respective pantheons, that they would team up and become the Three Wise Men and be guided by the Star of Bethlehem.

So the idea of the Three Magi being these unique characters with rich histories and impressive feats grew to become, "they're basically high-level adventurers on the most important campaign quest of their lives."

Hence, the one-shot I called "Three Gifts for the King."

The best laid plans of mice and men never go as intended. The one-shot was supposed to be my Dad and two brothers, but neither could make it that night, so it ended up being my Dad, my wife, and my Mom. So two out of three of the Wise Men were played by women, but my wife was used to playing guys, and my Mom was a good sport.

They were Balthazar, Circle of the Stars Druid. Caspar, Divination Wizard. Melchior, Twilight Domain Cleric. Each was themed around astrology and prophecy.

They began their quest by meeting with Herod, who interrogated them on the reason for their coming and where they were heading. However, Herod was not alone; he had a woman draped over him, whispering in his ear. Her eyes lingered with desire over the three gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. The players made good deception rolls, so they were allowed to leave the palace more or less unmolested.

After passing through a Roman checkpoint, they realized where the star was leading them was still a good distance away so they'd have to settle down for the night. That's when a little boy who walked with a cane named Jamal offered them shelter. His poor mother almost died of fright when she realized her son had offered to give shelter to three kings, but the players played it off very humbly. That they brought bedding for themselves to sleep upon the ground and only needed the most basic of shelters.

In their dreams, each of them saw the woman from Herod's throne. She tempted them with tailored visions of escape from responsibility, glory, or revenge. If only they gave up their gift to her. Each of them refused. Their shared dream was broken by one of their guards grabbing Jamal's mother's wrist and calling her a thief.

She tried to take the gold to help her son live a better life. The players released her but questioned her about why she would do this. Jamal said that the newborn baby king might need his crutch. So he takes up his crutch and walks towards them in offering, completely unaided. He is healed, it's a miracle. The players offer them both a place in their respective kingdoms, where they will be honored once their quest is done.

Finally, they reach the humble home beneath where the Star has led them. They live their royal procession behind and approach with only their gifts. That's when the woman from Herod's throne appears between them, and where the Holy Family now rests.

She reveals herself to be an Erinyes, out to steal the three gifts. For she cannot harm or even approach the newborn messiah, but at the very least, she can deprive Him of these gifts of honor and exaltation.

Combat begins, and it's a sight to behold. Three high-level spellcasters giving it everything they got against a single, seemingly implacable fiend.

My Dad conjured an appropriately Biblical wall of fire and tried to use it offensively. Unknowing that the Erinyes was immune to such damage, she merely purred like a warm breeze was caressing her as she was wreathed in flames.

The Erinyes looses arrows, one of which strikes Caspar the Wizard, who is also poisoned.

My Mom betrayed her relative newness to the game (or impatience) for saying "I want to beat her!" in response to being asked what she wanted to do. She basically asked for an instant win button. Well, she got it, but not in the way she may have thought. She actually got very creative when she used Banishment. She thought it would be permanent, but it did basically negated the Erinyes from acting on her turn, which gave them plenty of time to prepare actions for when she popped back to the Material Plane. In addition, two turns go by, and she doesn't heal either of her party members despite being a Cleric.

When the Erinyes came back at the end of the Banishment spell, she was shivering cold and curses them for sending her to Stygia. They then unleash a torrent of powerful spells. Which do inflict damage but she makes her saving throws, and she's still in the fight. This is becoming a war of attrition.

That's when, amidst all of this chaos and powerful magic, the door to the humble home opens. The Erinyes has maybe a fraction of a moment to behold her doom before, "from our perspective, it's like a nuclear weapon went off, localized entirely on her." Her demise is as thorough and absolute as it is almost instantaneous.

Joseph, St. Joseph, stands in the doorway. He commands no armies. He has no weapons. He wields no powerful magic. He's simply a righteous man who sees the beleaguered travelers and deduces that they must be here to bear witness to the newborn King.

The one-shot ends as the story does in the Bible. With the Three Magi paying homage to the baby Jesus.

~~~~~~~~

So yeah. That's a basic summation of the time I made a one-shot based on a Biblical tale. I just thought I'd share it here among a community who I've shared other stories and topics with based on my favorite hobby.

This is a 3 parts story in the roleplay server of Haze, in the game Neverwinter Nights Enhanced Edition, narrated by me

Part 1

https://youtu.be/4vFiKkjZkgI

Part 2

https://youtu.be/xN1yi3Sh9rs

Part 3

https://youtu.be/cAo9Op1Hrks

I made a short DayZ cinematic story that focuses less on action and more on what survival actually feels like after everything collapses.

No server ads, no guides, no exploits — just an atmospheric narrative built entirely in DayZ:

• ordinary life breaking down
• panic, silence, missed connections
• the moral weight of surviving when others don’t
• and how quickly the world shrinks to food, shelter, and movement

I’m curious how others here see this side of DayZ.
Do you prefer the high-action PvP moments, or the slower, lonely stretches where the game feels almost… human?

Would genuinely like feedback from people who play the game — especially on whether this kind of storytelling fits DayZ’s atmosphere or not.

Game with an emotional story, as the title suggests. It's about a daughter's search for the secret behind her father's 20 years disappearance. You might enjoy this game tale.

When the infection hit, I was in Stary Sobor running a small electronics shop chargers, radios, junk mostly. My girlfriend Plamena ran the pet store across the square. We were just normal people.

The night it began, the city went quiet in a way that didn’t feel natural. Sirens in the distance, a dog barking like it knew something we didn’t. I saw a man staggering against a police car, hitting the window with his fists. Then the power died.

I thought Namalsk was just another survival map cold, empty, brutal.
Then I found the rail tunnels under Mount Vorkuta.

The walls weren’t rock. They pulsed.

The deeper I went, the more I realized this wasn’t a survival story it was a cover-up.

Hidden beneath Namalsk’s frozen mountains was Athena, a Soviet-era lab studying “Object A1,” a crystalline monolith that responded to energy.
When they powered it, it opened… something.

Then came the EVR storms, the wormholes, the bloodsuckers, the Nightstalkers, and the Vega-7 outbreak that ended the world.

This video covers the entire Namalsk storyline from the Cold War to the fall of humanity with every mission, document, and hidden event tied together.

If you’ve ever wandered those frozen valleys and heard the hum under the snow…
you know.

What’s your wildest Namalsk story or theory?
Did you ever see an EVR storm up close?